And your next Bridgerton bachelor is…

Bridgerton has just enjoyed another highly successful season, becoming the most-streamed show on any platform in the month of June. And while fans are clearly quite eager to devour more regency romance, they’ll have to wait a while longer for the Bridgerton family to return. Showrunner Jess Brownell previously warned that it’d likely be another two years to account for filming and post-production, putting the fourth season premiere around 2026. The ridiculousness of wait times between seasons of streaming TV aside, Netflix has offered a minor consolation to tide us all over: the reveal of next season’s star. And the lucky Bridgerton is…

Luke Thompson as Benedict! Devoted Bridgerton fans won’t be too surprised by this news. After the events of the third season, the most likely candidates were Benedict or his younger sister Francesca (Hannah Dodd). Benedict ultimately makes more sense since he’s older and still unattached. (Benedict’s book was also the third in Julia Quinn’s series, but the order was shuffled around in favor of the Penelope/Colin storyline.) Francesca, meanwhile, just wed John Stirling (Victor Alli), so now she’ll have more time to come into her own in her marriage before the events of her own book—and Michaela Stirling (Masali Baduza)—shake things up. And Eloise (Claudia Jessie), well, they’ll get to her eventually. 

Last we saw Benedict, he was breaking things off with his lover, the widow Lady Tilley Arnold (Hannah New), because she had developed real feelings for him. But Tilley had just recently introduced Benedict to sexual fluidity, and the newly bisexual bachelor wasn’t ready to give up his freedom just yet. That’s soon about to change, though. According to a brief synopsis from Netflix, “The fourth season of Bridgerton turns its focus to bohemian second son Benedict. Despite his elder and younger brothers both being happily married, Benedict is loath to settle down—until he meets a captivating Lady in Silver at his mother’s masquerade ball.” 

“I’m really excited about what we’re writing. We’re toward the end with the writers room season, with the scripts. And I feel like it’s some of my best work and my writers room’s best work,” Brownell teased The Hollywood Reporter about the fourth season back in June. “We’ve just really gelled our collaboration, and we’re firing on all cylinders, so I can’t wait for fans to see what we have.” Well, we’ll all have to wait another two years to see, but the countdown starts now.