Benedict Confirmed to Lead 'Bridgerton' Season 4

After wild speculation at the end of Season 3, Netflix has decided to spill the tea on Bridgerton's direction for Season 4. After the series did a total 180-degree turn on following the novels for the third season and skipped over the middle-eldest brother Benedict (Luke Thompson) for middle-younger brother Colin (Luke Newton) and Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), order will be restored, as the show backtracks from "C" to "B" and sends Lady Violet's (Ruth Gemmell) second eldest child the person of his dreams. Benedict Bridgerton, come on down! You're the next contestant on the ton's Marriage Mart!

As we noted in our Season 4 post, when the second half of Season 3 dropped, the final episode broadly hinted Benedict would be up next. For those who have not read the books (or at least Wikipedia), Benedict's story retells Cinderella as he falls wildly in love with a woman in a silver gown at the yearly masquerade ball. However, she flees the scene at midnight, leaving Benny to cool his jets for an entire social season, hunting for her among the elites. Eventually, he finds her in the last place he'd expected.

After being laid up in the country ahead of the following year's season, he falls in love with a housemaid named Sophie, who has been waiting on him, only to discover almost too late that she and the woman in silver are one and the same. For her part, Sophie turns out to be the bastard daughter of a deceased duke, whose stepmother has been forcing her to serve her stepsisters all this time. 

The fact that Benedict's story takes place over two seasons in the novel had fans wondering if Season 4 would again delay his happy ending, extending the tale over Seasons 4 and 5 while Eloise (Claudia Jessie) or Francesca (Hannah Dodd) got to be center stage. But the new teaser for next season puts all that to rest.

Though it is Benedict's turn, and the trailer all but confirms his love story will at least start the same way it does in the books, that doesn't mean the series will follow the rest of the story to the letter. Fans have been speculating Cressida Cowper (Jessica Madsen), who has risen in the show to be a significant character in her own right (and ripe for redemption), will play a major role in Benedict's story.

Furthermore, because much of the story's actual romance takes place away from the ton and outside of London, it is heavily rumored Bridgerton will take full advantage of the changing locations, not only to cycle in Eloise and Francesca and continue to move their stories along but also to bring back Season 1 fan-favorites Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor) and Simon (Rege-Jean Page). 

As fans know, series creator Shonda Rhimes initially envisioned Bridgerton following the typical arc of romance novels, where the happily-ever-after couple disappears. Therefore, Page was never contracted beyond Season 1 or Dynevor past a Season 2 cameo. However, the outcry over this decision was such that she abandoned it. (Season 3 even had a teaser dedicated to Season 2 couple Anthony (Jonathan Bailey) and Kate (Simone Ashley) to assure fans they would be part of the season.) Since then, the show has endeavored to find a way to work the couple back into the ensemble. If this comes to pass, it will be the first time since 2020 that the entire Bridgerton clan has appeared together in a season together.

The teaser does not reveal who will play Sophie (if, indeed, that remains her name), focusing solely on the mystery of who Benedict will meet at the ball. While that might seem like good marketing, it also continues to fuel fan theories that Benedict's story will not actually be as straightforward a tale as the novel. With Benedict discovering his bisexuality in Season 3 and the gender swap of Francesca's eventual true love from Michael to Michaela (Masali Baduza), some are convinced that Benedict's story will also be given a queer twist of some kind.

That may seem far-fetched (and also a little excessive to certain quarters who are not comfortable with LGBTQ+ storylines), but it does remain that Seasons 1 through 3 all focused on heteronormative love stories and that Season 3's conclusion felt less like the ending of a season, and more like the end of a trilogy. (This actually follows the novels, which were structured as two trilogies and a duology.) If Season 4 begins a new trilogy as the books do, one of which will be a lesbian couple, it stands to reason that the swapping of Colin and Benedict was to have a neat divide, three straight stories followed by three queer ones.

Whether this means Benedict's true love is harboring a secret more significant than just her identity as a servant, whether as someone ho enjoys playing with gender norms or an actual transgender character, remains to be seen. For all fans know, Sophie will turn out to be your typical blonde-haired blue-eyedd Cinderella-in-the-Ashes. But somehow, it seems like Bridgerton will have at least a little more up its sleeve. 

Bridgerton Seasons 1 through 3 and the Queen Charlotte prequel are all streaming in full on Netflix. Season 4 is expected out in late 2025 or early 2026.