Bridgerton: Inside the game-changing decision to gender-swap Francesca’s romance

Bridgerton Season 3 made a bold choice by gender-swapping Francesca's love interest. After having a minor role in the previous two seasons, Hannah Dodd was recast in the role of Francesca, whose love story took centre stage in Season 3.

Staying faithful to Julia Quinn's story in When He Was Wicked, Season 3 saw Francesca fall in love with John, and the two were eventually married and started their happily ever after.

However, book readers know that Francesca's marriage to John ended in tragedy as he died shortly after their marriage, and she eventually took a liking to his cousin Michael.

Bridgerton Season 3 sowed the seeds for this story as John's cousin was introduced in the finale, but with a gender-swapping twist, changing Michael to Michaela.

However, this gender swap did not stop Francesca from swooning over her as she appeared visibly tongue-tied after seeing John's cousin.

More on this in our story.

Bridgerton: Exploring the gender-swap behind Francesca's romance

While Bridgerton had mostly steered clear of a queer love story, partly due to the Regency era, Season 3 sowed the seeds for a potential queer love story.

Francesca's swooning romance and marriage with John will not last long, as he died two years after their marriage in the books, and the Netflix series is also set to take this tragic turn in Francesca's life.

While the gender swap from Michael (in the books) to Michaela (in the series) was shocking, Bridgerton showrunner Jess Brownell was confident about her decision. In an interview with Variety, she discussed how the show will have more LGBTQIA+ representation in the upcoming seasons:

“When we started talking about queer representation on the show, we started with a discussion that this is a show about happily-ever-afters, and that we’re not interested in queer trauma — that we really want to see queer joy. And if we’re going to tell a queer story, we would like to find a way for there to be a happily ever after.”

While Season 3 started to touch upon this topic, with Benedict also realizing his complicated sexuality, the upcoming season will explore the queer love story between Francesca and Michaela.

After John's tragic death, Francesca will find a second chance at love with his cousin Michaela, and the stage for their unique love story was set in the Season 3 finale itself.

After Brownell decided to have more queer representation in Bridgerton, the creative team decided to transform Francesca's love story because her book character felt right, as the showrunner discussed with The Hollywood Reporter:

“The first time I read Francesca’s book, I really related to it as a queer woman. Her book is a lot about how she feels different from her family and from people in society. For some of us, that is a part of the queer experience, not for everyone but for a lot of queer people.''

She added:

“It was important to me in creating a queer character not to just drop in a queer character to check a box but to actually tell a story about the queer experience and what it feels like to be queer. So, it felt like Francesca’s book was actually a really clean one to adapt, and we do plan on following the book pretty closely. There will have to be some changes but not major.”

After her tragic relationship with John, Francesca's second chance at love provided the makers an opportunity to include a queer love story with a happy ending.

In addition, while Bridgerton Season 4 will adapt Benedict's book, Francesca's love story with Michaela will also be a major storyline.

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