The First Half of ‘Bridgerton’ Season 4 (Mostly) Succeeds at Juggling Power Dynamics and Pulse-Pounding Romance

The tension of “Bridgerton” exists, like the tension of all great escapist television, between the push and pull of disappearing into a glamorous world (just for entertainment consumption!) and not worrying too much about some of the darker bits that might flit across our screens. Now in its fourth season, Jess Brownell’s smash hit Netflix series (based on Julia Quinn’s novels) continues to explore that tension as it tackles its much-anticipated Benedict and Sophie-centric season. This time around: a strong assist by our first leading romantic lady to come from outside the rarefied air of the ton (gasp!).

But here’s the rub: As former IndieWire editor Erin Strecker wrote last year when Benedict’s season was formally announced, the contents of Quinn’s novel (her third in the series, titled “An Offer from a Gentleman”) were in need of some, uh, thoughtful tweaking to make it fit for confectionary TV. Just four episodes into this season, the show has mostly stuck to Quinn’s original story, with (indeed!) some thoughtful tweaks. Harder to imagine? What will happen in the second half of this season, which is saddled with many of the novel’s more, let’s just say, uncomfortable twists and turns.

For now, however, the first part of the season mostly succeeds at balancing power dynamics and pulse-pounding romance, with a major assist from the warm and hot chemistry between season leads Luke Thompson and series newbie Yerin Ha. An unabashed spin on Cinderella (with a hearty dash of some “Little Mermaid” for good measure), this season is all about fitting two semi-misfits together, even in the face of annoying politics, wacky misdirection, evil stepmothers, and a cottage literally called My Cottage. (Somewhere, “Heated Rivalry” fans are very confused.)

It’s also still wondrously consumable television. (I watched all four available episodes of this season in one go the night before I was set to depart Sundance; I absolutely do not recommend a four-hour-plus binge in the hours before a morning flight, but I couldn’t turn the damn thing off.) Most of that is due to the inherent watchability of Thompson and Ha, who manage to feel (and touch) their way through two distinctly different romances, thanks to Benedict’s insane inability to recognize the woman he loves when she ventures out without a single scrap of embroidered fabric on her face.

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In previous seasons, background Benedict action has set the stage for his long-awaited romance. Something of an odd duck, definitely something of a rake, the sexually experimental (well, for now) second son of the Bridgerton clan has rooted his identity in not quite knowing his identity. He’s the spare, essentially, the kind of suitor the debutantes of the ton know by face and by build, if not actual name. (You’d think the Bridgerton naming conventions would help, but alas, everyone seems to know him as just the hot second brother.) It’s a champagne problem, but a problem nonetheless.

With Anthony (Jonathan Bailey, not yet seen in Season 4) off in India with his wife and newborn son, Benedict is stuck juggling fill-in viscount duties (do we want to invest in copper? who knows!) with his off-hours catting about town. When his beloved, pushy mother Violet (Ruth Gemmell, better with every season) tells him he simply hasn’t yet met the right lady, Benedict sighs. But heteronormative and monogamous conventions aside, it’s clear something is missing in Benedict’s life, and it’s not anything that drinks, loose women (and men!), and his artistic aspirations have been able to totally fill. What a perfect time for a masquerade ball!

It’s the first big ball of the season (and, notably, the first to be hosted by Violet herself), and Bridgerton House is positively bedecked with finery. Bonus finery: the return of Eloise (Claudia Jessie), Francesca (Hannah Dodd), and John Stirling (Victor Alli) from Scotland (and, yes, their sojourn back to London does get extended, all the better to start queuing up more romantic drama for both sisters). But while all the usual suspects are in attendance, along with newcomers like Lady Araminta Gao (Katie Leung) and her two daughters Rosamund (Michelle Mao) and Posy Li (Isabella Wei), a beautiful stranger approaches.

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While the first half of the season will eventually pile on the Cinderella trappings (even an entire subplot about shoes and how they may or may not fit), the first episode is wisely loosey-goosey on it. We don’t even see Sophie (a luminous Ha) without her mask until the second episode, all the better to see her the way Benedict does.

For him? It’s love at first sight, as he’s instantly taken by the silver-clad lady who seems to be (could this be real?) actually enjoying the ball? That alone is alluring to Benedict, who might act like he’s seen it all but can’t help but despise that bent in others. And when the two sweep away for a late-night chat on a distant terrace (this unknown lady does not know how to dance, she admits, a pretty important tip as to her actual identity that Benedict never fully processes), the conversation is revelatory for them both.

But when the clock strikes midnight, Benedict’s Lady in Silver (as he comes to refer to her throughout the first half of the season) goes running, leaving him forever altered. Half-kissed and unclear about many details of her life (including her name), the second Bridgerton son is so struck by the experience that he dedicates the following weeks to finding this most magical lady. Of course, she is no lady at all, and in the season’s second episode, we are granted entry to plucky Sophie’s perspective and experience. She’s a maid! To the snippy Lady Gao! And while Benedict may have no idea why he can’t find the object of his affection nor why they could never be together, Sophie is all too clear on the societal rules that make this all impossible.

‘Bridgerton’LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX

Over the course of the series, all of the Bridgerton siblings have struggled to fit into the rigid confines of Regency-era England to various degrees. That nothing is as shiny and flirty and fun as it might seem is baked in, but Season 4 is more comfortable really driving that point home. As Benedict madly searches for his Lady in Silver, Sophie’s story unfolds elsewhere, a heartbreaking, decades-spanning tale about power dynamics and class divides. Benedict will learn about all that soon enough, but only when he meets Sophie as herself in the second half of Episode 2.

Of the sibs, it’s Benedict and Eloise (who, yes, goddamn it, still have a crazy amount of on-screen chemistry for a brother and sister) who can’t shake their feelings of being somehow different the most. They’re both hung up on not getting married (after three seasons “out” in society, Eloise returns from Scotland to proudly announce she is “on the shelf” and thus committed to never finding her match, while Benedict mostly seems to enjoy the lifestyle of a “rake” too much to give it up), but things keep conspiring against those ideals. Benedict falls in love. Eloise simply can’t escape the societal pressures around her (why, she wonders, is everyone always just talking about marriage?). What does it really mean to bilk the system? Is that even possible?

Others in and around the ton are also grappling with such issues, if in private: Violet Bridgerton cannot keep denying how much she wants Lord Anderson (Daniel Francis), Francesca is forced to realize the limits of her carnal (or not so) bond with darling husband John, and even Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) is desperate for a change. Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) worries about being under the queen’s thumb. The Mondrichs (Martins Imhangbe and Emma Naomi) are still trying to fit in.

And, yes, if that sounds like a lot of stories, it is. While all of them are in service to the season’s bigger questions, they do often detract from time spent with Benedict and Sophie, when the season really comes to life. Benedict’s obsession with the fantasy of his Lady in Silver begins to give way to the reality of Sophie the maid (who may not know how to dance, but sure as heck knows way more than any other maid he’s ever met), and the pair begin to fall in serious love. But there are secrets between them and some formidable villains lingering (including, yes, society itself), which should add up to some major drama in the second half of the season (hopefully, with the book’s ickier situations retrofitted — not just in the name of good taste, but to better develop Benedict as a romantic hero worth rooting for).

‘Bridgerton’LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX

It ends on a decidedly hot note — the extent of Benedict’s sexual escapades may not ever be fully fleshed out here, but we at least get a sense that the man knows a thing or two about another person’s pleasure — and with a handful of horrifying revelations and one incredibly ill-conceived request. Benedict doesn’t yet know how this world really works, but Sophie does. Can those two worldviews ever really connect? Will Benedict ever realize the two women he’s in love with are (luckily!) just one woman? And can the Bridgertons truly buck tradition?

We may know all those answers (it’s a love story, after all), but we can’t wait to see what this second half holds, and if “Bridgerton” is ready to mine some darker, deeper tensions in the pursuit of love.

Grade: B

The first four episodes of “Bridgerton” Season 4 will be released Thursday, January 29 on Netflix, with the final four episodes arriving Friday, February 26.