Disclaimer: This article contains mild spoilers for Bridgerton Season 4.
Dearest gentle reader, have you watched “Bridgerton” Season 4? Like most romance-drama lovers, I was excited when I heard that yet another season of “Bridgerton” had dropped. There was so much to look forward to! One reasonably expected the glorious wigs on the Queen’s (Golda Rosheuvel) head, her amazing facial expressions, the palace of grandeur, the intimidating sophistication of Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), and that indescribable thing about her eyebrows. Of course, the possible appearance of Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey, AKA People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2025), coupled with the romance and swooning, the language of an earlier time, the faff of organizing balls romanticized in a montage, the declarations of love, the pop music made classical, and the raunchy love scenes were all things to look forward to.
And yet, Francesca Bridgerton (Hannah Dodd), who was seemingly gay in Season 3, was seemingly gay no more in Season 4 — and that was the least of my disappointments. I think we can all agree that Season 4 of Bridgerton leaned too far into its chosen “Cinderella trope.” Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha) is bedazzled by the Penwood cook Irma (Fiona Marr) to resemble royalty and sent off to a masquerade ball where she meets her man of nobility. Then, the clock strikes midnight, and she has to flee, leaving a glove. Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson), the bohemian turned family man/hopeless romantic, then spends days on end searching for the fair damsel who left the glove behind. The same damsel, we discover, is living under a cruel stepmother whose reasons for cruelty are rather thin.
And of course, the show manufactures strife throughout, with subplots led by Lord John Stirling (Victor Alli), the Queen and Lady Danbury, Lady Whistledown — whose position in the town is constantly changing — as well as Lady Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) and Marcus Anderson (Daniel Francis) who engage in some elegant coquetry. But, in the end, through some scheme involving the Queen, the romance works out, and Sophie joins the nobility. The end.
While I write with a lot of contempt (contempt that applies more so to film and television in the modern day than to “Bridgerton” alone), I thought there was a lot to learn from the show. Rather, to be more specific, there is a lot that can be inferred beneath the surface of what is so blatantly obvious about the show. I think, for instance, that Sophie Baek’s rise to nobility, in addition to physical attractiveness, is due in great part to the fact that many in nobility found her educated and sophisticated; that, despite being a maid, she had the techne, episteme, and the je ne sais quoi that made her fit in with royalty. There is, therefore, encoded in the plot of the show the idea that love is not simply attraction, but an assessment — one that ought to be passed if love is to be sparked and sustained.
It was also interesting to see just how much excess there is in the lives of heads of state. The Queen is the pinnacle of the show’s extravagance: her little dogs and ladies in waiting, her stacks of bonbons that she never eats but has only for the sake of having, her baths in milk, her grand palace that mainly houses all her excessiveness and the servants who sustain it, the animals she imports only for her amusement, her carriage made of gold, and her elaborate gowns and wigs that all serve to intimidate those who seek her. After all, it is not a crown that makes one king, but reverence. I have always said that while many monarchies have fallen, their excesses remain. Presidents, even in the poorest of countries (perhaps more so), are worshipped with buffets in the grand halls of their administrative homes, are catered to by numerous servants, and travel in the most exquisite of means. And yet “Bridgerton” manages to romanticize this, not necessarily because of how beautiful it looks, but because its entire world exists within Mayfair. Indeed, if we all lived in the Hamptons, we would be at a loss to think that there is strife in the world. All one must do, after all, is work hard.
However, maybe all of this is my existential struggle to contend with the irrefutable fact that all of us are, implicitly or otherwise, designated a place in the world and in society. Those at the tippy top often arrive at their place without deserving, while those below struggle, and fight, and sweat but never quite reach. And even on those rare occasions when they seem to succeed, they find themselves still perpetually reaching, and then the world calls them nouveau riche, gauche, and tacky. And so, what was/is the point?
And yes, I know what some of you may be thinking:
“But Dalton, come on. The show is supposed to be kind of terrible.”
“It’s trash TV. It’s never that serious.”
“Again, with all the philosophy!”
“Could you just allow the delusion and enjoy?”
“Do you like anything?”
“Oh, so you are a glass-half-empty kind of guy?”
And maybe you’re right, maybe I should “chill.” But, in the words of James Baldwin, “It would seem, unless one looks deeply at the phenomenon, that most people are able to delude themselves and get through their lives quite happily. But I still believe the unexamined life is not worth living: and I know that self-delusion, in the service of no matter what small or lofty cause, is a price no writer can afford.” And I am, after all, a writer.
