Season 4 of Bridgerton finally places Benedict Bridgerton at the center. After three seasons of watching him drift between art and emotional escape, the fourth chapter slows down to ask what commitment looks like for the Bridgerton family’s most elusive son.
Part 1 of the new season, which is now streaming on Netflix, frames Benedict’s arc in a Cinderella-style romance, pairing Luke Thompson with Yerin Ha as Sophie Beckett. The outline is familiar with masked encounters, class barriers and longing glances. What keeps it engaging is restraint. The season resists rushing its lead into transformation and instead lets hesitation, missteps and second thoughts sit in full view.
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A romance shaped by hesitation, not destiny
Benedict has long been written as the sibling least interested in definition. Season 4 leans into that history rather than brushing it aside. His reluctance to choose a conventional path is not framed as charming rebellion but as avoidance that costs him clarity. That choice gives the romance weight. When he reaches for Sophie, it feels deliberate, not inevitable.
Thompson and Ha share an ease that carries many of the quieter scenes. Their chemistry works best in pauses rather than declarations, in glances held a moment too long. Sophie, in particular, is given firmer ground than earlier iterations of the character, with her agency clearer and her endurance less romanticised.
Netflix’s decision to split the season into two parts interrupts the momentum just as the relationship settles into focus. The pause lands less as a cliffhanger and more as a breath held mid-sentence.
Familiar pleasures, steadier footing
Visually, the season stays close to the series’ established palette with candlelit ballrooms, gardens washed in pastel, crowded drawing rooms thick with gossip. What stands out are the spaces that step away from polish. Benedict’s family home, rougher and cluttered, reflects his unsettled interior more effectively than dialogue alone.
Around the central romance, the cast continues to unfold in smaller arcs. Eloise tests the edges of her spinsterhood, Francesca’s marriage reveals its limits, and Penelope and Colin adjust to life after Lady Whistledown. A parallel thread between Queen Charlotte and Lady Danbury adds emotional depth, shaped by shared history rather than spectacle.
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Season 4 draws from Julia Quinn’s An Offer From a Gentleman but smooths its sharper edges. Power dynamics are softened, Sophie’s resilience is foregrounded, and Benedict is written with greater emotional awareness than his literary counterpart. The result holds the fantasy without discomfort.
Part 1 offers four episodes that are measured, warm and attentive towards its character. It may not reinvent Bridgerton, but it understands why the series works and why patience, in this case, pays off.
Part 2 of the series arrives on February 26.
