Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for “Bridgerton” Season 4, Part 2, now available on Netflix.
Part 1 of “Bridgerton” Season 4 started slowly, but Part 2 makes up for lost time with two deeply intimate but very different sex scenes between Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) and Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha).
The first episode occurs at the end of episode 5 (the opening part of the second half of the season), when Sophie and Benedict succumb to their mutual desires and have sex in his bedroom, despite their fears of being caught and concerns about pregnancy. Set to the Vitamin String Quartet’s cover of Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control,” this spicy scene sees them succumb to the bad idea they started at the end of Part 1, before Benedict’s “mistress” proposal gets in the way.
“I think the tempo felt completely different when we were doing it,” Ha told Variety. “I think one is urgent and the other one needs a little more care and attention. In fact, that’s something we talked about in the first scene: Sophie knows how to undress herself, because she’s the one who knows it.” doesn’t need help, and there’s a lot of autonomy there. And we wanted it to be a little different than other seasons, probably about what it means to be in love with someone of a lower rank, who doesn’t inherently like help.”
Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek and Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton — Liam Daniel/Netflix
Liam Daniel/Netflix
The second doesn’t arrive until episode 8, the season 4 finale. This moment from Camila Cabello’s ‘Never Be the Same’, performed by Paris accompanied by strings, is taken straight from Julia Quinn’s book ‘An Offer from a Gentleman’, in which Benedict and Sophie share a bath in his room. However, there is no penetrative sex in this scene. Instead, Benedict cleanses Sophie, pleases her intimately without intercourse, respects the fact that Sophie is still afraid of pregnancy, and the two desperately try to gain family approval so that they can finally be together now that all they need is society’s approval.
“I think the bath scene also showed what Sophie enjoys,” Ha said. “What does it mean to give pleasure? What does it mean to receive pleasure? And in fact, giving is also a sense of self-satisfaction. But in that work, she takes the initiative when she feels like it, but gives up receiving. I think in the first one it was more about trying to go somewhere together, and in the other one it was more about giving and taking and being a little more poetic.”
Both scenes of physical intimacy were done in collaboration with “Bridgerton” intimacy coordinator Lizzie Talbot. Talbot also helped Thompson and Ha pretend to have sex in a giant bathtub with rushing water.
“That bathtub was long, and I have short legs,” Ha said with a laugh. “So there were a lot of procedures, like which arm to hang on to so you wouldn’t slip and fall into the water. But Lizzie Talbot is great at that. She’s the ultimate intimacy coordinator. And yeah, the sex scene in the bathtub, at the end of the day, isn’t as glamorous as you see it.”
Read more of Variety’s interview with Ha below, including her thoughts on the “fairy tale” of Benedict and Sophie’s future children, a conversation with showrunner Jess Brownell about her character, and how Sophie wants to spend more time downstairs and get to know Kate more in season 5.
Yerin Ha as Sophie Baek and Luke Thompson as Benedict Bridgerton — Liam Daniel/Netflix
Liam Daniel/Netflix
As Sophie and Benedict discuss their future together, he tells her that he has feelings for both men and women, and that they have had sex. Sophie handles this quickly and is very considerate and supportive, taking into account the time and historical context. Why do you think that is?
When I read that, I thought, “Oh, wow, Sophie is so open and generous.” And immediately I thought, “Well, that makes sense.” Because I think Sophie is someone who has always been misunderstood throughout her life. And she really has a hard time with people who judge her because of her class. Jess also told me that Sophie could be open to the fact that Alfie is also potentially someone with open sexuality. Like, she’s not new to it. And the maids are the people who gossip in every house, and they are also the people who really talk a lot.
So I don’t think she’s unaware of the concept of what open sexuality and fluidity look like. I am also a person who hates being misunderstood. So who is she who makes him feel misunderstood too? She’s a person with a lot of grace and ease and it’s all about love, right? It’s not a matter of the fact that he was with a man or a woman. It’s the fact that he’s really free to express himself, and that’s what’s so great about it. It’s actually about love with people. It doesn’t matter their gender or gender.
Sophie is finally allowed to live in society and will join a whole new world in the coming seasons – but do you think she’ll still be involved in the world downstairs and her old life with her step-sister Posey?
of course! I would love to see her interactions with the people downstairs, and the differences in how the other Bridgerton siblings treat the people downstairs. That is, they have always been people who respect the lower class. But in terms of how they interact, I’d love to see that. And be sure to watch Sophie go downstairs in her royal clothes. That would be really fun. I would love to see it. I would like to see them continue to perform prominently this season. If I were a writer I would, but I’m not, so I can’t change that. But I want to see that, and I want to see Sophie develop her relationship with the Bridgerton sisters while also maintaining her relationship with Posy. That would be really gratifying.
Araminta chooses to lie to Sophie about how Sophie’s father, Lord Penwood, provided for her in his will. Sophie believes this without question until Benedict urges her to reconsider her reasons. What do you think about why Araminta treated Sophie so harshly, even putting her in prison, and why Sophie accepted Araminta’s story about the will?
I read an interesting quote the other day about how people express hate because they don’t want to deal with the pain they carry inside themselves. I think that is the quality that Araminta has. I think she felt betrayed from the beginning when she married Lord Penwood. And that pain, and her significant memories of Sophie, end up causing Sophie a lot of pain — because she can’t deal with her own pain.
It was a really interesting dynamic, but I think Sophie is a much bigger person than I am in terms of her will. But that’s the moral of the story. It means that no matter how much someone has hurt you, you can choose to be the bigger person and rise above them rather than stoop to their level. But it all clicks for Sophie. And it saddens me that she never went to see the will and didn’t believe it. For example, she just believed what Araminta said. Because from an early age, she felt that her father might be doing something a little wrong the moment Araminta came into her life. And the stories you create in your head can be very powerful.
So I understand why she did things the way she did and why she didn’t believe in her ideas. It was also emotional to play that scene when she finds the suicide note. Because I’ve had the experience of running in with a certain story, and then someone behind the scenes actually said that’s not what it was. And that really puts things into perspective. In fact, filming that scene and the scene where he tells Benedict, “Actually, it was written in the will” was very emotional.
After spending the season exploring the pain of being illegitimate and the horrors of pregnancy, Sophie and Benedict are now free to have a child who will be warmly welcomed into society. Do you think that will happen?
I want to meet baby Benofi. That’s great. I don’t think Sophie, in particular, thought that would happen to her for a long time. Maybe deep down she wanted it, but because she refused to let her child live her own life, she probably has thoughts like she can’t have a child, but now she can have a happy ending. And I think bringing a child into this world is something that can actually change her own story, like instilling love and maybe being the mother she never had. When you do it with someone like Benedict, it’s like your own little fairy tale has come true. I want to meet baby Benofi. It would be very cute.
Sophie met several of the Bridgerton women this season. Heloise and Hyacinth had the most time working for them, and he also got to know Penelope and Francesca, but he didn’t have any scenes with Kate. Would you like to see these two team up as the wives of the two eldest Bridgerton sons in the future?
There was a scene where I stood far away from Simone (Ashley). But I thought, “Oh, how wonderful…” I hope that will be the case in the future as well. I’m very happy about that, and I think it will be very beautiful if all the Asian actors come together. So I’m hopeful, but again, I’m not a writer, so I don’t have the strength. But I hope so, and she’s a very nice human being. So I’m expressing that for our future, for what’s to come.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
