Those gentle readers aren’t so gentle after the first teaser for Bridgerton season 4 part 2. Netflix has confirmed that we’re getting the iconic bathtub scene from the original book series, complete with Benedict’s (Luke Thompson) veiny hands and hushed, seductive tones while calling Sophie (Yerin Ha) his mistress.
Meanwhile, I’m of a different opinion. Not only am I excited to see the second half of season 4 for completely different reasons, there’s a huge issue with the Benophie (that’s the Benedict and Sophie fan name) relationship staring us in the face – and if we’re being really pernickety, there’s two.
Hang on… didn’t part 1 end with Sophie claiming that she didn’t want to be a mistress?
It’s unsurprisingly that Benedict and Sophie are going to end up together by the time season 4 part 2 comes to a close, but the speed of Sophie’s U-turn is giving me whiplash. When we last saw her onscreen, Sophie was running away from Benedict after an intimate moment with Benedict, where he flat-out asked her to be his mistress.
Gaining mistress-status isn’t exactly what any girl dreams of, but since we’ve learned that Sophie is Lord Penwood’s daughter, she’s technically entitled to much more than she’s getting. Trying to work out what’s happened between the two scenes is absolutely mind-boggling, and I’ll be incredibly disappointed if Sophie suddenly rejects her own high standards.
Then again, I shouldn’t be too fazed by haphazard changes like this. Part 1 already missed out a key detail in Benedict and Sophie’s courtship that might have settled why Benedict didn’t recognize Sophie after his initial visit to the Penwood house.
According to the books, the scenes we see at Benedict’s cottage take place two years after the pair meet at Violet’s (Ruth Gemmell) masquerade ball. Benedict continuously failing to recognize Sophie is one of part 1’s biggest bug bears, and this could have been reasoned away a lot more clearly.
So do I have hope in Netflix making the bathtub scene as steamy and spectacular as it is in the novel? On the surface, yes, but as far as narrative inconsistencies go, they’ll be as present as ever.
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