‘Bridgerton’ Season 4: Everything We Know, Including Michaela Stirling’s Arrival

Eight episodes, one steamy carriage ride, and a dramatic Lady Whistledown reveal later, as another gossip-filled installment concludes, Bridgerton season four is upon us. “I am very, very excited for what we’re cooking up for season four,” Bridgerton showrunner Jess Brownell tells Vanity Fair.

Although she has taken some big swings during her first season in the driver’s seat—such as exploring Francesca Bridgerton as a queer character and brokering a buzzy alliance between Eloise and Cressida (Jess Madsen), Brownell won’t divulge the Ton’s new twists just yet—even in the vaguest of terms. If mirrors have been the official symbol for Colin and Penelope’s love story, what object would best represent the unfolding fourth season? “That’s a very good and very tricky question,” Brownell laughs. “It’ll just give it away. People are always asking for me to just give a little tease. I’m just so bad at it. My brain instantly wants to say the thing I most shouldn’t say. I’m so sorry—I’m going to plead the Fifth.”

Ahead, a guide to everything we do know about Bridgerton season four, featuring tidbits from Nicola Coughlan, Luke Newton, Luke Thompson, Claudia Jessie, and more.

Who is Bridgerton season four about?

While Netflix has yet to officially anoint the next Bridgerton lead, there are clues to be found in the season three finale. All signs largely point to the wayward second son, Benedict Bridgerton, who emerges from a surprising throuple storyline to discover that he is “entirely confused” about what he wants next. What Benedict does know is that he’ll be reuniting with his sister Eloise at their mother’s masquerade ball—the very place that the character meets his true love, Sophie, in Julia Quinn’s novels. “Hey, they’ve changed the books before,” Luke Thompson tells Vanity Fair when pressed on the masquerade ball Easter egg.

Showrunner Jess Brownell gets similarly skittish when asked about this moment, but will share what she’s most eager to—one day—examine from Benedict’s book. “Whenever Benedict’s time comes, what’s interesting to explore is that he’s someone who is capable of loving lots of different kinds of people,” she tells VF. “He’s capable of art, of connecting to the bohemian world, but he’s never committed to anything. There’s this moment at the end of season three where Tilley Arnold (Hannah New) says to him, ‘It felt good for once to want to commit to someone.’ And for me, that is the line that is sending Benedict forward into his possible future—this idea that he knows deep down [that] while he’s capable of breadth, he has not yet been capable of depth. And eventually that’s going to make him feel very lonely, I think.”

In the season three finale, the camera lingers on Thompson’s Benedict as Julie Andrews’s narrator says, “It is time now to look toward the future, whatever it may bring.” For Thompson, this comes back to the words his character says to Eloise as they chat on the swings: “Love isn’t finite.” Says the actor, “Weirdly, though, what the show seems to be exploring with Benedict is that love is finite, actually. Our bandwidth is finite, and you have to [make] space for other things and be ready for something else to happen.”

What happens in Benedict’s Bridgerton book?

In Julia Quinn’s third novel, An Offer From a Gentleman, Benedict’s central romance takes a Cinderella-esque spin. While attending a masquerade ball, he falls in love at first sight with a masked woman named Sophie Beckett. She is the daughter of an earl who, after her father’s death, is forced to work as a maid by an evil stepmother—at one point laboring in the Bridgerton house.

Although Benedict ends up with Sophie on the page, Luke Thompson says his character’s sexual fluidity may continue to play a role in his story. “I think it’s an important facet of his character that certainly shouldn’t be ignored. But beyond that, I mean, we’ll see what the writers do,” he tells VF.

Adds Brownell, “Many of us in the writers’ room have long felt that Benedict is queer, as I think the audience has felt as well. I think he reads that way. And I think he’s someone this season who is figuring out what it means to make his own rules, because he doesn’t quite fit in society, but he doesn’t quite know where he belongs. So seeing him embrace his queerness is thematically also about him figuring out how to flout the rules and define himself the way he wants to. And it’s something that we’ll continue to explore going forward.”

Which cast members are returning to Bridgerton season four?

According to the IMDB cast list for the fourth season’s first episode, Nicola Coughlan’s Penelope, Luke Newton’s Colin, Luke Thompson’s Benedict, and Claudia Jessie’s Eloise are all returning, as are Polly Walker, who plays Penelope’s mother, Portia Featherington, and Jessica Madsen, who plays semi-reformed mean girl Cressida.

“I don’t think we’re done with Cressida,” Brownell tells VF. “If I have my druthers, there’s more I’d like to do with her. It felt too early to give her a big happy ending. We’ve watched two seasons of her be a real bully, and I love understanding where that comes from. And I love that people are feeling more sympathy for her now, more empathy, but she has a bit more growth to do before she gets her happy ending. But ultimately I do hope to give her one.”

During her appearance on Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast, Coughlan confirmed: “I’m coming back for season four. People are like, ‘Are you sad that you’re not the main love story?’ I’m weirdly not, only because I feel like I couldn’t have given it anything more…. I don’t have any regrets. I feel like I’ve left it all on the pitch.”

Post-Whistledown, Newton is looking forward to navigating lighter territory between Colin and Penelope. “Nic and I have talked about the themes that we explored this season and what we hope we continue to in future seasons—it’s the rom-com element between them,” he tells VF. “Nic is obviously such a brilliant comedy actor, so to get the privilege to work opposite her in some of those scenes that felt slightly comedic, I really hope we get to dive into that a bit more next year. It’d be nice to feel like Kate (Simone Ashley) and Anthony (Jonathan Bailey) do at the start of the season and be in wedded bliss.”

As for Ruth Gemmell, who plays the Bridgerton family matriarch, “It’d be nice to see how my flirting goes,” she teases of the new love interest Violet met in season three. “I’d also quite like to have my children all together and all of my grandchildren. That would be mayhem, but it would be very nice.”

How did Bridgerton season three, part two end?

The third season concludes with a roughly nine-month time-jump in which Colin and Penelope have become parents to an unnamed baby boy—and also birthed their own respective writing projects. Colin’s is a novel titled Traveling With Myself, while Penelope’s is a new edition of Lady Whistledown signed: “Yours Truly, Penelope Bridgerton.” Julie Andrews’s Whistledown narration also shifts into the voice of Nicola Coughlan.

“It’s a hallmark of Julia Quinn’s novels that she always skips forward a certain amount of time to see where the couple lands,” Brownell tells VF. “For us, it felt really appropriate to end the heir race with Penelope winning. After all she’s endured in her family, it just felt like poetic justice for her to come out on top. The timeline is a little bit unclear. We do live in perpetual spring in the first three seasons of Bridgerton, so what is time? But in our minds, they probably got pregnant in the mirror scene. So when you get to season four and you see them, it won’t be so crazy that they already have their baby.”

The couple’s contentment doesn’t mean there won’t be more fallout from Penelope’s public unmasking as Lady Whistledown. “We’ve only seen her at home in the flash-forward, and yes, you’re right that she’s joyful in that moment, but we try to allude to the fact in her coming out scene as Lady Whistledown that people may still be unhappy,” says Brownell. “Yeah, the queen (Golda Rosheuvel) momentarily is sanctioning it, and so people aren’t coming after her, but that doesn’t mean that’s going to necessarily stick into the future. There may still be some consequences to deal with.”

Elsewhere, multiple Bridgerton siblings splinter off onto various adventures. Eloise joins Francesca (Hannah Dodd) and her new husband, John, Earl of Kilmartin (Victor Alli), on their trip to Scotland with his cousin Michaela (Masali Baduza). Anthony and Kate have settled in her home country of India before the birth of their first child. (The less asked regarding the whereabouts of Regé-Jean Page’s Simon and Phoebe Dynevor’s Daphne, the better.)

On the homestead, Violet Bridgerton is entertaining her second-chance romance with Marcus Anderson (Daniel Francis)—but don’t expect things to spice up between them too quickly. “I’m not getting my ass out for anyone—I can tell you that,” Gemmell says to Vanity Fair when asked about future intimate scenes. “I think I might show an ankle or two. The rest is in the hands of the writers, I’m afraid.”

Will Julie Andrews be back for Bridgerton season four?

Although Lady Whistledown’s voice shifts into Coughlan’s during the final moments of Bridgerton’s third season, Brownell hasn’t ruled out a return of the Oscar winner’s narration. “It made sense in a season that is so much about stepping into your power and your true self for Penelope to literally own her own voice in that last moment,” Brownell tells Vanity Fair. “We also love Julie Andrews so much that she may continue the voice next season. But at least for that moment, Pen is really owning it.”

Does Francesca Bridgerton fall in love with Michaela Stirling in Bridgerton season four?

In the books, Francesca’s relationship with Michael Stirling spans several years, as she is already married to John, Earl of Kilmartin at the time of their first meeting. Francesca is only able to fall in love with Michael (Michaela in the series) after the tragic death of her first husband in the sixth Bridgerton novel, When He Was Wicked.

When showrunner Jess Brownell first read Francesca’s book, “I really related to it as a queer woman,” she tells VF. “Her story is, in some ways, about feeling different. In Julia Quinn’s book, it really has more to do with her being introverted. But for many of us in the queer community, that sense of feeling different from a young age is part of our stories. So I felt like there was already thematic richness in her book to mine for her story. In telling a queer Bridgerton story, I didn’t want to just drop a queer character in to check a box. I want to tell a story about the queer experience and let there be a richness to her story. And it feels like we’re able to do that with Francesca.”

Brownell also noted that Francesca does share love with John, although it feels different from the more flustered reaction she has to Michaela. “Personally, I don’t think it’s black and white,” she says. “What she has with John is real and valid. It is a relationship that is based much more on friendship and companionship, probably, than it is on passion. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not real love. There are plenty of relationships that aren’t passionate to start out with, or then grow less passionate over time, that are still incredibly beautiful and important. So there’s more to mine there with Francesca, and I want to take the time to explore that.”

When asked about potential backlash to exploring the queer identities of both Francesca and Benedict, Brownell says she’s prepared for that. “I understand that people are very attached to the way the books are. The books will always be there, and those stories are unchanged. So while book fans will always have their Michael, it felt like queer fans didn’t have anyone in either the books or in the series who was really featured to relate to. I would encourage people to channel some empathy for people who have not gotten to see themselves represented inside this world, which is so inclusive in other ways. That is a really, really important message to send to people, that they deserve to be included and represented as well.”

When is Eloise’s season of Bridgerton coming?

“I cannot change the world without seeing more of it,” Eloise declares at the end of season three before venturing to Scotland with Francesca and John. “She’s gotten over this huge hurdle, and so she goes on an adventure,” Claudia Jessie tells Vanity Fair. “I’ve been making fun of this situation for ages, and now I have an opportunity to actually remove myself and experience something completely different. She’s seen her brother travel. She doesn’t really get the opportunity to do that, because she’s a woman. It’s also quite a sneaky way of her being like, ‘Mom, I’ll be safe, I’m with family, but I’m probably going to go do stuff’.’ She lets go of a lot of crap and relinquishes any sense of attachment to these gripes she’s had and goes free.”