See you swoon?: Deepanjana Pal on plot tangles, Bridgerton and Heated Rivalry

When it first arrived, Bridgerton felt refreshing because of the show’s decision to cast Black actors in prominent roles for a story set in Regency-era England. Season 2 saw a viscount fall in love with an Indian woman and we turned a blind eye to the comically bad hat tips to Indian culture, because of the crackling chemistry between Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) and Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey).

Then came Polin, in which Nicola Coughlan was so luminous as Penelope Featherington that little else registered. We even forgave the two-part release of the season, which hampered the narrative, but possibly helped subscription drives.

This time, the Far East gets its toe into this world. In Season 4, Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha) and her family cross paths with Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson). The plot is Cinderella meets Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008), because much like Anushka Sharma’s character was blinded by a thin moustache and couldn’t recognise Shah Rukh Khan when he was clean-shaven, Benedict is bamboozled by a masked Sophie at a masquerade ball.

The mysterious Lady in Silver haunts Benedict, and yet he can’t recognise her face or voice when Sophie stands before him, sans her mask and in a maid’s uniform.

At least in the first four episodes, the writing in Bridgerton has all the flair of AI slop. This is particularly true of the subplots, such as the one featuring Violet (Ruth Gemmell), the widowed matriarch of the Bridgerton brood. This season, she gets a second chance at love with Marcus Anderson (Daniel Francis), a reformed rake who feels half-baked and thinly written. This romantic track moves with too much haste and too little charm.

Meanwhile, the show that has also come to be known for its elaborate intimacy scenes appears, four seasons in, to be struggling to balance audience expectations, on this front, with storytelling. The narrative seems to pay little attention to characterisation, conflict or drama. Instead, all focus is on concocting situations in which an actor may shed items of clothing.

The series that has outplayed Bridgerton at this game is the Canadian show, Heated Rivalry (2025). Based on a gay sports romance novel by Rachel Reid and adapted for the screen by Jacob Tierney, this show’s lead pair drop their pants at every possible opportunity, but without loosening the tension of forbidden romance.

Heated Rivalry, like Red, White & Royal Blue (2023), belongs to that tradition of queer romances between men that seem written for women. The books and their adaptations incorporate a female gaze even more than a queer one.

Ironically, if one were looking for an intense queer gaze in popular entertainment, Bridgerton would fit the bill, despite its many straight-as-arrow romances. Across the show’s four seasons, the viewfinder is distinctly queer-coded, especially when it comes to how it films men’s bodies. To quote Thompson, who as Benedict features in many of these scenes: “I feel Bridgerton owns my ass.”

In all fairness, his isn’t the only one. This show owns its audience in a way that few others have managed. This is only partly because of how it has spiced up the romance genre. Even in a listless season like this one, Bridgerton has its narrative hooks, like the decision to end the first half with (spoiler alert) Benedict asking Sophie to be not his wife but his mistress. The second half of Season 4 can’t come soon enough.

(To reach Deepanjana Pal, write to @dpanjana on Instagram. The views expressed are personal)