288 | Bridgerton Showrunner & Head Writer Jess Brownell On The Dazzling Season 4

*BRIDGERTON SEASON 4 SPOILER WARNING*

Lorien is joined by the fabulous and uber talented showrunner/writer Jess Brownell. Jess has been showrunning Bridgerton for Shondaland/Netflix since season 3, but it took her quite a while to get a shot in a writers room.

Jess walks us through her journey to one of the most popular shows in television history. She then dives into the mechanics and nuances of how she and her team crafts a season, specifically for season 4 and Benedict falling in love with Sophie, the upstairs/downstairs piece, the homages to iconic love stories on screen and oh so much more.

Episode Transcript

Lorien: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Screenwriting Life. I'm Lorien McKenna, and today we're heading into the stunning, sexy world of Bridgeton, and I'm very excited to be talking to our guest today, Bridgeton showrunner and head writer, Jess Brownell. Jess has been working for the Shonda Rhimes led company, Shondaland since 2008.

After graduating from USC, Jess started as the second assistant for, Shonda's creative partner and executive producer, Betsy Beers, doing weekend script reads and aiding the music supervisor for Grey's Anatomy. After years of learning from some of the best writers and producers for television, she became a staff writer in season four of Scandal. With the company's overall deal shifting to Netflix, she was staffed on Inventing Anna.

Jess was on staff for Bridgeton for the first two seasons, her iconic season two episode, Victory, served as a calling card for her with the show and she was bumped to head writer and showrunner for the unbelievably dazzling season three of the show. She continues the same role for season four. Both parts are now available on Netflix.

Please watch them before listening to this episode because there will be some spoilers. Jess, welcome to the show.

Jess: Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.

Lorien: I'm really excited for you to be here. And last night I was taking some notes finishing season two and you know, 'cause it came out yesterday.

I know we're gonna air next week or hi today whenever everyone's listening. But I got to watch a whole thing yesterday and my daughter came out, she's 14 and she's like, “What are you doing?” I'm like, oh I'm gonna interview this woman who's a showrunner of Bridgeton. And she's like, “What!? Like, I was like, “You don't even watch that show.”

And she's like, “But what? Oh, just casually, mama. You're just gonna do that?” I'm like, yeah, I, so I got, I felt like, Ooh, she thinks I'm cool for a minute. So thank you for that.

Jess: Yeah. Impressing one's 14-year-old. That's like, you've done well. You've done well.

Lorien: Cause nothing else impresses her like at all.

Jess: You're doing this all the time.

Come on 14-year-old.

Lorien: This is what I loved about Hyacinth and the sort of like the mood swings and the extremes and just the teen of her, I was like, “Yep, I live with that.” Like of course she's not obsessed with boys or marriage or anything, thank God, but you know, just of the… of the time. It's like, yeah, I live with that every day.

Jess: Yeah. I remember being 14 and being obsessed with, you know, crushes and marriage, not marriage crushes, I should say.

Lorien: Yes. I mean, drawing your married name on a peachy folder. I mean…

Jess: The hormones. The hormones are just raging.

Lorien: Which is what I love about your show. And-

Jess: The hormones are raging.

Lorien: No, hormones are raging.

All the hormones. And I'm a big fan. So, like I said earlier, before we started recording, I'm gonna try to keep my whatever shreds of cool I have. But we'll see how that goes. So before we get started though, we're gonna do adventures and screenwriting where we talk about our weeks. So I'll go first.

So. This week, I have too many things to focus on. And so I did that amazing a DHD thing where I just didn't really focus on anything. And I have things due and meetings come up, meetings coming up, and I will do it. But then what happened last night when I couldn't sleep? Because insomnia is a just a charming thing.

Every night I go to sleep, and I think tonight I have done all the things right? Like the sleep, what's it called? Sleep sanity. Sleep.

Jess: Yeah.

Lorien: Whatever.

Jess: Cleared your decks.

Lorien: Yes. And then I couldn't sleep, so I came up with a new idea and I was like, “I should write this down.” And I was like, “No, I'm not gonna get up and write it down.”

And then I came up with another idea, like high concept, which for me, you know, normally I start with a character. So these were like two big, high concept ideas. I was like, “It's okay. I won't remember them in the morning.” But I did.

Jess: Oh. Good. That never happens.

Lorien: I know. So what I'm gonna do today is pick the one I'm most angry about.

And write into it because I have a lot of that.

Jess: A lot from a place of anger is very powerful.

Lorien: That's sort of how my week has been, you know, and all the like self recrimination and guilt and trying to figure out what's wrong and just all that wasted energy on that. So, it hasn't been a super fantastic week for my writing.

But I have walked every day.

Jess: Walking is huge. Right? It just, it gets those brain cells going. I never walk. I stay in bed all day long, but I applaud you.

Lorien: How are your hips though? Oh my gosh.

Jess: Yeah, not great. I go through cycles with movement and no movement at all, so I'm really, I'm impressed by your walking.

I also, isn't it amazing how if you don't write an idea down, it's gone forever?

Lorien: Yeah. Someone else is gonna get it. It's just gonna flitter through your consciousness. The story goddess is gonna be like, “Okay, any takers? Nope.” And it moves on.

Jess: Yeah. Do you know in a completely wild way, I didn't write down any of my ideas until I was like in my late twenties. And I would just have an idea and I will, I would go, “Oh, I don't have time to work on that right now, but I'll work on it one day.”

That idea was gone for life. And now where do you write down your ideas? Are you like a notes app, girly, or…

Lorien: Oh, I wish I had a system. I have weird scraps of paper and notebooks. When I write it in my computer in a document, then I know it's real. Like if I've saved something with a name, I will work on it.

Then it becomes real. But like, I once woke up with like the most amazing idea ever and I wrote it down in the middle of the night and I woke up and it said, “Duck boat.”

Jess: Yeah.

Lorien: I was like, okay. I don't, like in my head though, I was like, “h my God.” Like this whole, like this is epic. This is the one, this is it.

I'm like, it was not. Yeah. So

Jess: the one time I took a walk in the last year there was a really beautiful moon out. It was late at night and I still laugh at myself every time I put all my ideas in my notes app, I have this-

Lorien: Oh, You do? Yeah. I was gonna ask.

Jess: Yeah, and some of them are like paragraphs. Some of them are just like a title, and this one that I giggle every time I scroll past is just people with a connection to the moon.

Lorien: Oh, so werewolf story.

Jess: Sure, I don't… Yeah, you never know. Honestly, watch that become like the show that I developed.

Lorien: Werewolf Romance is big. Are you kidding me?

Jess: Yeah, no totally.

Lorien: It's big.

Jess: I didn't get that far. I didn't even give it a genre. It was just people with a connection to the moon.

Lorien: Love it. Because that, yeah that's high concept right there. It's got character drama, everything, right? Theme

Jess: The story of a girl who doesn't want her house plans, that's one that's in there. And they all come back to haunt her, you know, like really small-

Lorien: Oh, what I love about this is you tell me all these ideas that you're like, this is so silly.

My brain immediately like pitched out a whole thing. So if I told you Duck boat, you could be like, “Oh, well it's a murder mystery thriller and it takes place in the forties.” And you know, like we, it's so much easier to do that for other people's. That's a good idea, right? You all get together, “Hey, here's a stupid idea, and then you give it to a room and like, okay, what could this be?”

That would be fun.

Jess: I'm so with you. Like the way you described like, “Oh, if you're given an idea and you don't write it down, someone else will get it.” Like, I do think that these are, I'm not religious, but I do feel like these are gifts from the universe and I feel very spiritual about it. So it's like, it's lovely actually that, you know, if you have just like a funny word, a funny title, a funny logline, and you can't do anything with it, that you share it with someone else.

That's such a nice idea.

Lorien: Yeah. Yeah. If I remembered where I put it, I happily would. So how was your week?

Jess: Oh gosh. My writing, my adventures in writing this week, I got some notes last night on a script. And you know, I've been at this a very long time. I'm a grown woman. I'm show running Bridgerton, and I didn't express it outwardly, but inside I just had a little fit.

Lorien: Mm-hmm.

Jess: Mm-hmm. I just had a little fit and I thought. “I don't, I really, you don't like it?” You know, I had a little moment and I thought, “h gosh, like this is gonna be so much work. And you know, I'm not gonna be able to figure it out. I don't have my writing stuff on right now.” And then within two hours I like.

I went home, actually. I took a shower, taking a shower.

Lorien:  Ah, hydrotherapy. There you go.

Jess: I actually came home. I made it home enough to complain to my partner and to go, “Ugh, I got a note and I don't wanna do it.” And I got out of the shower and she was like, “So tell me about this note you don't wanna do.”

And I went, “Oh, I have a fix for it.”

Lorien: Of course, I love the shower thing. It's such a reset. You can't look at a screen.

Jess: Yeah.

Lorien: We talk a lot about that on the show, about the responses. “Well, fuck you.” When you get a note, right, and then, “Oh, fuck me.” And then, “All right, what's fucking next?”

Jess: Which isn’t great.

Lorien: It's how fast you move through that.

When you become a professional writer, you can't just sit and disassociate and blow out and never touch the project again. You have to like go through that very quickly and just come up with a fix.

Jess: Yeah. And now I'm actually like, glad I got the note because I'm like, “Ooh, it's gonna make it so much better.”

And I came up with one thing, but like, I'm still a brat deep inside, for like for 20 minutes. The first 20 minutes I'm like, I'm having an insecure meltdown.

Lorien: Yeah, it feels good, doesn't it? It's nice. It's reassuring.

Jess: I've only gotten better at not showing it. I haven't gotten better at not having the meltdown.

Lorien: Have you ever done the thing that we're all not supposed to do where you have the meltdown in front of the person giving you the note?

Jess: It's been a really long time since I've had the meltdown in front of the person giving the note. I think the only time I can remember having the meltdown in front of the person in the last 5 to 10 years was the first time I let my wife read something of mine.

Lorien: *laughs*

Jess: And she is not you know, she's not in the industry and bless her heart. She was like, “It's really good. I love it. I just don't know if I understand X, Y, or Z.” And-

Lorien: Fired!

Jess: Fired.

Lorien: Get out.

Jess: Divorced. Yeah.

Lorien: Leave your key. Yeah.

Jess: Like I'm prepared to be an adult you know, with colleagues, but with the person who's supposed to love me unconditionally I just was like, “No, please. I just need you to love it.”

Maybe I'm biased because I think my sense of self was extra formed at those ages for various reasons. But I kind of wonder if, aren't we all writing from our 15 to 17-year-old place of vulnerability deep down?

Lorien: Oh, I mean, I think so. And I mean, I wrote a whole YA movie about a 16-year-old and it was so like, “This is what it feels like to be 16.”

And then of course it has no plot. So I'm like, “Oh, I should put a plot in there.” When did you decide you wanted to be a screenwriter?

Jess: That's an interesting question. I don't know if there was a moment, because I grew up in Petaluma. Like I grew up on a hundred year old farmhouse. We had sheep, like really a rural, you know, childhood experience.

And so, I didn't know anything about the industry. I didn't think it was possible. I didn't know a single person who worked in Hollywood. You know? I thought like it, I loved movies, especially growing up and TV shows and, but I just thought like… I don't know what I thought. I think they magically got made maybe.

I didn't think about it too hard, but I loved writing. And so I became like the editor of the school newspaper and I thought, oh, maybe I'll be a journalist. I applied to journalism school. But I did have a couple of really incredible English teachers. I had an English teacher called Bob and Tobin, who she made us do like a passion project in senior year, and I think her husband had been a screenwriter, and I think she encouraged me.

She's like, you really like writing? You seem to really like movies. What if you made a short film for your passion project? And I did. And it I don't know that I finished it, but I wrote a weird little script and filmed some stuff on a camcorder, like maybe a VHS tape, literally. And then I had another teacher called Kylie Chii that was her name at the time.

I think she has a different last name now. But she she was really also, you know, incredible about pushing me and saying. You're such a good writer and you know, you love movies. Like, think about that as a career. 'cause she's like, you can make money as a writer if you are a screenwriter. You know, if you try to be a journalist or a novelist, it might be a harder path.

And then I got into USC I applied kind of on a whim, but they'd had us do this. Cool. Like, just the process of application was really fun. You have to write your bio as a scene and then do a few different really interesting scene exercises. And I was like, “This is fun. I really love this.”

So when I got in I was like, “You know what? Screw journalism. Not gonna go and go to film school.”

Lorien: That's awesome. And then you got a job show running Bridgerton.

Jess: Just like that. It was just one-to-one.

Lorien: What was the meteoric rise to fame like for you?

Jess: One of the slowest meteors in the galaxy. I mean, I did get really lucky.

There were some real moments of just sheer luck of being at the right place at the right time. Right out of college I got a job working for Betsy Beers, Shonda Rhimes, ISS producing partner. And you know, I was getting the coffee, doing the lunch, doing the grunt work. I was on her desk for a really long time.

And, but then she helped me get a job as a researcher on Scandal. So I was doing like political research, just google.com on yeah, for scandal for another four years. And I, so I had been in a assist, you know, researchers in our industry. Pretty much an assistant position. And I remember feeling like, wow, I've been in an assistant position for eight years.

I've sat and watched people I started with get staffed long before me, they're now mid-level writers. I was so proud of everyone, but also just like down on myself and feeling like. Maybe I don't have the thing. Maybe I don't have the talent or whatever it takes to do this. And my mom called me and went, sweetie, you're really good at crafts.

You could move home and start a craft blog. I would like make people Christmas presents. One year I bought like old records of like people's favorite bands and turned them into clocks. Like I don't do crafts ever anymore.

Lorien: Well, I know why.

Jess: That was my thing for a while. And the, just the, that phone call enough you could move home was enough for me to be like, “I have got to get my ass in gear.”

Lorien: Had you been writing during those years?

Jess: I had, but I'll be honest, I… not hard enough. Like I had been churning out a script a year, which, you know, if you really want it, like you've gotta just be hustling all the time. And really you gotta do two, three scripts a year, you know? And I don't think I was, yeah, I hadn't been putting in quite enough time and so I just said to myself, “I am gonna give it one good year.”

One more like year where I really focus and I literally wrote an email to my friend group and said, “Hey, listen, I'm not gonna be around for the next year. I love you guys, but please understand, it's, you know, it's just, I need to focus on this thing.” And I wrote a ton of scripts that year.

And I was like, “If I don't get staffed in a year, then I'll give up I'll start the craft blog.” And-

Lorien: Did you have a name for the craft blog?

Jess: No. See, like-

Lorien: Okay, good. You didn't even get that far. Good.

Jess: No. Yeah. I wouldn't allow myself to like dip into it. But yeah. I finally wrote something that year that the showrunner on Scandal, you know, Mark Fish, who was running the room at that point read and really liked and then got staffed.

Lorien: Was it a perfect script?

Jess: No, not at all. It really wasn't. But you know what was smart about it is that. I actually wrote it with a partner and we got staffed as a team.

Initially, we just went, what is the perfect sample for Scandal? And so it was kind of like a political thriller. That was a real luxury being on a show that was running for a really long time and having, you know, really focusing all our energy on that. Whereas when you're an assistant who's bouncing around from job to job a little bit more, obviously you can't write just for one show because that show might get canceled.

You just need a more general script. But we really knew how to tailor ourselves for Scandal, and I think. They were like, “h yeah, this is just basically an episode of Scandal with a slightly different plot.” So y’now that makes a lot of sense.

Lorien: That's actually… I think… can do you think you can do that if you're not on a show like that?

Like targeting a show that you really wanna work on getting to know the showrunners history? Or is it really more of a privilege to be able to have that kind of access?

Jess: It's a privilege. It's definitely a privilege. 'Cause I think, y’know, It's difficult to target one show if you're not on it, because especially for those staff writer jobs, the showrunner is most likely to wanna give their assistants that opportunity.

So, I do think that if you're not on a show as an assistant or you're on one, but it's not gonna run really long, that you just have to more focus on, y’know, writing what best represents your voice. And that's probably a better strategy holistically anyway.

Lorien: Yeah, I think one of my proudest moments as a showrunner was being able to give my writer's assistant a whole episode, solo credit, and then promoting her to staff writer.

Jess: It's the best feeling in the world. Well done.

Lorien: Yeah. That is such a gift and I would always want to do that as a showrunner.

Jess: Hundred percent. I've been so lucky because, you know, Bridgerton's been on for so long to do that three times, and my researcher and two of my writer's assistants are now on staff and some of them for multiple years, and that is the like most fulfilling part of my career.

A hundred percent.

Lorien: I love that.

We will be right back… Welcome back to the show.

Lorien: So let's talk about Bridgeton season four.

Jess: Okay, great.

Lorien: Okay, I'm gonna talk about spoilers. So if you haven't seen season four, please pause, go watch it, and then come back. I ate this whole season up, like it was so delicious and it, the tone and the. The feeling of it and the themes and the production design are a deviation so much from the first three who they all seem like they're very much in a similar universe.

And then this one still in the same universe of course, but just like the explosion of color and the spring of it, and then the upstairs, downstairs, there's this. Amazing. I'm just gonna talk to you about all the things I love really fast. And then I have some questions for you. There's the scene, I think it's in episode four where the stairwell scene where he's running downstairs and she's running upstairs and they smash into each other and they come together and then he asks, will you be my mistress?

And just ruins everything, and I thought. This is the show, right? The hidden, the forbidden love of it. The upstairs, downstairs, they're rushing to each other. He breaks it oddly because Benedict got attached to convention. All of a sudden, it just felt like that scene. Like the colors in the background, there's none of that explosion of color.

It was just on like a wood back. Like everything about it felt so deliberate, and when I got to that moment, I was like, aha, like here is everything I wanted to articulate. Magical, you know? Especially then when I got to the end of the season, I was like, oh my God, it was all there and like capturing all of that in one scene that has big old spicy sex in it, which was like, oh my God.

The first time they're like. Really going for it, you know, was, I don't know, I just felt really inspired as a writer and like, just deliciously thrilled as an audience. So I'm sure all of that was on purpose. But it was, I loved it so much.

Jess: Thank you so much. That means a lot. It uhh… a lot went into that scene for sure.

I mean, I just think about our production designer, Alison Shore, designing me that spiraling, well it's square, but like a spiraling staircase so that we could have, you know, that anticipation of them running into each other and then them looking down and up at each other after the moment happens.

And Lizzie Talbot, our intimacy coordinator, you know, making all the spiciness happen and Jaffar our director you know, the way that he choreographed it all I thought was really brilliant. So, but it was that, I love that you've brought up that scene. 'Cause that was like for me, the very first scene that you know, sparked my thoughts about this season was like them meeting in a stairwell in the middle. 

That's where it all started for me, was knowing like they were gonna be in this liminal space between upstairs and downstairs. Which I think, you know, it's all about the crashing of fantasy and reality this season, so.

It felt like the perfect space to start their spicy connection.

Lorien: I loved that the first four episodes felt very much like fantasy. Like we opened with her at the ball and the mystery of that and the whole like, y’know, we have a secret, and he's…Benedict’s finally been smitten, you know, he's been on this incredible journey exploring his sexuality, his relationships, his artistry, and then to see him stunned. 

And of course, he doesn't, she doesn't have a face. Like, I just felt like that was so, like, for him as a character, important because he can't quite fill it all in for himself yet until he fully sees her in her entirety. I've just talked now for like 10 minutes about how much I love this show and…

Jess: I watch Bridgerton as a fan from like a fan perspective, especially with the costumes as well, because…

Y’know, I… we eyeball the costumes overall, but you know, it's not like I'm tracking that as closely as our costume designer is. Like he knows what the story is that we're telling, and then he is just like using color to track the story that's on the page. So, he really is doing his own side running story of the season.

And-

Lorien: Well tell him I noticed.

Jess: Yes. He'll love that.

Lorien: And then the last thing that I will talk at you about your own show is the homages, sort of like the callouts. Like the second time we see a hot guy coming out of a lake, which is like, I was like, “Oh, BBC 2005, Pride and Prejudice, which for me, and I'll say it, I will die on the hill, is the version of Pride and Prejudice.

Don't come at me, I will not be taking any questions. 

Jess: *laughs*

Lorien: And then there's a couple of other things where like Violet is like, “Well, maybe she's a governess and she has secret nobility.” I'm like, “Jane Eyre.”

Jess: We love our little call shoutouts to, I mean, it's a lot of Pride and Prejudice.

Lorien: Mm-hmm.

Jess: A lot of Pride and Prejudice I've like snuck in last season. In season three, there was a little shout out to Notting Hill which is one of my favorites. I mean, I literally live in Notting Hill.

Lorien: Oh, I love it. Do you go to the locations? And just like hang out?

Jess: Yeah. Well, not anymore, but when we first moved here, we were renting a place that had access to one of those private gardens.

So yeah, there's like my little version of the brownie scene last season, or the slight homage to the brownie scene. And then, yeah, definitely there's also Benedict, you know, gripping his hand around the charcoal in the scene with Sophie, which was, you know, call out to Mr. Darcy as well.

Lorien: Oh, so that's the other version.

I think it might be a generational thing.

Jess: Well, my wife and I have this debate in our house and we're about the same age, and one of us prefers 2005 the BBC and one prefers Joe Wright. And I'm not gonna say who, but that it's not necessarily generational. I think it's very personal.

Lorien: Yes. Okay.

Let's talk about my cottage, the fantasy of that set piece and like wanting that bubble of the no physical or emotional labor that Sophie gets to experience is so charming. And how she can't stay still about it. It's so, so I get it. But just that whole sequence is so beautiful. The fantasy of it.

Is that in the books?

Jess: Yes. It's a beloved set piece from the book. It's actually takes up a lot more space in the book. Like it could have if we had, you know, adapted it more literally. It might have been like a two episode. My cottage. But Kathy Lou, who wrote that episode, it's, it is one of my favorite episodes of the season and I think she did such a great job with it.

And it's really the first time. I guess we kind of did this season one with Simon and Daphne, but it's one of the few times we've done what feels like a bottle episode to me at least with, you know, our lead couple. And just to have that privileged time of just the two of them together. It's the ultimate expression of the fantasy, part of the fantasy versus reality theme where class doesn't matter, they're in in vacation mode.

We talked a lot about, you know. Like vacation crushes, vacation boyfriends, vacation girlfriends, and how, you know, you just totally forget about the world and everything seems easy and perfect. You're just flying a kite. And I love that we got to take that time for them to really bond as friends. And you know, there's thirst, but it sets up, I think, a real depth in their relationship.

Lorien: Yeah. It's one of the, it's a very sweet romance between the two of them. Which I found you know, again, it's that clash of reality and fantasy, right? She's had a really hard life and he is a rake, y’know, he's a bit debossed, right? That they have this sort of sweetness to their connection and they get to like put aside everything else so you can kind of see the glimmer of a future that's not burdened by it all.

They could create something new and then they go back to London and it all crashes down. And Buh bam, reality!

Jess: Yeah. You come in on the carriage to town and you know the reality is waiting for you.

Lorien: Is pinnacle an actual word that was used during this time? Because I have never come across it and I'm like, “I'm obsessed.”

I love the hard P of it and the weird way, how hard it is to say like, pinnacle. It just, I love everything. It's like, “Mh-mm it's really hard to do. I got it.”

Jess: Y’know I… the process, we had like just a day in the room where we were like, “hat are we calling it?” \

And our researcher, I think, did some research and told us what the actual words that were used were, and I think we were just like, “Nah.” Like it didn't sound right. Maybe it was like, I forget what it was, but it was either too much of a mouthful or-

Lorien: *laughs* Sorry.

Jess: Yeah- *laughs*

It's too much of a mouthful. Or it was like not clear what it meant y’know, for modern viewers.

And so I think we just were, we're big on thesaurus.com. We're just, y’know, zenith like different words that suggest some kind of a progression with a peak. We talked about climax, but that felt too modern.

Lorien: It felt, it feels too explicit too.

Jess:  It does.

Lorien: Okay. So, I've read the books and I do remember my cottage in the books.

They're like sitting outside and having tea. Like she goes there, they escape there. It's just a different, she's a different character in the stories. When you are figuring out which pieces to use from the book and to tell the same story, right? How are you negotiating that with the room and what you've already set up?

Seasons 1, 2, 3, essentially, when did you come up with the storyline? Because Benedict is already on this journey.

Jess: We've all read all the books, but I always encourage people, like when we start a season to reread. Not only the current book, but the one we're doing next, because we always know what we're doing next.

So that people, so that we know that we're starting to set up to it. But we, you know, with the exception of maybe Francesca's book, which, you know, I've talked about the fact that has, it has many more chapters than the other books. I think generally we're tr we're really trying not to. Set too much up in terms of like, we don't wanna steal story from the main characters.

Leading season. We really wanna make sure that we start them for their season at the rawest place in their journey, and that they're like the least evolved so that they have like a lot of growth that needs to happen, a lot of, you know, obstacles they need to overcome. So with Benedict it, it was just more about.

Getting him to a place at the end of season three, where maybe he was just starting to feel a little glimmer of jadedness or you know, jadedness with the life he'd been living and realizing that maybe there was some depth missing from his life. So he was, you know, just cracking the door open a little bit.

And then in terms of the way the exact plot points lay out, that would've happened at the very beginning of the writer's room for season four, we. You know, like we sit, we do a, what do you call it? A book club where we reread the book and we all come in and talk about our favorite things from the book and what we absolutely wanna see in there.

And then before we get into structure, we spend a lot of time on character and just thinking about. You know, how do we reflect what Benedict has been through the last three seasons? How do we send him on a satisfying arc? And what pieces of the book fall into that? And in this case, really almost every piece of the book, I mean, we might've moved around some of the emotional pieces of the book, but actually set peace wise.

It's incredibly faithful to An Offer From a Gentleman.

Lorien: And what I noticed quite a bit to the lead up is to talk about Francesca's story and leaning into the queerness of her journey. And so I was, you know, anticipating that, looking for it. And there's sparks of it and McKayla and all of that.

And you, now I'm anticipating this amazing. Thing moving forward. What I didn't expect, and I was delighted by, was the sort of, the way the approach was with Benedict's romantic relationships, intimate relationships with men at that, you know, the club he goes to and with women and the sort of, yeah, this is hot.

And just what's happening, kind of, approach to it. And then when he tells Sophie, you know, I've been with women of the time, I've been with some dudes, and there's no apology in it. And she doesn't ask him to be accountable. She just says What love is. Love. I think something to that effect, like you can see in her moment where she's like, oh, that's a okay.

And then. Right. I thought it was one of the better treatments of that kind of conversation in terms of just like the reality of it and that it doesn't need to be a thing.

Jess: Yeah. I think, you know, it's shocking how even in 2026 there seems to be this strange conflation between bisexuality or pansexuality and something that looks like non-monogamy, y’know?

And I think this idea that just because people are attracted to multiple genders, that they're not capable of solely focusing on the one person they've chosen to be with is madness. So, it was really lovely to not only give Benedict the space to, y’know, fully own who he is, but also to portray Sophie as just being so immediately accepting.

It's really like wish fulfillment, I think for all the pansexual people out there to, y’know, that's how it should look. That's how your partner should react when when you tell them that.

Lorien: We'll be right back… Welcome back to the show.

Lorien: So let's talk about Sophie and crafting Sophie. She's new to this world. She, you know, sets the tone for the whole story, the Cinderella of it, which I love. Although I love that the stepmom and the stepsisters get their come up and, but they didn't get their eyes picked out by Crows, but I can live with it.

How, what was your approach to her as a character?

Jess: So, with Sophie, you know, we know she's this character who's in a. Pretty shitty circumstance. You know, she's a downstairs maid and her family backstory is quite tough. It felt extra important with her to give her a ton of agency and to find ways within her story for her to be controlling her own fate, even within the bounds of her class.

You know, so, and it's really, it's from the book, I think we've just maybe highlighted it even more that she's quite plucky. You know, she's someone who can't help but occasionally talk back. And that she has this sense of self-righteousness or like street justice almost like-

Lorien:  I mean, she's clearly a Libra.

Jess: I think so, you know, I think you're probably right, Libra. Maybe Aquarius. I would have to brush up on my. My astrology, but but yeah, you know, we liked the idea that she is fighting for herself and is kind of like a, an anti Cinderella. Cinderella in a way. Not to malign Cinderella.

Lorien:  I mean, she, no, but all Cinderella wanted to do was go to the ball.

Jess: Yeah.

Lorien: She wasn't after the prince. The prince was after her. So it is true to the story.

Jess: Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. I think the key words that we were pushing against from really any fairytale, it's not specific to Cinderella, it's just like damsel and distress, you know, and just finding key moments in the action, like.

You know, for example, in episode two, Daniel Robinson, one of my writers was like in the book, Sophie is being pretty much assaulted. Not pretty much. She's being assaulted when Benedict comes in and saves her. And Daniel was like, wouldn't it be cool if Sophie was the one saving the girl who was about to be assaulted when Benedict comes in?

So we get that like, you know, she is in a way, victim in that moment, but she's also heroin. And that's really fun.

Lorien: Yeah, I love that.

Jess: While we're talking about Sophie, I really can't mention Sophie without mentioning ya.

Lorien: She's amazing. She's like an undercover agent. Like her ev all her whole performance was like, you know, okay, I'm cool.

I'm not cool. And it was just so like, it would come out though in such this quietly powerful way, like, beautiful performance.

Jess: Yeah. She really brings. Something super special. And she actually, for me, brought something to the character that I hadn't quite nailed down before we cast her, which is this idea that she, her happiness and her joy and her childhood got taken away from her the moment Armenta arrived.

And so we realized, oh, she's stuck at that age and there's a part of her who just wants someone to play with her. And I think Yen has this natural playfulness and like a, she's very mature and has like a real depth and rich internal world, but she has like a. Fun, childlike quality as, as well when she's being like mischievous or, y’know, playful.

So we really highlighted that in the character. And that's all thanks to Erin.

Lorien: At the end of every episode, we ask our guests the same questions. So are you ready?

Jess: I'm ready. I'm nervous, is this like the… What do I it, call the lightning round?

Lorien: No, there's no lightning about it. There's nothing shocking happening.

What brings you the most joy when it comes to writing?

Jess: Ooh, what? So much of it that's actually, it's hard to choose. I mean, I think I really love first drafts. I think first drafts are so, so fun. And you know, I'm at the end of finishing, the finale for season five right now, and- oh my

Lorien: Oh my God, what!?

Jess: I know. It's crazy. The process moves so fast, but there's something-

Lorien: If you need a reader, I'm available.

Jess: Good to know. I appreciate There's something about just like sitting down, especially with material, like I've outlined it, I know what I wanna do with it, but just sitting down. And doing that first pass where at least for me, I'm trying to force myself not to rewrite and not to edit.

I'm just like sitting down and just chucking it on the page and in, in the way we were talking earlier about how there's something spiritual to the way you get ideas, like bigger ideas, you know, concepts. I find that on the page sometimes some of like the dialogue or the jokes that like. Get ridden. I feel not that they're so great, but I'm like, I don't know where it came from.

You know, like it just kind of came out of thin air and there's something really magical about that, that I enjoy so much.

Lorien: That's gorgeous. I love that. You have to write it though, first to have that experience.

Jess: Yeah.

Lorien: Which is my problem this week.

Jess: No, getting to that point is quite difficult. Yes.

Lorien: All right.

So what pisses you off about writing?

Jess: Oh gosh. Like the dominoes falling. When you pull, you hit one of them, you know, like, the re like when you're deep, I'm really big on flow and rhythm. And the way and transitions and the way that scenes flow into the next one. And when you feel like that's all in a really tight place and then you kind of have to adjust one thing 'cause you get a note or you realize something isn't working.

And then the whole flow kind of falls apart. I find the math of that frustrating.

Lorien: Yep. The story math, right, where you're in the, like the dreamy it feels. Right. And then like, oh shit, there's no plot. Not your problem at all, ever. I'm sure. Okay. If you could have coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give her?

Jess: Go to therapy sooner.

Lorien: Legit. Legit.

Jess: Yeah. Yes. Like start it immediately. And it really is the advice I give to writers. I know therapy is like cost prohibitive for a lot of people, but I think some form of self inquiry where you are figuring out like not only getting the tools to withstand life and the industry, but figuring out who you are and what you have to say and what's important to you.

And what you're serious about and what you think is funny, like those are the things that make you a really good writer, I think.

Lorien: I agree. Last one is, what's your proudest career moment to date?

Jess: I would say the biggest high I've experienced in my career is the season three premiere. My mind is blank.

It was it, is the Lincoln No. Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center. Is that where it was? Anyway, it was the season three premier was at a really big venue in New York and I am terrified by public speaking. But I think when I got on stage to introduce the season three premiere, it was the first time I'd ever done something like that.

And. The feeling of being in front of the audience wasn't scary to me because I was like, it's the culmination of not just my hard work, but so many people's hard work. And I really felt this sense of just like being a representative for the village it took to make this show. And it was also my first time getting to interact with the fans since I had stepped in a showrunner and seeing their reaction and how much.

They care and how engaged they are. That whole night was just magical. I was running on adrenaline in such a crazy way.

Lorien: What kind of shoes were you wearing?

Jess: Oh, horrible high heels. But I brought a comfy pair and I changed into the comfy pair as soon as we were done with the red carpet.

Lorien: Amazing. I love that.

Fantasy versus reality.

Jess: Yes. There you go.

Lorien: Right there it is. I love it. It all comes together. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking to me and letting me blather on about how much I love the show, and it's just two northern cowgirls chatting about writing.

Jess: You know, what could be better?

Lorien: Thank you so much to Jess Brownell for joining us today. You can watch all of Bridgeton season four right now on Netflix. You absolutely should. It is a gorgeous season. The Screenwriting Life is produced and edited by Alex Alcheh. For more support, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

And you can also head over to thescreenwritinglife.com to learn more about TSL Workshops. Where we have a growing library of prerecorded workshops covering everything from core craft, like character want and outlining a feature, to the business side of writing, including how to navigate the elusive general meeting.

We also host two live Zooms each month where you can talk with me and Meg about what projects you're working on. The link to sign up is in the episode description, and if you have any questions, you can always reach out to thescreenwritinglife@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, and remember, you are not alone and keep writing.