<\/p>\n
Netflix<\/a>\u2019s gentle viewers know it\u2019s a universal concession of the \u201cBridgerton<\/a>\u201d universe that \u201creformed rakes make the best husbands.\u201d This truism will be put to the test during Season 4 of the streamer\u2019s period romance, which follows, arguably, the Bridgerton family\u2019s most rakish brother, Benedict (Luke Thompson), as he embarks on his own unexpected fairy tale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This season\u2019s Cinderella story begins in our favorite drawing room on Grosvenor Square, where the servants are busy opening the curtains, uncovering the furniture and staging the tea service to welcome back Francesca (Hannah Dodd), her new husband, John (Victor Alli), and Eloise (Claudia Jessie) from Scotland. Of course, there\u2019s also family matriarch Violet (Ruth Gemmell) overseeing the bustle of preparations for her children\u2019s reunion. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n After three seasons and a spinoff, the entire scene feels delightfully familiar. That is, until Violet gracefully hovers her hand above a plate of scones that are no longer warm, prompting Mrs. Wilson (Geraldine Alexander) to offer to retrieve some fresh from the oven. This is when it becomes evident that this season of \u201cBridgerton\u201d will be different. The camera follows the family\u2019s housekeeper as she carries the cold pastries down the stairs and into the kitchen, laundry and servants\u2019 quarters. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n While \u201cBridgerton\u201d has always delved into the social constraints and class expectations of its leading ladies, it has rarely juxtaposed those society stories with the experiences of the servants who make the family\u2019s idyllic life of leisure possible. The show has never had an upstairs-downstairs dynamic like other period favorites, such as \u201cDownton Abbey<\/a>\u201d or \u201cThe Gilded Age<\/a>.\u201d The closest it\u2019s gotten is the rare upward mobility of Will (Martins Imhangbe) and Alice (Emma Naomi) Mondrich.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That changes this season as \u201cBridgerton\u201d continues to build its universe<\/a> through the cross-class love story of the rakish brother poised as least likely to become television\u2019s next great \u201cyearning man,\u201d but who will eventually pine as deeply as \u201cThe Summer I Turned Pretty\u2019s<\/a>\u201d Conrad Fisher and \u201cHeated Rivalry\u2019s<\/a>\u201d Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the season\u2019s opening scene, as the siblings reunite over tea and coo over the new baby of Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin (Luke Newton), there is one noticeable imperfection \u2014 Benedict\u2019s absence \u2014 and Violet requests a carriage to go and collect her son. She arrives at his bachelor\u2019s quarters to find the artistic nonconformist who recently explored his bisexuality in Season 3 in an inebriated and naked slumber with not one but two unchaperoned ladies. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n What follows is one of Violet\u2019s maternal yet authoritative conversations in which she firmly tells another one of her boys that it is time to find a wife and become a respectable member of the ton, the upper echelon of society. Benedict disagrees. While lovely, he finds that those ladies \u201cdisplay no true animation, no zest for life, no personality.\u201d He declares that he will probably never marry. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n However, as fans of the show know, a Bridgerton man discounting marriage is one who doth protest too much and is about to have his worldview shaken. For Benedict, this happens at the first ball of the season, a masquerade, where he meets a self-possessed \u201cLady in Silver\u201d who cannot dance and speaks her mind. At midnight, she rushes home, leaving Benedict without her name but with a single glove. He is besotted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Pining greatly, Benedict draws sketch after sketch of the woman who enchanted him, but he is unable to capture her face. What ensues is a ton-wide search for his silver ing\u00e9nue, but this search becomes complicated when his path crosses with Sophie (Yerin Ha), a maid to whom he feels inexplicably drawn when they are stuck together at his cottage (fans of the book will be excited to know that, yes, there is The Lake Scene, and fans of \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d are sure to enjoy the way this cottage also plays a crucial role in the plot). <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Suddenly, the Benedict brother who has never been interested in taking a wife finds himself torn, longing for the fantasy of the mystery lady he met at the ball and pining for the reality of a lower-class maid who he cannot be with in any real way. This is the romance that underpins Season 4, and I found its unfolding delightful. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n After Season 3, there was widespread criticism that \u201cBridgerton\u201d was becoming too cliched and stale, but I <\/span>argued<\/span><\/a> that the show uses the traditional tropes of romantic storytelling to amplify women\u2019s voices through a genre that is usually dismissed for its content, especially its inclusion of sex that prioritizes female pleasure. Also, as the recent success of a show like \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d about a same-sex hockey romance and the continued popularity of a series like \u201cBridgerton\u201d prove, love stories \u2014 especially the sensual ones \u2014 have cultural power. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n