Bridgerton season 4 spoilers ahead.
Is the Bridgerton stairwell scene the new Heated Rivalry cottage? It certainly seems that way, and rightfully so, given the heat Benedict (Luke Thompson) and Sophie (Yerin Ha) brought to our screens in the Bridgerton season 4, part 1, finale.
Forget the fact that our boy Benedict doesn’t realize Sophie is the masked woman he’s been pining after; by the end of episode 4, the masked woman is an afterthought. All he cares about is being with Sophie Baek, the maid who works for his mother. As the two have a somewhat forbidden (or frowned upon) hookup in the stairwell of Bridgerton House on Sophie’s night off, he says, “I stay away from you because you consume me. But the reality of you is better than any fantasy.”
It’s all Sophie has yearned to hear—and feel. (I mean, does it get any better than Olivia Rodrigo’s “Bad Idea Right?” playing as he seduces her?) However, she stops dead in her tracks when Benedict asks her to be his mistress. She runs down the stairs and out of the house, leaving Benedict dumbfounded, and Sophie completely heartbroken.
As all of this is unfolding, John’s cousin, Michaela, arrives back in town, which sends Francesca spiraling. But that’s not all: Lady Araminta Gun and her two daughters, Rosamund and Posy Li, have moved next door to Bridgerton House, which will no doubt cause even more agony for Sophie.
Has there ever been this much action in four episodes of Bridgerton? In what is amounting to the best season yet, showrunner and executive producer Jess Brownell joined us on Zoom to talk about what’s next for everyone in the ton, any clues about season 5’s lead, and what wasn’t scripted in that Bridgerton stairwell scene.
Glamour: You’ve said this was the most easily adaptable book to screen, so was there anything that didn’t make it in?
Jess Brownell: I think the majority of the major set pieces from An Offer From a Gentleman make their way into this season. Those who are familiar with the book will know that Benedict asking Sophie to be his mistress starts a lot earlier and gets repeated multiple times. And we felt for our sake that it was important to have him just ask once and make a big moment of it rather than have him continuing to badger her about it. That’s because our version of Benedict is…Luke Thompson brings a lot of sensitivity to the role, and it felt like he would be a little more in tune with the idea that his ask would be difficult for Sophie.
I was so pissed off at Benedict when he asked her after they hooked up in the stairwell. I was like, “You asshole.”
I know. Right reaction, honestly. It gives him somewhere to go and something to have to come back from to earn her in the back half.
Before we dive into that stairwell scene, I want to talk about something else that I heard wasn’t in the book but is in the show this season, and that’s Lady Danbury wanting to break out on her own. It’s such an interesting storyline, but I hope she doesn’t leave!
First of all, I want to clarify that Adjoa [Andoh, who plays Lady Danbury] is absolutely still going to be around for the show. We’re not taking the character off the show, but it did feel as if this is a season in so many ways about friendships and relationships that have power dynamics at play.
And I think it was interesting for us to examine what happens with the friend who has less power in a dynamic like that, and wants something for themselves. So I’m excited for fans to see what’s going to happen with that. But yeah, Lady Danbury will, she will be back in season 5, not to worry.
Okay, great. Meanwhile, I love that Michaela returns at the end of episode 4, which throws Francesca for such a loop. How will Michaela’s presence affect John and Francesca in part 2?
Fran and John were navigating some tricky stuff in part 1, but I feel like they got to a really, really good place near the end of episode 4 right before Michaela shows up. And Michaela in a lot of ways is chaos. She’s really fun chaos. So she’s going to absolutely upend the routine and the ease that John and Fran have just found, but maybe not in the way that people might expect.
And even though we’ve gender swapped the Michaela and Michael character, I think we are finding ways to honor the spirit of the book as much as possible. This season, for the most part, is really focused on John and Fran’s relationship, more than it is about Michaela.
In part 2, will fans get a better idea of who the next lead might be?
I think that there are some clues, but my guess is that it is not as black-and-white as last season. Personally, I thought it was really obvious that we were doing Benedict when he was like, “See you at the masquerade ball.” But then I saw that people were still debating whether it was going to be his season or not. So I’m like, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I think it’s less clear than that, probably.
I want to ask you about the scene where Sophie accidentally spills tea on Benedict’s hand. The tension was so real that for a moment there, I was like, Does he realize who Sophie is? Or am I misinterpreting that?
My interpretation of that scene is that it’s not that he is starting to realize that Sophie is the lady in silver, but he’s starting to realize that he doesn’t care who the lady in silver is because actually he wants Sophie. And he has this lovely Ms. Hollis sitting in front of him who he maybe thinks for a moment could be the lady in silver, but he realizes it doesn’t matter because his affection for Sophie is so real and deep.
Let’s talk about the stairwell scene and everything involved in that. The actors were asked a lot in terms of intimacy and vulnerability, but I thought it was so beautifully done. What was it like bringing that scene to life?
So the stairwell scene was the very first image for me in my head for the season. Before we even met as a writers room, I had this image in my mind of the two of them meeting in a stairwell that’s like the liminal space between their two worlds and having this moment. And then Benedict looking down through the stairwell and Sophie looking up. We had to design a special staircase just for this moment to be achieved. Alison Gartshore, our production designer, did an amazing job because it couldn’t be a straight-up-and-down stairwell. It had to kind of spiral around or square around so that we could have this single look. That’s one of those moments as a writer where you’re like, “TV’s crazy.” You have an idea for something, and now they’re building an entire stairwell to make it happen.
I was just so grateful and pleased to see the way it came out and the way Jaffar Mahmood, our director, executed it. I think it has this real sense of fairy tale, a sense of intensity that obviously Benedict absolutely ruins with his mistress ask.
After Bridgerton, The Summer I Turned Pretty, and Heated Rivalry, I’ll never look at stairwells the same.
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But when he puts his fingers in his mouth, I was like, “Oh my God, this is just...the fans are going to go wild for this.” I mean, I was going wild for it.
So, that wasn’t scripted. It was my idea, because I love the moment last season where Luke Thompson’s Colin, after he has been as intimate with Penelope in the carriage, removes his hands from between her legs, and he does this thing where he only uses the dry fingers, we’ll say, to fix her dress. That was all Luke Newton. That wasn’t scripted.
But the way that people responded to that, I was like, “What is that moment this season? What is the moment, like a physical moment, that people go, ‘That's so realistic to things that happen in intimate moments’?” And I’ve not often seen someone licking their fingers before they touch someone on screen, but I think it’s a very real thing that happened; especially if someone knows what they’re doing. And I think Benedict is someone who knows what he’s doing. So I asked Luke in rehearsal if he would be cool with it and he was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” And I’m proud of that moment. I’m really curious to see people’s reaction to this.
I’m so glad you did, and that we’re talking about it. You want to make the moment as sensual and romantic as possible, but also realistic.
Yeah. I mean, I want to be careful about suggesting that Bridgerton should teach anyone about sex, because there are a lot of things about pulling out in the first season [where] I’m like, Do not take lessons from the show. But that being said, there are certain moments in our intimacy scenes that I think hopefully set a good example to balance out other depictions of sex elsewhere.
The fact that Penn and Colin had such sweet, intimate sex last season that was full of laughter, I was really proud to get to depict that. And I’m like, If any person who’s watching our show is like, Oh, a little extra moisture is a good idea, I’m like, ‘Good for you. That’s a good thing we can teach the world.
I thought the scenes with Violet were so great for people to see too. One, her acceptance with her body and then how she’s trying to pose before Marcus comes in. And then just focusing on a woman’s sexual needs and insecurities when they’re finding love after loss, as well as someone who is over 50…it was just great.
Yeah, this season we talk a lot about fantasy versus reality thematically. And the sex on this show is often a fantasy. But even Francesca’s struggles with orgasm, I’ve been trying to find ways in the show to also bring a little bit of the reality of sex in and to allow people to hopefully feel seen by the different representations of sex.
Absolutely. So where do we pick up in the second half, especially after Sophie has run out of the house and has gone from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows?
It’s not a direct pickup, but we are back in that night when we first opened the back half and we’re getting to see in real time the way Sophie is processing what Benedict asked. And we also get to see in real time Benedict process Sophie’s reaction to his ask. It’s an interesting one because I think our version of Benedict, as I said, is a little bit more sensitive, and I think he realizes pretty quickly that he fucked up. But how is he going to navigate that? That is the question.
And what can we expect from the Penwood family moving in next door to Bridgerton House?
Well, it really raises the stakes for Sophie. She doesn’t know that they’re there, but we as an audience obviously have this sense that Araminta is potentially closing in on Sophie. And when we pick up in the back half, we’re going to realize that Araminta is sharpening the ax that she has to grind with Sophie and is really out to get her. That plays in opposite ways on her daughters, Rosamund, who is aligned with whatever her mother wants, and Posy who has a real sympathetic connection to them.
Tell me about the music choices this season. Any Easter eggs there?
We have to talk about “Enchanted,” which obviously fans have been asking for. They’ve associated it with this season for a long time. It is a great Cinderella nod to the Cinderella story, but we felt like we didn’t want to use it in the most literal way. We wanted to find a moment where it could really underscore Sophie’s feelings.
And I think picking it for the moment when Sophie’s peering in at Benedict visiting Penwood House and then doing that sort of record scratch when she decides to walk away. That came from an editor, and I just thought was a brilliant way to use the song. It was so poignant and heartbreaking.
And I really loved “Bad Idea Right?” I think that that was a really fun one. It’s such a balance because you want to use songs that tap into the zeitgeist and are evocative for people, but aren’t going to instantly take them out of the scene. We also talked a lot about wanting to throw back a little bit more. To me, Usher doesn’t feel like that big of a throwback, but I guess “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” is maybe a 20-year-old song at this point. That’s one of my favorite songs for Sophie and Ben’s meet-cute at the masquerade ball. And then I don’t know whose idea it was, but I think one of the funniest needle drops ever on this show is right after Lady Danbury has just asked the queen, “Can I please go to Sierra Leone?” and the queen says, “No,” and then, “I’ll Never Let You Go” comes in. And it just made me laugh so much. I’ll be curious to see if people pick up on it, but I thought it was really, really clever.
What can you preview for Eloise in part 2?
I think Eloise is getting cornered in a way. All of her friends and her siblings are falling in love. And I think in some ways she feels like she’s running out of options in terms of people she can become a spinster with. And then right in front of her is Hyacinth, who is like, “Do you want to build a snowman?” And Eloise is like, “What? What snowman?” So I think this season is in many ways about Eloise seeing the realities that are in front of her.
Will we be getting more moments between her and Penelope?
Yes, her friendship does continue to play out in the back half. Penelope has a big arc in the back half, though. I think you might’ve gotten a little hint at the end of episode 4 that this new life as a public Whistledown is weighing on Penelope just a little bit, and that’s an arc that we’re going to continue exploring in the back half.
Bridgerton season 4, part 2, will premiere on Netflix on February 26. For more intel on the next four episodes, including when Kate and Anthony will finally return, click here.
