'Bridgerton' Is Finally Back — And It Surprises In All The Right Ways

Season 4 of the Netflix series puts the spotlight on a cross-class love story.

Netflix’s gentle viewers know it’s a universal concession of the “Bridgerton” universe that “reformed rakes make the best husbands.” This truism will be put to the test during Season 4 of the streamer’s period romance, which follows, arguably, the Bridgerton family’s most rakish brother, Benedict (Luke Thompson), as he embarks on his own unexpected fairy tale.

This season’s 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’s also family matriarch Violet (Ruth Gemmell) overseeing the bustle of preparations for her children’s reunion.

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 “Bridgerton” will be different. The camera follows the family’s housekeeper as she carries the cold pastries down the stairs and into the kitchen, laundry and servants’ quarters.

While “Bridgerton” 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’s idyllic life of leisure possible. The show has never had an upstairs-downstairs dynamic like other period favorites, such as “Downton Abbey” or “The Gilded Age.” The closest it’s gotten is the rare upward mobility of Will (Martins Imhangbe) and Alice (Emma Naomi) Mondrich.

That changes this season as “Bridgerton” continues to build its universe through the cross-class love story of the rakish brother poised as least likely to become television’s next great “yearning man,” but who will eventually pine as deeply as “The Summer I Turned Pretty’s” Conrad Fisher and “Heated Rivalry’s” Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander.