The latest season of Bridgerton has received widespread praise for its touching coming out scene, which sees Benedict opening up to Sophie about his sexuality.

Luke Thompson’s character was confirmed to be queer during the show’s third run, where he was seen engaging in trysts with both men and women.

Benedict is Bridgerton’s first openly queer lead character, and his coming out scene took the show’s writers into new territory.

“I am capable of caring for you, just as I have cared for women I have known who are of the Ton,” he told Yerin Ha’s character, Sophie, in season four’s sixth episode, which premiered on Netflix last week.

“Just as I have cared for some men whom I have known intimately,” he added. “And I refuse to be at all ashamed about that.”

Since the episode’s release, showrunner Jess Brownell has explained why it was “hugely important” to her that this scene be included.

“I think any queer person knows that no matter who you end up with, queerness is a part of your identity,” Jess told Business Insider. “It never goes away. And I think one of the messages of this show every season is that the only way to truly be loved is to be your true self.”

After Benedict’s coming out, Sophie assures him: “Love is always a thing to be proud of. The world needs more of it.”

But to Jess, there was never any doubt about how the character would react.

“Sophie is someone who’s been through so much and has lived in the downstairs world and been friends with people of all different classes,” she claimed. “And I do think she’s probably encountered people of different sexualities.”

Before the series was released, Jess stressed that it was “really important” to her that Benedict’s queerness remain a key part of his character, including after he began to pursue a romantic relationship with a woman.

“There is a really harmful and untrue stereotype that bisexual men are actually just gay men. More often, we see bisexual men ending up in media in homosexual-presenting relationships,” Jess told Variety last year.

“And it felt fresh and important to see a bisexual man ending up in a heterosexual-presenting relationship and still owning the fact that he is still queer.”

Benedict is not the only queer character in the world of Bridgerton.

Jess has previously said that Hannah Dodd’s Francesca will enter a same-sex relationship in a future season.

At the end of Bridgerton’s third outing, Francesca is introduced to her husband John’s female cousin, Michaeala Stirling.

Fans of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton book series will know that in the novels, this character is written as a man called Michael, with whom Francesca finds love after John suddenly dies.

However, he has been gender-swapped for the TV adaptation, with Michaela being played by Masali Baduza.

All four seasons of Bridgerton are available to watch on Bridgerton now.

Across the last four seasons, Bridgerton has become famous for not holding back when it comes to its many sex scenes.

While last season featured that infamous carriage scene between Penelope and Colin, the most recent chapter in the Netflix period drama saw Benedict and Sophie getting steamy in the stairwell.

So, what was it like filming the scene?

Well, according to cast member Luke Thompson, it was actually pretty rough because he and co-star Yerin Ha kept falling ill.

“What we actually did is we both got ill,” he admitted to E! News.

Meanwhile, Yerin, who plays Sophie, explained how sex scenes may look fun to viewers but are challenging to make, especially when under the weather.

The Australian actor also admitted that the staircase hookup scene had to be moved back in the schedule due to her and Luke’s illness.

“We were very mentally a little bit weak, a little bit nervous, my immune system was down,” Yerin added.

Luckily, their intimacy coordinator, Lizzie Talbot, made shooting the memorable moment a “quite seamless” process.

“When you have trust with a great scene partner like Luke, it always just comes together quite naturally,” Yerin told People.

She added: “It’s funny, because those Bridgerton steamy, sex scenes – or whatever you want to call them – they don’t feel like they’re there just for the sake of it. They’re actually an extension of the storytelling, and it is quite poetic and they’re there for an actual purpose.”

This season focuses on the class divide between Sophie, who works as a maid, and the aristocratic Benedict, which is how the symbolic location for the sex scene came to be.

“It is upstairs, downstairs, and they meet in the middle, and it’s like, what does that represent? And what story are we trying to say in that moment exactly?” Yerin added.

Part one of Bridgerton season four is now streaming on Netflix. Part two premieres on 26 February.