Bridgerton Season 4: What to Expect Next, Based on the Books

When it comes to Regency-lite romance Bridgerton, it’s out with the old, in with the new! Unless you’re still not over season three’s Penelope and Colin, or season two’s Kate and Anthony — Polin and Kanthony will reign in our hearts forever. And yet, as Lady Whistledown instructed us, it’s time to look toward the future. By now, you know the deal with Bridgerton: Based on Julia Quinn’s series of romance novels about an aristocratic family in early 1800s England just boiling over with hot, horny siblings, every season puts one Bridgerton sibling and their happily-ever-after in the spotlight.

As evidenced by season three being based on Romancing Mister Bridgerton, the fourth book in the series, the show isn’t exactly concerned with following the same order as the novels. This, of course, means we have to wait until an official confirmation to know who will be the lead of the next season. We do, however, have some context clues and a whole book series to pull from to make some predictions. Here are the most likely suspects for both our lead Bridgerton and some other story lines that might play out in season four, based on what we know from the books. Obviously, we’ve got a whole lot of spoilers below.

It’s not official yet, but all signs seem to be pointing to season four tossing Benedict Bridgerton into the hot seat, right? In the season-three finale, Eloise, who is off to Scotland with Francesca, tells Ben not to worry because she’ll be back next year: “Do you think mama would ever let me miss her Masquerade Ball?” Everyone who’s read Benedict’s book, An Offer From a Gentleman, is well aware that the second eldest Bridgerton meets the love of his life, Sophie Beckett, at his mother’s Masquerade Ball. It is imminent!

Of course, if Bridgerton wants to jerk us around a little, they could make the Masquerade Ball happen later in the season and give the main-character reins to someone else — Francesca maybe? But then we also get a shot of Benedict as the Lady Whistledown voice-over talks about looking toward the future. Plus, there’s that line he delivers to Eloise while they’re on the swings about how he feels “the next thing I might learn may change me entirely.” I’ve got to believe those are signs that Mr. Abundance of Love’s time has come.

There are a lot of similarities between where TV-Benedict is, emotionally speaking, and book-Benedict. Benedict’s story kicks off in one season and then jumps two years later. Initially, we find Benedict at the Masquerade Ball very much not at all into looking for a wife. That is, until he sees a “breathtaking” masked lady from across the room and spends the entire evening with her, until she runs off at the end of the night. Though he tries, he can’t track her down in the following days. She is gone. We, of course, know she is Sophie, the illegitimate daughter of an earl who has since passed, and his evil wife has turned Sophie into a lady’s maid. If that sounds like the setup to Cinderella, good, you’re paying attention. Benedict spends two years avoiding marriage, not because he’s against it but because he never meets anyone who makes him feel the way Sophie did, and he secretly worries that he’ll get married and the next day he’ll find his mystery woman. At this point, Benedict has been living the Bacchus life for years and has grown tired of it. And then Sophie walks back into his life. We won’t talk about the whole “he asks her to be his mistress” thing that I pray the show ditches. Our Benedict is better than that!

TV-Benedict and book-Benedict are both a little aimless and trying to figure out who they are, who they love, and how to find the courage to be that person once they do come to some conclusions. Although the timeline in his novel might have to get sped up, we’ve been getting beats from the book all along: We’ve seen him do everything he can to avoid marriage, we’ve seen him embrace being aimless, and at the end of season three, we even get Tilley Arnold warning him that “merriment can grow tiring,” perhaps hinting at him discovering exactly that when we return. We’ve also seen our little bisexual lord broaden his horizons as far as love and romance goes; we know he’s open to loving anyone, regardless of gender, regardless of class. He feels primed to open up his heart to someone who might not fit into who the ton has deemed acceptable. TV-Benedict is ready.

We’ve got to get into deep book spoilers here to fully analyze what may happen to Francesca in season four, so prepare yourself accordingly. I still think her main-character season won’t come until season five, but I could be wrong. Though if she is still a supporting character, there is going to be a lot going on with her off in Scotland, regardless.

You may have surmised from the way Frannie’s arc wrapped up at the end of season three that her love story with John Stirling is not a closed book just yet. You may have also surmised that something is going on between Francesca and John’s cousin by the way Francesca gets all hot and bothered upon introduction. You’d be right on both accounts. You may have also guessed based on the squeals heard across the internet and the fact that Julia Quinn’s novels aren’t exactly known for their efforts to present queer love stories, that in Francesca’s novel, When He Was Wicked (book No. 6), John’s cousin is a man — Michael Stirling. At the end of season three, Francesca meets Michaela Stirling and it seems her world is turned upside down. It is a delightful switcheroo.

This is different from the novel in more ways than just the gender flip. When He Was Wicked begins in 1820, when Francesca and John are about to celebrate their two-year anniversary. We learn that Michael, who is more like a brother to John than a cousin, has been pining away for Francesca since the day he met her. John and Francesca, however, are very much in love. She describes her husband as a “kindred spirit” who “removed her from the chaos that was so often the Bridgerton household.” She says he completed her. John suddenly dies (in chapter two!), leaving Michael the heir to Kilmartin, but after making a fool of himself in front of Frannie, he runs away, doesn’t get married, and leaves Francesca with all of her former Countess of Kilmartin duties, until the two meet up again in 1824. Francesca is ready to put herself out there again, mostly because she wants to become a mother, which means she’d give up the Kilmartin title. That is, until, sparks fly between her and the new Earl of Kilmartin.

We don’t get a ton of Francesca and John’s marriage in the books, nor Michael pining away before John’s death. It’s possible season four will showcase that whole section of the story before ripping our hearts out by killing off John. It’ll be so interesting to see what they do to the story with the changes they’ve already set in motion. In the series, it’s clear it’s Francesca who has fallen for Michaela at first sight. She said she wanted to figure out who she is and listen to her own voice while in Scotland, and it seems like her own voice is going to be screaming I’m here and I’m queer, baby! How will this affect her marriage to John? Will he know? Will Michaela fall hard and fast for Francesca, too? All things that can be explored in season four.

The other major conflict, especially at the beginning of the novel, has a lot to do with heirs and titles and Michael not feeling worthy of stepping into John’s role. This will also be something Bridgerton will have to work out, now that John’s cousin and closest confidante is a woman, and we all know how Regency-era laws felt about women owning things. It’ll be fun to see how season four sets the table for these two future leading ladies.

The end of season three finds Eloise setting off to join her sister Francesca in Scotland. After years of railing against her bubble in Mayfair and doing little about it — and having not one, but two characters point out that she is all talk and no action — Eloise finally realizes that if she wants to make any sort of change in the world, she needs to see it first. In fact, she says just that multiple times. The significance of this decision coming on the heels of her best friend Penelope leaping forward in life both professionally and personally should not be discounted, either. Through Lady Whistledown, Pen has found power and a voice, and for Eloise, that has to be motivating. Seeing Penelope, her onetime sister-in-spinsterhood, fall in love and get married also makes her feel a certain way. She’s happy for Pen and Colin, of course, but we know she feels like she’s losing two people she considered her best friends; she’s got to be feeling a little lonely. Her choice to head off into the world for adventures has a lot of layers to it.

And although book-Eloise is pretty different from TV-Eloise, a lot of these emotions play into her decision-making in her novel, To Sir Phillip, With Love, the fifth in the series. Book-El is still stubborn and tenacious and doesn’t really seem concerned with marriage, but that’s less because she loathes the institution and more that she kind of just doesn’t care? She figures it will happen eventually, and for years, she has Penelope by her side in spinsterhood, so it’s no big deal. Her story in the novel kicks off after Penelope and Colin have gotten married and she is feeling extremely lonely. She’s happy for them but feels left behind. “I had to do something; I couldn’t just sit and wait for life to happen to me any longer,” she tells Anthony at one point.

In the book, which takes place in 1824, she’s older than her TV counterpart (Pen and Colin’s story takes place around the same time); she is 28 and has turned down several proposals in her time because she figures she has the luxury of waiting for the right guy. Eventually, though, she looks up and realizes she may have waited too long. Book-Eloise is stressed about this — that’s why, when she begins writing to her late cousin’s widower and he suggests, without even meeting her, that they should get married, she considers it. She considers it so much, in fact, that she runs off from her family to go hang out with him for a little while to see if they are a match.

While a lot of TV-Eloise’s motivations for heading to Scotland mirror where book-Eloise is at the start of To Sir Phillip, I find it hard to believe that TV-Eloise will follow in those footsteps exactly. She doesn’t seem anywhere nearly as desperate or stressed about finding a match — right now, she seems much more concerned with making a mark on the world. But who knows, maybe in the rolling hills of Scotland she might strike up a friendship with a certain someone that will pay off down the line.

And, YES, if you looked at the title of her book and were like, That’s weird, don’t we know a Sir Phillip? You are right, my babe! The Sir Phillip in question is Sir Phillip Crane, he of the Marina Pregnancy Scandal Cranes in season one. In the books, Eloise strikes up a correspondence with Phillip after Marina dies (it’s actually very sad) — in the books, Marina is a Bridgerton cousin, not a Featherington one — and they wind up falling madly in love. Aside from the change in who Marina is related to, they’ve stuck pretty close to Phillip’s story thus far, so there’s no reason at present to believe they won’t continue with it. There’s still lots of time for Phillip to make a reentrance into the Bridgerverse — perhaps he’ll pop up again to remind us he’s around in season four? — but we’ll have to wait and see if/how/why he sweeps someone who at the moment feels so unsweepable off her feet.

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