Bridgerton Season 4 Takes a Welcome Break From High Society

Call it the Downton Abbey effect if you want (or the Upstairs, Downstairs effect, if the 1970s U.K. drama is more your thing), but it's been impossible to watch three seasons of Bridgerton, with its focus on the romance and scandal permeating high society London in the early 1800s, and not wonder about the hired help. Yes, we gather together to watch these rich hotties make fools of themselves in the name of love, but even as we're focused on the stories of lords and ladies, we can see countless people in the background making it all happen. I love you, Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey), but we all know you were not built for manual labor, babe. How else would the Bridgertons and Featheringtons and other families of the ton be able to pull off all the balls and soirees and afternoon teas? Who is squeezing our main characters into those corsets every day? Does the person tasked with making all of those teeny tiny cakes have arthritis in their hands, and have they seen a doctor about that yet? I'm interested! 

Bridgerton hasn't exactly ignored the servants that make these great houses run. Over the course of three seasons, we've gotten a few servant class characters who pop out of the background — most notably the Featheringtons' housekeeper, Varley (Lorraine Ashbourne), who has saved the day for her employers more than once and gets to play with that idea to a real emotional payoff this season — but mostly they've stuck to the corners of the screen. However, in Season 4 of the Netflix drama, while the servants don't bump the high society players from the main storylines, their lives are certainly illuminated. Bridgerton is finally giving us a peek downstairs, and it couldn't come at a better time.

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This change of pace for the series isn't some random choice. Bridgerton's fourth season is an adaptation of Julia Quinn's third Bridgerton novel, An Offer From a Gentleman, and follows second son Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) as he falls for maid Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha). It's a riff on the Cinderella fairy tale, bringing to the forefront high society rules about marrying according to class, as well as some complicated power dynamics. To fully tell Sophie's story, obviously, we need a closer look at her world and the people who stand alongside her. This means that when Sophie winds up working at Bridgerton House by Episode 4, we get to spend time with the people who work for our favorite family. No one aside from Sophie gets much in the way of backstory, but characters like housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (Geraldine Alexander) and footman John (Oli Higginson) get to reveal some real personality when otherwise they'd be relegated to simply functional, paint-by-numbers roles in the story. 

Take, for instance, a quick moment in Episode 4 when we cut to John, who is clearly crushing on new maid Hazel (Gracie McGonigal), as Hazel talks about the fantasy of marrying a gentleman. John's face is brimming with annoyance and frustration, and it tells us so much about this guy who spends most of his day helping Bridgertons in and out of carriages. Could all of these characters use a deeper dive? Of course. Give us the servant spin-off we deserve, Bridgerton! But even the limited look downstairs that we do get in Season 4 opens up the series — both quite literally, giving us new types of physical spaces to explore, and on a more metaphorical level. Sophie steps into the main character spotlight with such a different viewpoint than we've seen on this show before, and this refreshing development makes the entire series feel like it got a quick little very non-invasive facelift. You know, just to tighten things up a bit. 

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It's not that I haven't loved what Bridgerton has delivered up to this point, but even I, a fan, was feeling a bit weary at the idea of watching yet another scene about young ladies debuting in front of Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) or repeated talk about "the diamond of the season," or even, I'm sorry, just episode after episode of more balls. Look, I'll never turn down pretty dresses, instrumental versions of pop bangers, or group choreography — I'm but a mere mortal — but Season 4 is certainly where some might begin to lose their luster, at least story-wise. So it feels like perfect timing for the show to expand its view. If you need proof of concept, marvel at Episode 3, why don't you? While there are still shenanigans going on in Mayfair, "The Field Next to the Other Road" sees our two main characters completely pulled out of high society as they spend a week alone (with two excellent additions to the servant squad, Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree, played by Billy Boyle and Susan Brown) at Benedict's country home while he heals from an injury. It is one of the best hours of the series. Now, much of that is thanks to the sweet yet palpable chemistry between Thompson and Ha, who carry this season with such ease and effervescence — you truly never want to leave them when the episode cuts to a subplot— but some of it is simply the fact that getting to see our two main characters spend time with each other out in the country feels so different from what's come before it. 

On paper, it feels like such a risk to shake up the formula that's worked so well for three seasons, but the creative decision to spend at least some time away from the high society spectacle that Bridgerton typically peddles feels like more evidence that the old "with great risk comes great reward" adage is correct. Four seasons in and Bridgerton can still feel new and exciting.

Bridgerton Season 4 Part 1 is now streaming on Netflix. Season 4 Part 2 premieres Feb. 26.