Bridgerton Season 4 Part 2 episodes 5 to 8: Does Netflix show offer more than Benedict-Sophie romance? Details here

Bridgerton Season 4 Part 2 episodes 5 to 8 are currently streaming on Netflix. With this the fourth season of Shonda Rhimes's 'Bridgerton' concludes this week, crackles with romantic electricity between two lovers: Benedict, the second son of the wealthy Bridgerton family, and Sophie, his family's maid. When Benedict, played by Luke Thompson, and Sophie, played by Yerin Ha, are onscreen together, the scenes thrum with their attraction. Their palpable connection is the best part of the show.

But then the spell breaks and the show moves on to another plot, or subplot, with other characters. And this is why "Bridgerton" will always be frustrating to me. Instead of a study of two characters' evolving erotic connection, the show is a sprawling soap opera. We are faced with scenes of Francesca Bridgerton's passionless marriage bed and Violet Bridgerton's first ever assignation; we see the Featherington housekeeper requesting better pay and Lady Danbury scheming to retire from the queen's service, NYT News Service reported.

The season's wandering eye for subplots consistently nudges the central lovers out of frame. Each of these detours is distracting, blocking the climb to the romantic pinnacle we otherwise could have achieved. It also gets in the way of the full consummation of the Shondaland adaptation's more radical intentions. Along with being sexy entertainment, the show aspires to disrupt expectations about who is allowed to star in our romance fantasies. It set out to repaint the ballroom-wall-to-ballroom-wall whiteness common in historical romance and offer a modern, feminist approach to the genre, as per NYT News Service report.


In trying to accomplish that goal while adapting source material, Julia Quinn's popular romance novels, that lacked such an inclusive vision, "Bridgerton" does not commit wholly to its central romances and, ultimately, also does not fulfill its most incendiary potential.

If only the remainder of this season of "Bridgerton" were to commit as wholly to its central couple as "Heated Rivalry" did. It could tell a compelling story about the intersection of class, gender, sexuality and race through them. Sophie is a maid and (unlike the novel's blond, green-eyed heroine) is cast as Asian. Benedict's queerness complicates his gender, wealth and whiteness. The confluence of their identities -- unique to the adaptation -- could help elevate this season beyond its hackneyed Cinderella-story source material, as long as the courtship plot remains in focus. That version of "Bridgerton" could finally be a romance adaptation in which the couple also embodies a radical revision of society: racial integration, gender equality, sexual citizenship, bodily acceptance and economic safety.

Politics in romance, like consent, can be sexy and powerful. It is of course possible that, despite the subplots and crowded cast, some viewers could look at Benedict and Sophie's world and come to critique our present through the familiar made strange. This is, after all, a story set in a country that invades others to extract resources and where the king has lost his mind, the privileged class ignores or exploits its vulnerable and the media tries to please the mighty, according to NYT News Service report.

But scattering that politics across too many actors blunts its force and dilutes the romance. Channel the same critiques via two lovers who viewers adore -- and there lies tinder for a revolution.