Dearest gentle reader, it’s official — Bridgerton‘s fourth season will focus on Benedict, played by Luke Thompson.
The news was confirmed on Tudum and via Netflix‘s X account on Tuesday. “It has been brought to this author’s attention that perhaps it is time to unmask the newest suitor of the marriage mart… Benedict Bridgerton’s story is coming next season.”
The show will turn its attention to the second-eldest Bridgerton brother, who is loath to settle down — until he meets a captivating Lady in Silver (or — spoiler alert! — as book fans will know her, Sophie) at his mother’s masquerade ball.
The Regency-era drama has just smashed records as one of the streaming service’s most-watched shows, with Luke Newton’s Colin and Nicola Coughlan’s Penelope passing the baton to Thompson.
The season will have eight episodes. A premiere date has yet to be announced.
Showrunner Jess Brownell gave The Hollywood Reporter all the season four info she could in June, confirming it’ll be a two-year wait before the next season airs. “We are working to try and put the seasons out more quickly, but they do take eight months to film and then they have to be edited, and then they have to be dubbed into every language,” she said. “And the writing takes a very long time as well, so we’re kind of on a two-year pace, we’re trying to speed up, but somewhere in that range.”
When asked at the time about what was ahead for Benedict, Brownell cited an insightful moment that came at the end of season three.
“We’re going to continue on the storyline of Benedict learning exactly how he wants to exist in the world. There’s a moment towards the end of the season where Benedict is talking to Tilley about how he doesn’t want anything serious, and Tilley, in a very powerful way, says to him, ‘That’s OK, but it was really nice to want something for once,’” she said. “And there’s a look on Benedict’s face that I think Luke Thompson delivers really beautifully, where you can tell that that hits him in a deep way.”
She continued, “I think Benedict is someone who experiences a lot of breadths in his life in terms of a million different experiences, but he’s never really committed to anything. I think what he’s starting to realize is that he also craves depth, and so Benedict reconciling breadth with depth is something we’re going to dive into pretty deeply in future seasons.”
With the news official, Brownell told Tudum, “It felt important for him to explore the fullness of himself before he settles down. He is someone who has big appetites, and we wanted to see him living a big life before he goes into settle-down mode.”
According to Netflix’s internal rankings, the first half of season three racked up 45.05 million views (total hours watched divided by running time) in the first weeks of its release worldwide. That’s about 165.2 million hours of viewing time.
The show, adapted from Julia Quinn’s books and produced by Shonda Rhimes‘ master company Shondaland, also stars Jonathan Bailey, Simone Ashley, Claudia Jessie, Golda Rosheuvel, Adjoa Andoh and Ruth Gemmell.