Bridgerton Season 4 Finds a New Word for Desire as Part 2 Debuts
In bridgerton season 4, Hannah Dodd and showrunner Jess Brownell say they spent time workshopping a word to stand in for the term "orgasm, " a creative choice that arrives as Part 2 of the season debuted on Netflix on Thursday.
A spoken stand-in for an unsayable moment
Hannah Dodd and Jess Brownell discussed the on-set decision to find a replacement word for the explicit term during the production of season four; the choice became part of the show’s language in scenes aired in Part 2. Dodd, who arrived for the World premiere on Jan. 14, 2026 in Paris, has described the collaborative process with Brownell, who posed at a screening of Bridgerton Season 4 Part Two in London on Feb. 24, 2026.
Francesca’s arc: marriage, grief and an on-screen death
Hannah Dodd, an English actress who is 30 years old, plays Francesca Bridgerton; the character’s story through the first four seasons was largely imagined by the show’s writers. Dodd was cast as Francesca for the third season, replacing Ruby Stokes, who had played the role in the first two seasons and departed because of scheduling issues. In Season 3 Francesca made her debut into the Ton and formed an unexpected connection with John Stirling, the Earl of Kilmartin, played by Victor Alli; by the start of Season 4 the couple are married and settled in his London home, and in Part 2 John tragically dies.
Casting pressures, late discovery and creative instincts
Dodd remembers auditioning "quite intensely" for the series’ first season and being up for the role of Daphne, which went to Phoebe Dynevor; she later filmed a self-tape for a "very secretive" project and only learned months afterward that it was Bridgerton. Showrunner Jess Brownell, speaking from Los Angeles over Zoom, said the team had "seen hundreds of people and no one had felt quite right, " and that they saw Hannah late in the process and "instantly knew" she was right for Francesca. Dodd said she felt pressure stepping into the established Bridgerton family but that the cast made her feel at home.
New lead Sophie Baek and a fresh face on the ton
Australian actor Yerin Ha, 27, found out she’d won a lead role two weeks after her Bridgerton audition and will play Sophie Baek, a maid with a mysterious past who falls for Benedict Bridgerton, played by Luke Thompson. Ha said her Korean heritage inspired the change of Sophie’s surname from the novels; she trained in Sydney and gained recognition for her role as Kwan Ha in the live-action Halo series. Nicola Coughlan has offered mentorship—"Reach out if you need help or advice with anything, " Ha said the veteran cast member told her—and Ha said she finds solace in nature with hikes and swims when publicity grows overwhelming. She is not a fan of dating apps and joked, "Maybe I'll have my Benedict moment one day. "
Visuals, scenes and the book connection
Images released from the series show Victor Alli as John Stirling, left, and Hannah Dodd as Francesca Bridgerton in scenes from the season; those scenes accompany the series’ expanded storyline. Brownell noted that in Julia Quinn’s book John is alive for about 10 pages before the story jumps forward, and that the writers used clues from Quinn to shape Francesca’s immediate grief on screen. People who have read the books will recognize that much of what viewers have seen so far does not appear in the novels.
Part 2 of Bridgerton Season 4 debuted on Netflix on Thursday; the production staged a world premiere in Paris on Jan. 14, 2026 and held a screening in London on Feb. 24, 2026. What comes next in the series’ promotional schedule is unclear in the provided context.
