The Rivals cast have officially returned to Rutshire for another roll around the Maytime hay.
The Disney Plus show got pulses racing last year with its soapy adaptation of the first half of Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster novel of the same name, which drew a Cotswolds world where everyone is constantly horny and prepared to cheat on their spouses. Viewers were hooked.
The homage to 80s hedonism starred a stellar cast of British acting talent, including Danny Dyer, Aidan Turner and Katherine Parkinson.
Heading up the call sheet was David Tennant playing nominative determinist baddie Tony Baddingham, the head honcho at the Corinium TV station, which goes to war with a new underdog outfit called Venturer.
Yet the operatic season finale left it unclear whether Tennant’s sneering TV executive would be back, after the mother of all cliffhangers left his life hanging in the balance.
However, Disney Plus and Hulu – where the show streams in the US –confirmed last month that Tennant will indeed be back and new set pictures have hinted at his upcoming storyline.
The Disney Plus Instagram account shared a snap of Tennant’s name card and script at a table read for the new season, with the teasy caption: ‘Did someone ask for a Rivals update?’
So we knew Tony would be in the second season and it was suspected he would survive (because he’s an evil villain and they always keep coming back for more, of course).
But there was always the possibility it would be in a flashback capacity after he met a sticky end in the first season finale.
Yet new set pictures seem to confirm he did survive the climactic office showdown with Cameron (Williams), as Tennant has been seen filming with a set of prosthetic stitches in his head, presumably from that brutal blow to the head.
How did Rivals season 1 end?
Spoilers ahead.
It wasn’t beyond possibility Rivals would end its first batch of episodes with a death – the whole thing had turned very ‘pistols at dawn’ – but we could never have anticipated the blood-soaked cliffhanger we were left with.
The final scene saw Tony (Tennant) have it out with his protegee turned mistress Cameron (Nafessa Williams) after discovering her affair with Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell).
Tennant magicked up a frightening new scariness to Tony Baddingham for this scene. For a moment it really looked like Cameron would be the one on the way out.
But instead she whacked Tony over the head with a TV award she had accepted in front of him in the previous episode. The last we saw of Tony, he was bleeding out on the ’80s shag carpet as the fireworks popped for New Years.
Rivals fans had already guessed Tony would rise from the blood-soaked carpet, after he was seen in a short teaser clip from the show’s season two table read.
@max commented on the TikTok clip: ‘DAVID IS THERE??!!,’ alongside a gasping emoji.
@AnnieKT1970 commented: ‘So David Tennant character isn’t dead, jeez spoiler alert.’
Rivals is available to stream on Disney Plus.
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