Netflix’s romantic drama Bridgerton is finally back for a fourth season, with the first half of the episodes dropping Jan. 29 and the second half on Feb. 26. As with every season so far, the new installment takes a novel from romance author Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series, about the love stories of the eight Bridgerton siblings (with spinoffs addressing the Bridgerton matriarch and other relatives), and adapts it into what we’ve all been eagerly awaiting: eight episodes of high-stakes, alt-regency, romantic and societal entangling.
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Season 4 focuses on Benedict, but many narratives from Season 3 are likely to ripple into the new season. Since it’s been nearly two years, you may be in need of a refresher. Here’s everything you need to remember about Season 3 before you jump into Season 4.
Where we last saw an aimless Benedict
Everyone’s favorite brother and ne’er do well, Benedict, met a nice counterculture-vibing widow who clocked that he was bisexual and gave him the room to explore that in threesomes with her and another lover. However, when she asks him to close off their relationship to just the two of them, he says he’d rather not be tied down to one person for the time being. Meanwhile, he’s doing everything he can to avoid his art, responsibility, anything at all really, though he does just fine filling in for his viscount brother in the matter of their estate’s affairs when the latter is traveling on his honeymoon.
He closes Season 3 by telling Eloise that he’ll see her at their mother’s masquerade ball; Whistledown is far from the last thing getting unmasked in the Bridgerton universe.
All the married Bridgerton siblings
Daphne and Simon have long since been living happily-ever-after somewhere mostly off screen. Anthony and Kate floated through the background of Season 3 with much less turmoil in their lives than before, and their decision to go to India so their child can know their mother’s homeland sets the stage for them to be as absent in Season 4 as Daphne and Simon were last season.
Season 3 brought us the weddings of not one, but two Bridgertons. Quiet, introverted Francesca Bridgerton meets and marries soft-spoken, gentle John Stirling, the Earl of Kilmartin, in a sweet, intimate ceremony at home—and then meets his cousin Michaela, whom she appears to be quite taken by. Colin Bridgerton finally removes his head from his unmentionables to realize he’s been in love with Penelope Featherington this whole time, and her once one-sided crush on him is requited, though not without some dramatic tension regarding the fact that she’s Lady Whistledown, whom Colin once despised. They end Season 3 with a new baby boy, who inherits the Featherington title.
Lady Whistledown is revealed to the ton
Colin abandons his hatred for Whistledown, telling Penelope so after her impassioned speech in the last episode of Season 3 on the power of gossip, and her pledge to wield that power more responsibly. No longer is Lady Whistledown anonymous; now, Penelope’s open status as the gossipmonger of the ton leads to questions about how her lack of anonymity will affect the nature of the information she’ll be able to receive and print.
Lady Danbury’s storyline (and the Queen’s)
In the books, Lady Danbury is a much more minor, though still fun, character. And as we’ve written about previously, there is no queenly presence in the books. The show builds them into the biggest powerhouse couple of the entire series, with an enormous amount of social capital. Queen Charlotte spends Season 3 sparring with and hunting down Lady Whistledown, while Lady Danbury nudges her to pay attention to the peerage, and in particular, Francesca. Now that Lady Whistledown is unmasked, what will attract the queen’s attention next? And how will Lady Danbury be involved?
Penelope and Eloise are friends again
These best friends couldn’t stay mad at each other for too long. Though Season 3 dealt with their massive fallout after Eloise finds out that Penelope is Whistledown in Season 2, they banded together in the latter half of Season 3 to protect the Bridgertons, and are now close again. We’re relieved, but what will their relationship look like now that one has the social security and status of being a married woman (not to mention the status of being Lady Whistledown) and the other doesn’t?
We’ll also hopefully find out what Eloise’s plans are—however aimless Benedict is, so too is Eloise, hopping from rejecting society entirely and hating being socially punished for it, to ditching Penelope for mean-girl Cressida Cowper’s company, to finding out that she does actually like talking to the other debutantes, at least some of the time. She tells Benedict near the end of the season that she’s done with fitting in. Eloise tags along with Francesca to Scotland so that she can see some of the world that she wants so badly to change.
Cressida is gone
Cressida, the meanest, loneliest girl in the ton, left at the end of Season 3. After claiming to be Lady Whistledown to collect the Queen’s ransom for her, bungling the effort spectacularly, blackmailing Penelope once she realized who Whistledown really is, and being foiled by Penelope’s self-directed reveal to the ton, Cressida is banished by her father (and, to some extent, society at large) to live in Wales with a gloomy aunt.
Violet Bridgerton’s garden is in bloom
That metaphor for Mother Bridgerton’s sexual reawakenings comes directly from the show: Violet Bridgerton meets Lady Danbury’s brother and really wants him to…water her garden? After Lady Danbury and said brother patch up their beef, the road is clear for Violet to enjoy herself. Godspeed.
The Mondriches are rising up in the world
Remember Will and Alice Mondrich? From their humble beginnings as boxer and wife in Season 1, to club owners in Season 2, Season 3 saw them adjust to life as nobility when a distant aunt’s death transferred a title and estate to their eldest son. Season 4 will hopefully show us how that transition is faring.