You’ll Love this ‘Bridgerton’ Season 4 Valentine’s Day Sneak Peek

Nothing says Valentine’s Day like a romantic first look at Bridgerton season 4. During Netflix’s “Bridgerton: Season of Love” event, Bridgerton showrunner Jess Brownell, Luke Thompson (Benedict Bridgerton), Golda Rosheuvel (Queen Charlotte), and Yerin Ha (Sophie Baek) answered fans’ questions about the upcoming season and gave us our first stills from the season. 

The next season of the beloved Regency romance series features the love story between Benedict and Sophie (also known as Benophie). Fans already know and love the second-eldest Bridgerton brother, but Sophie is a new addition to the cast. Sophie is the illegitimate daughter of a member of the ton who acts as a live-in maid for her stepmother and two stepsisters. 

The class difference between Benedict and Sophie offers fans a deeper look into the world of Bridgerton, including deeper dives on some of the staff we have seen in the background of earlier seasons. 

“This year it’s all about forbidden love,” Brownell says. “Lemme tell you, that class clash gives us a very serious obstacle, and the stakes could not be higher this year. It’s really a juicy one. We’ve spent the first three seasons really digging into the upstairs world and getting to know the rules of the ton, so it felt right that after three seasons of doing that, we could expand the world out and go downstairs and broaden our world. Because you are now so familiar with the upstairs, I think viewers know just how difficult a pairing between a gentleman and a maid will be.”

Brownell also says that season 4, based on the third book in the Bridgerton series, An Offer From a Gentleman, is the most book-accurate season yet.

“I do think that this season is the most faithful to the book,”  Brownell says. “It really lends itself to adaptation, just plot-wise. Of course, some smaller things have changed, [such as] character motivations. Benedict is quite different from the book, just in that Luke Thompson brings this wonderful sensitivity and self-awareness to the character. In Benedict’s story of trying to woo Sophie, I think the character is a bit more delicate and thoughtful perhaps in the way he goes about it.”

Fans also got a look at Violet Bridgerton’s masquerade ball, the legendary event of the season where Benedict and Sophie meet for the first time, including a peek at the couple’s costumes from the scene. The ball will take place throughout most of the first episode of season 4 and features iconic costumes from our favorite characters. 

“The goal was to wear either by costume or concealment to try to hide your identity,” Brownell says. “Some people would go in proper costume, some people would just try to alter their appearance or wear a mask enough that they could hide their identity. Because of that, people usually would get up to things that they might not normally get up to. The rules were a little bit looser, it was a little bit more frisky. So I think taking that inspiration into the visuals, we wanted the ball to feel a little more dark and mysterious and we really honed in on the idea of it looking a bit like A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Bridgerton season 4 doesn’t have a release date yet, but the cast says that they are around two-thirds of the way through filming. Until we finally see Benophie on our screens, we’ll just have to obsessively reread An Offer From a Gentleman.