Bridgerton concluded season 4 by killing off a major character.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Bridgerton season 4 part 2
During part 2, which aired on Thursday, February 26, Francesca’s (Hannah Dodd) husband, John (Victor Alli), died in his sleep. The pivotal moment changed the trajectory for the rest of the season as Francesca mourned her partner with help from her family and John’s cousin Michaela (Masali Baduza).
Francesca leaned heavily on Michaela, who promised to remain in Mayfair to support John’s widow. But by the time season 4 came to an end, Francesca found out that Michaela returned back to Scotland without saying goodbye.
The decision to kill off John might come as a surprise to some. But those that read Julia Quinn‘s book series know that Francesca wasn’t married to John long before his untimely death. She then mourned their marriage for some time before finding love with his cousin Michael.
Netflix’s hit series recreated John’s death from the book series but made a departure by gender-swapping Michael into Michaela. After the change from Quinn’s When He Was Wicked, showrunner Jess Brownell revealed that it was always the plan to explore Francesca’s sexuality.
(L to R) Hannah Dodd as Francesca Bridgerton, Victor Alli as John Stirling Liam Daniel/Netflix
“The reveal of Michaela vs. Michael — from the books — is something that I’ve been pitching from season 1 of the show,” Brownell told Teen Vogue in June 2024. “My approach to telling a queer story on Bridgerton has been to look to the books for thematic cues. I didn’t want to just insert a queer character for queer character’s sake.”
Brownell clarified that she received support from Quinn before making it official.
“The fact of the matter is, the fan base is not a monolith, and you’re never going to please every single side of the fan base,” she continued at the time. “In, for example, deciding to tell a queer story with Francesca, I spoke with Julia Quinn, I got her blessing.”
Brownell added: “We talked about the fact that with almost any single book, there would be a side of the fandom that would be disheartened to see their favorite characters changed. I don’t think that there is any book that wouldn’t happen with, so for me, again, it came back to story, and it came back to character.”
As soon as Netflix debuted Bridgerton, fans became invested in the stories still yet to be told. Based on Julia Quinn‘s novels of the same name, the series began with the love story of Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and Simon Basset (Regé-Jean Page). Season 2 of Bridgerton told the story of Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) […]
Alli, for his part, previously spoke exclusively to Us Weekly about watching fans mourn his death in advance.
“It is nice that people are invested. It’s nice that people know the story and it’s nice that people care. That was part of what Jess wanted. She really wanted the fans to be invested in John and Francesca,” he explained to Us in May 2024. “So that when [John] does eventually go, it will be so, so hard and really tough. It’ll be really sad actually because I know that I’m gonna obviously leave Bridgerton eventually.”
The story line for his character was such an open secret that even Alli’s costars poked fun at the book spoilers on set.
“Everyone knows what’s gonna happen and everyone knows my fate. There’ll be moments where I’ll be doing a scene and Luke might just be like, ‘Well, it’s fine. You’re gonna die anyway,’” Alli quipped. “So it was just really, really funny.”
He concluded: “I didn’t allow it to shape my performance. It’s part of the story and of course that happens in the future and what will be will be. But I guess you don’t anticipate it. Everything I did was just in the moment as opposed to, ‘Oh, gosh, I’m gonna die soon.’ It was more in the moment and living in the now.”
Bridgerton is now streaming on Netflix.
