I don’t want to put too fine a point on it, but the autumn of 2024 was not its best self. It had the opportunity to be a top-tier fall, and IT SUCKED. I expect this kind of crap from the summer, but not this beautiful season that I love so much. I will not look back on it fondly, and it’s time to put it far, far in our rearview mirrors and look forward to better ones in the future. Can we turn it around for 2025? We’ll see…the pendulum has pretty far to swing, but at the very least, 2026 should provide us with some redemption — in the form of incoming fall icons Benedict Bridgerton and Sophie Baek in Bridgerton Season 4.
While it’s absolute insanity that we have to wait two years for eight episodes of television, Bridgerton fans are nonetheless anticipating Benedict and Sophie’s story. And why shouldn’t we be? They were inexplicably passed over for Season 3, so our hopes and dreams for how An Offer From A Gentleman will be adapted for the screen are now even higher. Filming is underway, and even more than interviews and photos, one piece of information has excited me beyond anything else: Benedict and Sophie’s epic love story will be taking place in the fall.
Showrunner Jess Brownell told the Los Angeles Times, “I’ll tease this: You might be getting a different season from ‘Bridgerton.’ We always live in this perpetual spring in ‘Bridgerton,’ but we’re playing around with the idea of fall … for the first time. Some of that is about story and some of it is, honestly, just for practical reasons because we’re shooting in the fall. It’s still going to be just as lush and colorful, but just more in those warm fall colors instead of the pastels. There will still be some pastels, so it won’t look like a totally different show. I’ll give you that.”
I couldn’t be happier. Not only will this be a pretty, new aesthetic for the show, but it makes perfect sense. While I’ve never been a personal fan of springtime pastels, I get it. It’s been the right palate for the show thus far. But Sophie Baek and Benedict Bridgerton need something different. They need the fall. Get ready, friends, because I’m about to drop a super fun science fact! The golden jewel-toned yellow, orange, and red hues of leaves in the fall that are popularly associated with their decline are actually their real color. Chlorophyll creates the bright greens that emerge in spring and summer, and it’s only when the season changes that the leaves’ true nature can be revealed. It’s such an apt metaphor for Benedict and Sophie. The ton is all blooming pastels and soft greens.
Benedict and Sophie are not the ton.
Benedict Bridgerton has never really found his place in the world he was born into. Abhorrent of the social season, he ducks out of balls as early as he can. He prefers the more subdued vibe of Will Mondrich’s gentlemen’s club, and of course, he’s an artist above all else. At his core, Benedict isn’t a typical man of high society, so it makes sense that when Bridgerton Season 4 turns its focus to the exploration of his heart, it requires a departure from the normal scenery of the social season. He was never going to find his match in the way of his siblings, so why not highlight that difference visually in the storytelling as well? Despite discovering more about himself through exploring his sexuality in Season 3, by Episode 8, Benedict is as ill at ease as we’ve ever seen him. He tells Eloise about feeling that the next thing he goes through will change his life forever, and oh boy, is he right.
He’s about to be hit by a bus named Sophie Baek (or hit by a carriage, if you like, for a more era-appropriate example). As with the transformation of the book’s Kate Sheffield into the show’s Kate Sharma, fans are waiting with bated breath to see what will make the show’s Sophie Baek unique and which similarities our Season 4 heroine shares with the book’s Sophie Beckett. But we already know one thing that will remain unchanged is her status as a maid in the home of a society family — a role that makes her easily overlooked and unappreciated by many because they don’t see her for who she really is. It will be when Benedict and Sophie come together that their transformative love will allow everything that has kept their true colors from coming through to finally fade away.
The leaf analogy works, people, I’m telling you!
While I haven’t seen it in person yet, there are few places that look more beautiful to me than England in the fall, so I’ve been wanting to see it for a long time on Bridgerton. But in a way, I’m glad that they waited until now. It’s not just about the look, but an autumnal setting will enhance the narrative as well. Please save us, Bridgerton Season 4 Fall Aesthetic! We need you. Let’s keep our fingers crossed until 2026.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Gavin Bond Photography, Netlfix via Bridgerton social media accounts.