Half of the world is watching politics, and the other half is watching Bridgerton.
Bridgerton, a show set in England during the Regency Era, follows the Bridgerton family’s children as they find love.
It was first released back at the end of 2020 and took the world by storm. According to Indiewire.com, Bridgerton’s first season had 625 million hours of viewing, from 82 million households.
The show manages to top its own numbers with every season release, and the most recent season four did no different on Netflix.
Season four was about the second-oldest son, Benedict Bridgerton, a man of nobility, finding love with Sophie Baek, an illegitimate maid.
The story had much potential, but the process was a bit lacking.
It was widely known that the story was based on the Cinderella trope; however, even if the fact wasn’t revealed, it would have been blatantly obvious.
Cinderella is a children’s tale based on a Prince and a maid meeting at a royal ball, after Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother came to reward her for all her grace while dealing with mistreatment from her stepfamily.
She stole the prince’s heart at the party; however, she abandoned him at midnight because that’s when her Fairy Godmother’s magic wore off.
The prince ultimately found her due to her shoe that fell off during her quick escape; he made every single woman in town try on the shoe to see who would be a “perfect fit.”
In the very first episode of season four, disregarding the fact that Sophie is a maid and is living with someone who acts as her “stepmother,” her “fairy godmother,” who acted as the person helping her go to the party to repay her kindness, were the people she considered her closest friends, also working for her stepmother.
“I really enjoyed the “Cinderella” retelling since it brought out Benedict’s true personality throughout the search of his runaway match which came to be a perfect story for the two characters.
— Anabelle Cervone, '27
.sno-pullquote-69b4504ad3785 { display: flex; float: left; margin: 30px 30px 30px 0; width: 50%; border-color: #870000; border-top-width: 5px; border-right-width: 5px; border-bottom-width: 5px; border-left-width: 5px; } .sno-pullquote-69b4504ad3785 p.pullquotetext, .sno-pullquote-69b4504ad3785 p.quotespeaker { } .sno-pullquote-69b4504ad3785 .pullquotepic { width: 33%; margin-left: 25px; } .sno-story-body .sno-pullquote-69b4504ad3785 p.pullquotetext { font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.4em; } .sno-pullquote-69b4504ad3785 .quotebar { background: #dddddd; flex: 0 0 90px; margin-top: -15px; margin-left: -15px; padding-left: 15px; padding-top: 15px; margin-right: 15px; } .sno-pullquote-69b4504ad3785 .largequote { color: ; } .sno-pullquote-69b4504ad3785 .quotebody { width: unset; }They stated it wasn’t fair for her to be mistreated in the cruel manner she always was, and helped her find a dress and stole a pair of her stepmother’s shoes.
The biggest parallel was that instead of leaving behind her shoe, she left behind her glove at a masquerade ball.
Thank goodness for the fact that Benedict did not go around town asking women to try on the glove, but he did inquire about it with a few families of the “ton,” or society.
On top of the parallel of the prince looking for Cinderella, of course, even with all of Benedict’s drawings of his moments with (and of) Sophie, he still didn’t recognize her when they first encountered each other as themselves.
To his defense, he asked if they knew each other, but he continued to not recognize her. They spent around a week together after the masquerade ball, because Sophie wanted to escape London and ran into trouble, when Benedict offered his help.
He offered her a job to get her off her feet, at his family’s house, when he proceeded to see her all the time, and still continued to not recognize her.
Also, along with the cliché story, it ruined the most important part of a story: the ending.
The season finale, with Sophie getting a title and being able to legitimately marry Benedict, was too predictable for audiences.
Kayla Centeno, ’27, commented, “I couldn’t understand how she was going to end up with him at all because she was a maid, and he wasn’t allowed to marry a maid, but it came together when I realized they could be together because of the will.”
The inspiration taken from the classic tale about Cinderella suggests more mimicry than “muse.”
There were also moments in the storyline that felt a little too rushed, such as the week-long adventures Sophie and Benedict shared.
On the contrary, some scenes felt repetitive. For example, whenever Benedict and Sophie would see one another while Sophie was working at his home.
While the main storyline is questionable, smaller plot lines with the rest of the Bridgerton family kept the season entertaining.
Every season has character development for most of the family; however, this season seemed to contain more, even going above and beyond by welcoming new family members and saying farewell to others.
Fans are already awaiting the next season, said to contain the start of Eloise Bridgerton’s love story, and continue Francesca Bridgerton’s after everything that happened to her in seasons three and four.