How ‘Bridgerton’ Lost Its Way

Dr. Kamblé is a professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, whose research focuses on romance novels and narratives.

The fourth season of Shonda Rhimes’s “Bridgerton,” which concludes this week, crackles with romantic electricity between two lovers: Benedict, the second son of the wealthy Bridgerton family, and Sophie, his family’s maid. When Benedict, played by Luke Thompson, and Sophie, played by Yerin Ha, are onscreen together, the scenes thrum with their attraction. Their palpable connection is, for me, the best part of the show.

But then the spell breaks and the show moves on to another plot, or subplot, with other characters. And this is why “Bridgerton” will always be frustrating to me. Instead of a study of two characters’ evolving erotic connection, the show is a sprawling soap opera. We are faced with scenes of Francesca Bridgerton’s passionless marriage bed and Violet Bridgerton’s first ever assignation; we see the Featherington housekeeper requesting better pay and Lady Danbury scheming to retire from the queen’s service.

The season’s wandering eye for subplots consistently nudges the central lovers out of frame. Each of these detours is distracting, blocking the climb to the romantic pinnacle we otherwise could have achieved. It also gets in the way of the full consummation of the Shondaland adaptation’s more radical intentions. Along with being sexy entertainment, the show aspires to disrupt expectations about who is allowed to star in our romance fantasies. It set out to repaint the ballroom-wall-to-ballroom-wall whiteness common in historical romance and offer a modern, feminist approach to the genre.

In trying to accomplish that goal while adapting source material, Julia Quinn’s popular romance novels, that lacked such an inclusive vision, “Bridgerton” does not commit wholly to its central romances and, ultimately, also does not fulfill its most incendiary potential.

The pitfalls were on display even in its first season. It stayed true to the first Bridgerton novel’s romance plot, with a meet-cute misunderstanding between Simon and Daphne, their mutually beneficial fake-dating pact and many sex scenes — indoors and outdoors. But it also felt as if we were stealing time with the lovers who were supposed to be the protagonists. Between interludes with them, we had to watch Daphne’s brother Anthony’s energetic liaison with a singer, her sister Eloise’s critiques of gender roles, the neighboring Featheringtons’ absurdities, their unwed cousin’s pregnancy and the work and home life of the Black boxer Will Mondrich. Each thread unlaced the tightly corseted romance plot, albeit to assemble a rich ensemble — the precarious lot of working-class women, the history of Black Britain, the sexual and professional lives of people who were not wealthy, white or straight.

The show offered an in-universe narrative about racial integration — spurred by the interracial love of its king and queen — and scenes of working-class characters, women throwing punches and queer desire. Over time, a wider constellation of characters has been deployed to point quickly at colonialism, class mobility and other forms of sociopolitical marginalization.

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