Note: This story contains spoilers from “Bridgerton” Season 4 Part 1.
After the “Bridgerton” Season 4 premiere set up an idyllic “Cinderella” story for Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) and new arrival Sophie (Yerin Ha), Part 1 followed the cat-and-mouse game between the pair as they made their best attempt to squander their attraction, which is ultimately unsuccessful.
Hungry with desire for one another, Episode 4 sees the pair quite literally meet in the middle for a steamy scene in the Bridgerton house stairwell, which showrunner Jess Brownell recalls was the first image she imagined when conceiving the new season.
“I just really felt like having our two characters meet in the space between their two worlds, bridging the upstairs and the downstairs, was going to be really potent,” Brownell told TheWrap, applauding production designer Alison Gartshore for building the staircase and director Jaffar Mahmood for choreographing the scene, which is set to the instrumental cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Bad Idea Right?”
“I love the music in that scene. I love the way that Yerin and Luke portrayed it, and hopefully the big ask from Benedict at the end of the scene will be a big record scratch for people,” Brownell said.
The ask Brownell is referring to happens abruptly during the scene, when Benedict whispers to Sophie, “Be my mistress,” which prompts her to immediately withdraw and walk away. The prospect of becoming a mistress — which could put a potential child in the same circumstances that Sophie is grappling with — is “immensely hurtful” to her, per Brownell, who puts Sophie’s feelings plainly: “She’s pissed.”
“She’s wise to the world — I think she understands that it’s common for men of the upper class to take mistresses if they’re lower class, like she is, but I think she probably wanted to believe that she and Benedict had something special,” Brownell said. “It’s a moment where she realizes he does, in fact, see her as a downstairs maid, in part, which I think is immensely hurtful for her.”
With Season 4, Part 1 leaving off on a cliffhanger with Sophie walking away from Benedict without a word, Brownell noted the back half of the season sees a version of Benedict who is wise to the fact that he screwed up and is working to earn Sophie back. “It’s one of Benedict’s big challenges to really commit to something, and this is a situation that will force him to finally take a hard look at himself and see if he’s capable of doing that,” Brownell said.
Benedict and Sophie’s big moment is just one of the storylines pushed forward in Part 1, with several members of the “Bridgerton” family — including Violet — seeing progressions into their love stories, or perhaps more so, their sexuality. Brownell breaks it all down below. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: Each season has included some changes from Julia Quinn’s books. Were there any changes off the bat you knew you wanted to adapt, or any scenes you wanted to preserve?
Brownell: A ton. I feel like the My Cottage set piece is just so rich and wonderful and we have made some changes to it, but we knew right away that you’ve got to have the Crabtrees, you’ve got to have a whole episode dedicated to My Cottage, the lake scene, we have altered it so that the mistress ask doesn’t happen there — we just wanted to stretch that out a little bit more. But it was important for us to play many of the beats really word for word, in terms of Sophie watching Benedict walk out and him realizing that she’s there.
Sophie is full of joy when she first enters the ball. What was it like crafting that moment?
It was super important that the very first moment that Benedict sees Sophie is a moment, because Benedict has met a million young ladies, so it needed to really shock him out of his jadedness. It was a tricky one though, because Sophie’s wearing a pretty big face mask, but I just think that Yerin, the way she emotes in that scene — she’s an actor who really says so much with her face — and I love that chandelier moment, I think it’s really special, and instantly sets her apart from the crowd.
Last season shocked viewers with the twist that Francesca is queer. How did you want to craft her storyline in a way that has her exploring her sexuality, but doesn’t take away her relationship with John?
For now, we are really focused, in Part 1 especially, on Francesca’s relationship with John. I think Francesca, in many ways beyond her sexuality, is someone who doesn’t know herself very well. She has a rich and complicated internal world, and she’s still finding the courage to own who she is. This season is really about just owning her basic desires in her relationship with John … that is something that takes plenty of time.
Francesca also seeks education and advice about her struggling to reach an orgasm, or as the show puts it, a “pinnacle.” Why did you want to include this storyline?
I felt really passionate about including that storyline. I love that we’re a fantasy romance show and that people magically have orgasms at the same time. But I think over this season [and] last season, and going forward, I’m interested in including more representation of different ways that women have sex. I think difficulty around orgasm is a really common story for women, and I think representing that hopefully normalizes it.
It’s not to say that what Fran and John have isn’t special in its own way — I think it’s very much more about Francesca’s own storyline and her need to own her desires.
We also got some representation with Violet this season as she explored her sexuality. Why was it important for you to show sexuality across both the younger and the older cast?
Sexuality doesn’t stop just when you have children. It’s important to show that our adult characters also have wants and desires and needs. Ruth and Daniel just did such a marvelous job in those scenes. They’re really fun to watch.
Violet obviously knows what she’s doing, but there’s still this innocence there, in terms of being the first one after her marriage. What was it like exploring that with Ruth as well, and how Violet might get to prioritize herself?
It’s funny, because you’re right that Violet is experienced. She has eight children but it’s been a long time, and as we know from the way that she talks about sex with her children, she’s not super comfortable talking about sex so playing that into her storyline with Lord Anderson was really fun.
Conversations about intimacy coordinators first started when “Bridgerton” premiered. What’s it like to see that role become more normalized?
I am so beyond grateful for Lizzy Talbot. She’s our primary intimacy coordinator, and I just don’t know how we would do it without her. It’s so important for our actors to feel safe and able to express any discomfort, and also to weigh in on what feels natural within a sex scene, because as a writer, when you’re sitting and writing a sex scene, you’re just writing what feels the most fantastical and fun, but there are practical concerns in terms of the way people’s bodies fit together and whatnot. So beyond, safety and comfort, we’re able to create a scene that feels as natural as possible thanks to our intimacy coordinators.
Lady Whistledown’s identity reveal came to a head last season, and this season is doing something new in terms of having Penelope’s identity out in the open. How did you go about crafting what that would look like?
We always knew Julie Andrews is staying on with us — you don’t squander Julie, and because you have her, it was important for us to keep her on. I think she is the voice of Whistledown at this point. It was really fun to play with Penelope being a public gossip columnist this season, thinking about what that would look like with the Queen.
It’s a storyline that comes into play a lot more in Part 2 as well, as we explore the various pressures on her to take accountability for what she’s writing.
This season, Lady Danbury starts to bring up leaving her post to go visit her homeland. How did that storyline come about in particular?
It’s a season, in many ways, about relationships and friendships that have a power differential, and we were really interested in what happens when the person who has less power in one of those friendships, in this case, what happens when they want something for themselves? It felt like a storyline that really fit in with everything else that was happening thematically. Adjoa is still with us going forward, but I do think this move for Lady Danbury really shakes everything up with the Queen.
Did it bring up crafting a Lady Danbury spinoff series like “Queen Charlotte?”
I would love a Lady Danbury spinoff. I leave that to Shonda — I feel very focused on hoping for eight seasons of “Bridgerton,” but, yeah, I’d watch it.
Are there any other Julia Quinn books you’d like to see adapted? I know there’s some aunts and Smythe-Smiths.
I’m a fan of the Smythe-Smiths — in a way, they’re the anti-Bridgertons, but they’re still so sympathetic and intriguing. I would absolutely watch that.
Eloise hasn’t had too turbulent of a season so far. How did you want to construct her arc this season?
After a season where Eloise had a big arc with Penelope and with Cressida, we wanted to hone in a little bit more this season on bringing Eloise closer to understanding the value of love and of the marriage mart, so pairing her with Hyacinth, who is the dreamiest and most love-struck of the siblings, felt like a really natural match. And it becomes, I think, one of the more moving storylines this season, especially in the back half.
Was there ever a conversation about moving up Hyacinth’s story in the order?
I don’t know in which order, but Gregory and Hyacinth’s stories will be last.
Fans are still talking about that Pitbull cover in the carriage scene last season. What music are you excited about this season?
We knew we wanted “Enchanted” in there, and that’s really fan service — I know that they really associate that song with this season — but we had a real think about where to best use it. I love the place that our editor placed it in Episode 2. I think it really becomes an internal moment where it’s playing from Sophie’s deepest place of desire, and then the fact that it cuts out the moment she disallows herself to go after Benedict, it’s just so heartbreaking.
It was fun for me to do some more throwback songs this year, and putting in the Usher’s song “DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love” — that’s from when I was probably in high school — and there are a few others in the back half that are that are really fun.
“Bridgerton” Season 4 Part 1 is now streaming on Netflix. Part 2 premieres Feb. 26.
