‘Bridgerton’ Season 4 Part 1: A Sumptuous Return That Outshines Benedict and Sophie’s Tepid Romance
‘Bridgerton’ Season 4 Part 1 Review: When the Side Dishes Outshine the Main Couple
After nearly two years away, Bridgerton is back on Netflix with Season 4 Part 1, and the ton has never looked richer, queerer, or more emotionally chaotic. The new batch of episodes shifts the spotlight to Benedict Bridgerton—now firmly acknowledged as the family’s bisexual second son—and his growing attachment to Sophie, a maid in another elite household. The twist: the romance at the center of the season isn’t actually the most compelling thing about it.
Season 4 Part 1 succeeds as lush escapist television—full of orchestral pop covers, slow-burning subplots and social scheming—even as Benedict and Sophie’s romance never quite reaches the swoony heights of previous love stories like Simon and Daphne’s or Kanthony’s.
Where We Are in the Bridgerton Timeline
By Season 4, Bridgerton has fully settled into its identity as Shonda Rhimes–backed Regency fantasy more than strict Julia Quinn adaptation. We’re now several years past Daphne and Simon, the Featheringtons have weathered multiple scandals, and the ton has adjusted—if not entirely—to the ascendance of the formerly ostracized Sharma sisters.
Benedict, once the bohemian second son flirting with art school and boundary-pushing parties, is now a man in transition. The series has gradually acknowledged his bisexuality across earlier seasons; in Season 4, that queerness finally feels like part of the text instead of suggestive subtext. At the same time, the show attempts to plug him into a more traditional enemies-to-lovers framework with Sophie, who works as a maid in another noble household.
Benedict & Sophie: A Cinderella Story with Diminished Spark
Season 4 Part 1 introduces Sophie as a maid serving one of the ton’s grandest households—close enough to power to witness its hypocrisies, but never free to enjoy its privileges. Benedict, meanwhile, occupies a liminal space: wealthy and titled, but still the sibling most likely to wander off to a studio or salon instead of pursuing a practical match.
On paper, this is classic Bridgerton stuff: a cross-class love story with built-in conflict, complicated by Benedict’s queerness and his restless search for identity. However, the romance itself often feels more schematic than electric. Their banter works, but there’s a faint sense that we’re being told how destined they are rather than feeling it in every lingering glance.
“Benedict and Sophie’s love story has all the right ingredients, but the recipe never quite comes together with the intensity fans have come to expect from a Bridgerton central couple.”
Part of the problem is structural: the season is increasingly invested in the ensemble, so Benedict and Sophie are constantly competing for screentime with juicier subplots. When they’re apart, the show sings; when it returns to their romance, the energy dips just enough to notice.
Performances: Luke Thompson Shines, But the Chemistry Falters
Luke Thompson has been quietly doing excellent work on this show for years, and Season 4 finally hands him a lead arc. He leans into Benedict’s charm, insecurity, and fluid desire with an easy naturalism that keeps the character from becoming just another tortured aristocrat.
Sophie’s performer (Netflix has been loudly promoting her as the latest breakout lead) brings intelligence and warmth to a role that could’ve felt like a trope. She’s best when the camera lets her observe—listening just off to the side of the ballroom, or watching the Bridgertons’ chaotic affection from a distance. Those moments quietly underline everything she’s missing.
But when you put Benedict and Sophie together, something’s off. They’re believable as two people intrigued by each other; less so as a grand, life-altering love match. In a franchise that has built its reputation on almost operatic longing—remember the rain scene in Kanthony’s season?—this more low-voltage connection can’t help but register as a step down.
Queer Representation: Subtext Becomes Text
One of the most interesting aspects of Season 4 is how it handles Benedict’s sexuality. Earlier seasons flirted with queer possibilities—particularly in his art-world storyline—but tended to pull back before fully committing. Here, the show is more decisive: Benedict’s attraction to more than one gender isn’t a one-off plot device; it’s a facet of who he is.
The writing doesn’t attempt a historically “accurate” exploration of 19th-century queer life so much as it extends Bridgerton’s alt-Regency fantasy to include LGBTQ+ desire as something that exists, is whispered about, and occasionally finds pockets of safety. It’s still polished and idealized, but it’s movement forward, especially in a mainstream romance juggernaut this size.
“We never wanted Benedict’s bisexuality to feel like a twist. It’s simply part of his journey toward understanding what he wants out of love, class, and freedom,” a producer has said in recent interviews.
Ironically, this richer exploration of Benedict’s identity sometimes makes his seemingly endgame pairing with Sophie feel even more preordained and conventional, like the show is quietly wrestling with how radical it’s willing to be while still operating as Netflix’s flagship comfort watch.
Visuals, Music, and World-Building: Bridgerton Still Knows How to Put on a Show
Whatever qualms there are about the central love story, Bridgerton Season 4 Part 1 continues to operate at a high level as a piece of craft. The production design is once again maximalist Regency cosplay—saturated jewel tones, impossible florals, towering wigs, and that ever-present haze of candlelight.
Costume-wise, the show leans further into character-driven choices: Benedict’s slightly rumpled elegance contrasts with Sophie’s practical, muted wardrobe, underlining the gulf between them even when they occupy the same physical space. Meanwhile, the increasingly powerful Bridgertons wear their emotional arcs in their color palettes, a quiet through-line fans have been decoding since Season 1.
The signature orchestral covers—this time reimagining contemporary hits in string arrangements—continue to do a lot of the heavy lifting in key ballroom and promenade sequences. When the romance isn’t carrying you away, the music and visuals step in to do the seducing.
The Real Secret Weapon: The Ensemble and Side Plots
Where Season 4 Part 1 truly wins is in its ensemble storytelling. Lady Whistledown’s ongoing identity fallout, the Featheringtons’ latest attempt to stabilize their fortunes, and Eloise’s wary dance with adulthood all provide richer emotional textures than Benedict and Sophie’s more familiar beats.
The show has reached the stage of its run where every look between minor characters carries years of history. A sibling teasing at breakfast, a mother’s anxious glance across a ballroom—these moments give the season a sense of lived-in continuity that keeps fans invested even when the “romance of the year” underwhelms.
Industry Context: Bridgerton as Netflix’s Reliability Play
From an industry perspective, Bridgerton Season 4 Part 1 doesn’t just have to tell a good story—it has to function as Netflix’s evergreen franchise machine. The split-season rollout fits the streamer’s current strategy: stretch social media buzz, feed the TikTok edit economy, and keep subscribers around between other tentpoles.
That might explain why the show increasingly behaves like an ensemble soap rather than a tightly focused romance every season. Fans aren’t just tuning in for Benedict and Sophie; they’re tuning in for the world of the series. It’s IP now, not just adaptation. That shift pays off when it comes to longevity, even if it dilutes the intensity of each season’s marquee couple.
Compared with other streaming romances, Bridgerton remains a rare beast: high-budget, risk-averse in form but moderately daring in representation, and calibrated to work as both background comfort watch and weeknight event television.
The Verdict: Strengths and Weaknesses of Season 4 Part 1
Weighing the season as a whole, Season 4 Part 1 is a success—but a qualified one, especially if you measure each era of Bridgerton by the firepower of its central couple.
- Strengths
- Gorgeous production design and costuming that maintain the franchise’s visual identity.
- More explicit, thoughtful handling of Benedict’s bisexuality.
- A deep bench of side characters and subplots that keep the season lively.
- Musical choices and pop covers that still land emotionally.
- Weaknesses
- Benedict and Sophie’s romance lacks the crackling urgency of earlier pairings.
- Split focus can make the “main” couple feel oddly secondary.
- Some viewers may feel the risk-taking stops just shy of truly radical storytelling.
For most fans, that trade-off will be acceptable: Season 4 Part 1 delivers everything you expect from Bridgerton, just not always where you expect to find it.
Review Meta & Where to Watch
Bridgerton – Season 4 Part 1
Romance, Period Drama
Available on: Netflix
More info: Bridgerton on IMDb
Rating: 3.5 / 5
Visually lush and emotionally engaging when it leans on its ensemble, Bridgerton Season 4 Part 1 is a solid, escapist return. Benedict and Sophie’s romance, while sincere and thematically interesting, doesn’t reach the intoxicating heights of the show’s best couples—but the surrounding world is strong enough that most viewers will keep happily waltzing along.
Final Thoughts: A Confident Franchise in Search of Its Next Great Love Story
Season 4 Part 1 confirms that Bridgerton has fully evolved from buzzy upstart to comfortingly established TV universe. It may not deliver a new all-time-great ship in Benedict and Sophie, but it does offer a polished, inclusive, and highly watchable return to a world viewers clearly aren’t ready to leave yet.
If Part 2 can deepen their connection and sharpen the stakes of their cross-class, queer-adjacent love story, this season could still cohere into something more memorable. Even if it doesn’t, the series has made one thing resoundingly clear: in the era of streaming churn, the ton remains open for business—and audiences are still lining up at the doors.
