When the 2026 TV schedule begins, we’ll finally get Season 4 of Bridgerton and the highly anticipated adaptation of Benedict’s book, An Offer From a Gentleman. That alone was enough to excite me about what’s to come. However, the showrunner’s comment about why the second-oldest Bridgerton brother’s book was the “easiest” to adapt has my confidence in what’s to come growing.
As I’m sure you’re aware, my dearest reader, the upcoming season of the hit Netflix romance will tell the tale of Benedict (Luke Thompson) and Sophie (Yerin Ha). It’s a book-to-screen adaptation of Julia Quinn’s An Offer From a Gentleman, which is the third novel in her Bridgerton series, and it follows a Cinderella-like story. According to the series' showrunner, writer and producer, Jess Brownell, this tale has been one of the easiest to put together, as she told EW:
[It’s] the easiest book to adapt.
Now, for a brief history lesson, Season 1 of Bridgerton followed Quinn’s first book, which was Daphne’s story, The Duke and I. Season 2 was Anthony’s, The Viscount Who Loved Me, which is book two. And then for Season 3, they jumped to book four to adapt Colin and Penelope’s love story, Romancing Mister Bridgerton. Season 4 will now go back to Benedict’s book, which will follow him as he meets and falls in love with a maid named Sophie.
During this interview, Brownell noted why adapting Quinn’s third novel has been the easiest of the books to put to screen so far. Explaining her reasons, she said:
It lent itself really closely to television structure for a love story. There are just a lot of rich set pieces that gave us juicy conflict and high stakes. I think fans will be happy to see quite a few of the set pieces from the book in the show.
Obviously, there are a ton of things about the book that could play into why it was easy to adapt. However, what this quote seems to imply is that the novel An Offer for a Gentleman provided a great roadmap that is full of wonderful, big sights that will translate well on screen. For example, we know the masquerade ball will be a huge part of the show, as it’s a beloved sequence in the book, and that kind of opulent and visually stunning moment feels like it was meant to be on screen. Therefore, writing with that in mind could have been quite easy to do.
As Brownell mentioned, this book also lends itself to a television structure, which could mean that it was easier to figure out how to break this story up into episodes.
Along with that, there are a lot of rich plot points that Bridgerton hasn’t explored before. For example, Sophie does not come from a rich family, and diving into the the upstairs, downstairs dynamics that will come with Benedict and her falling in love will be fascinating to watch over the course of many episodes. As the showrunner said, that will bring a “totally new sensibility” to the show, which by itself had to have been fun to dive into.
Overall, it sounds like the source material for Benedict’s season gave the Bridgerton team everything they needed to make a great season of television. While no season of this show is like the other, Season 4 is going to be extremely different from the rest, as it sets out to tell a Cinderella-like story. Plus, it’s full of iconic moments. So, it makes sense to me that this romance was the “easiest” to adapt so far for the team.
Now, to see this adaptation for yourself, make sure to stream Part 1 of Bridgerton Season 4 with a Netflix subscription on January 29.
