Bridgerton season 5 wraps filming and brings Julia Quinn’s Francesca into focus

Netflix has confirmed a 2027 return for Bridgerton, with Hannah Dodd and Masali Baduza leading a romance inspired by Julia Quinn’s When He Was Wicked.

By Alisson BentoNovember 11, 2026, 7:22 PM UTC10 min readUpdated 11 Nov 2026

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Netflix confirmed in its October 26 update that Bridgerton season five has wrapped production and will return in 2027. Hannah Dodd and Masali Baduza lead the season as Francesca and Michaela Stirling in a romance inspired by When He Was Wicked, the sixth novel in Julia Quinn’s book series. The update gives readers who have been waiting for Francesca’s turn a confirmed release year and a clearer idea of how the series will take up the emotional questions of her book.

Francesca has an established place in both versions of Bridgerton, and the new season gives her a story with a different texture from the excitement of a first courtship. She has been married, has lost someone she loved, and has practical reasons to consider marrying again. Quinn’s choice to write a romance for a widow gives the screen adaptation a rich point of departure. The joy of a new attachment can develop alongside affection for the life Francesca already had.

What Netflix has confirmed about season five

Netflix’s Tudum says the season has finished filming around London and is expected in 2027. The official update gives the year without a specific premiere day. It identifies Dodd and Baduza as the central pair and says the story takes up their lives two years after the death of Francesca’s husband, John Stirling. John was also Michaela’s cousin and confidant, so both women have a personal connection to the loss that shapes the beginning of the season.

The published setup says that Francesca reenters the marriage market for practical reasons. Michaela returns to London to attend to the Kilmartin estate. The two have a reason to encounter each other at a moment when Francesca is already thinking about what sort of life she wants. Those distinct motives give the reunion an especially appealing footing. Each person has a task she believes she understands, and their encounter creates a question neither could have settled in advance.

Showrunner Jess Brownell has described yearning and queer joy as important to the season. Netflix calls this the series’ first central romance between two people of the same gender. The announcement places that new development inside a recognizable Bridgerton form. A character faces public expectations about marriage, has good reasons to act prudently, and finds that her attraction gives her another way to imagine the future.

Where to find Francesca’s story in Julia Quinn’s books

When He Was Wicked is book six of the original Bridgerton novels. Quinn’s official page introduces Michael Stirling, who first sees Francesca shortly before she marries his cousin John. His feelings for her exist before the events that later put them in a position to confront them. The book gives him the difficult experience of wanting someone whose happiness already matters to a man he loves.

The title is a useful way to look up the book because the television and novel numbers differ. The fifth season draws inspiration from the sixth novel. Readers searching a library catalog for book five in the original sequence will come to a different sibling’s story. Search for When He Was Wicked or Francesca’s name to reach the intended book. Quinn’s series guide and family tree make it easy to situate her among the other Bridgerton siblings.

Quinn’s notes about writing the novel explain that Francesca had already been mentioned in two earlier books, which affected when she could set Francesca’s own story. That piece of background makes for enjoyable reading after the novel. It gives an author’s perspective on the work of fitting a more private love story into a series where other family members have been living through important events at overlapping times.

What the adaptation keeps from the emotional premise

Michael in Quinn’s novel and Michaela in Netflix’s series occupy related places in the story. Each is part of John’s family and has a history with Francesca that matters to the emerging romance. The show has established Michaela as a character in her own right and describes her as outwardly confident with a tendency to retreat when she feels vulnerable. The shared family connection allows both versions to ask how a new attachment can take shape among people who also care about the person they lost.

Francesca’s position adds an equally important point of continuity. She has had a relationship that belonged to her and has reasons to think carefully about whether and how to marry again. That setup gives the romance room to grow out of a woman’s present life. A public decision about marriage may solve a practical problem while leaving her room to ask what she actually wants from the people she lets close to her.

The season’s confirmed direction also creates a distinct set of questions for its world. An estate, a family connection, and the wider expectations of the marriage market can give Francesca and Michaela several different ways to be visible. The show can explore what each is prepared to recognize in private and what becomes possible when the other person knows it, too. Brownell’s emphasis on joy is an encouraging sign that recognition and the pleasure of the connection are important parts of the adaptation’s design.

The two-year gap gives the romance its own time

Tudum’s summary starts the new season two years after John’s death. That is a consequential choice because time can change the practical shape of a life without making a relationship in the past any less meaningful. Francesca has had an opportunity to discover what ordinary life looks like after loss. Michaela has also had time to grieve, from a different position in the family. The season can take an interest in what they have each learned to carry.

For a romance about loving again, the time gap also gives the new couple a different starting point from the one they might have had immediately after the loss. Both women have had time to make decisions and develop expectations of their own. They may have done so with very little knowledge of how the other person remembers the same events. When they meet again, what they learn about each other can matter to the future without asking either of them to give up their memories of John.

Quinn’s novel is a particularly good source for a romance that wants to hold those feelings at the same time. The central situation allows love to exist alongside regard for a previous attachment. Readers and viewers can have affection for John and still be interested in what Francesca and the person she comes to love discover together. The strength of the premise is that a new feeling can deserve attention without requiring a character to simplify the one that came before it.

Dodd and Baduza have room to tell the story in small gestures

Tudum’s production update gives the leads time to talk about what the characters are like beneath their first impressions. Francesca is more reserved, and Michaela’s social ease can conceal reasons to protect herself. Those qualities suit a romance that depends on learning to notice when another person is making an effort to be understood. The moment a guarded person chooses to stay in a conversation can carry as much force as something said in front of a ballroom.

The actors also discussed costume as a way of understanding the characters. That is a promising detail for a period romance where being dressed for public company can convey quite a bit about who a person expects to be in that setting. An outfit can offer a familiar way of taking up a social role. Seeing a character in a different context or dressed for a different purpose can make a new side of her immediately visible.

A reader approaching the show from Quinn’s novel has a good opportunity to pay attention to what those visual choices convey. Prose can give someone private time to think through a reaction. An actor can let a reaction develop in a look or in the decision to move closer. Those are different pleasures within the same kind of romantic attention. The new season gives the cast a story where the choice to reveal an emotion can become an event of its own.

Violet and Edmund are getting a separate story

Netflix and Shondaland also announced a limited series about the young Violet and her romance with Edmund Bridgerton. Tudum dated that news October 8 and named Shonda Rhimes and Nicholas Nardini as co-writers, showrunners, and executive producers. The project is separate from Francesca and Michaela’s season. It gives viewers another part of the family history to look forward to as the main series develops its next relationship.

The idea has a natural place in a franchise named for a family. Readers know Violet as a mother whose hopes for her children’s marriages have been shaped by what she experienced in her own. Turning to her younger life offers a chance to see the story before it became a memory or an example she might hold up for someone else. The parents of the eight siblings can have an emotional history of their own while retaining their familiar place in the larger world.

The two projects make an interesting pair of announcements. Season five follows a daughter who has already experienced love and is deciding whether to make room for a new future. The limited series turns to the courtship that brought her parents together. Each asks the audience to spend time with someone at a different point in the life of a family. Netflix’s October update separately confirms that season six of the main series is also on the way.

Why the Kilmartin estate is more than an excuse for a reunion

Tudum’s description gives Michaela a specific reason to return to London. She has matters involving the Kilmartin estate to attend to, a responsibility tied to the person she and Francesca have lost. That detail gives her a life outside the scenes in which the leads are drawn to one another. It also gives Francesca a reason to encounter her as someone dealing with a shared history at the moment when she is considering marriage.

An estate can be an especially revealing setting for a period love story because it involves decisions that outlast a single visit. How a property is managed can affect who sees it as home and whose judgment is taken seriously. Those practical questions can give the characters something to discuss while the significance of the discussion changes for them. The published setup leaves the details of the estate business open, which is a good reason to follow the scenes for what they tell us about each woman’s relationship to John and to the life she expects to lead next.

Francesca’s decision to reenter the marriage market has a practical origin of its own. The pair’s two reasons for moving through the world give the season a chance to build a romance out of encounters with distinct purposes. A moment of attraction can interrupt a plan someone had every reason to consider sensible. Quinn’s interest in what a widow wants after marriage gives that interruption an emotional dimension the show can develop in its own way.

What to read or revisit while waiting for 2027

When He Was Wicked is the clearest reading choice for anyone interested in the inspiration for the new season. The book’s opening situation gives a reader a useful point of comparison with the screen version. Both have Francesca at the center and give her next love a close connection to her first marriage. A reader who wants to preserve surprises can stop after the official descriptions and follow updates from Netflix as the release approaches.

For viewers who want to revisit the show, season four provides the immediate history Tudum identifies for Francesca, John, and Michaela. Watch for what Francesca feels comfortable showing other people and what the people closest to her are able to recognize. For book clubs that want a conversation before the new season airs, ask how Quinn gives an earlier love a continuing place in Francesca’s life. It is a question the show can carry into a new interpretation while still giving the novel its own answer.

Quinn gave Francesca a romance for a woman who has already learned that love can shape an entire household. Dodd, Baduza, and the show’s writers now have the opportunity to develop that idea through a different pair and through the world the series has built around them. The confirmed release year is 2027, and the finished shoot means readers have a good moment to return to Francesca’s book while the new version of her story takes shape.