Rivals Season 2 arrived on Disney+ on Thursday, May 14, more than eighteen months after the first run wrapped. The opening episode picks up the Rutshire saga with a pool party, a fall from a tree and a cliffhanger that reframes the whole Corinium versus Venturer war. The premiere is built around one question: did someone try to kill Tony Baddingham, or did he really just fall.
A panel on a Sunday morning chat show called Uncensored discusses Tony in the past tense, which lets the audience think the worst before the episode rewinds. The action then drops back to the night of a fundraising party at the Baddingham estate. The main cast of Rivals Season 2 are drinking, scheming or sneaking off into the gardens.
Rivals Season 2 keeps the tone of the first run intact. The needle drops are stacked, the 1980s costuming returns at full volume and the script keeps the pace high.
Within the first ten minutes the episode delivers a double full-frontal intimate scene and a Yeats documentary pitch from Declan O’Hara. The hour also drops a reminder that the Venturer mole inside Corinium has still not been exposed.
What happens to Tony in the Rivals Season 2 premiere?
The party turns when Tony is found at the bottom of a tree on the Baddingham grounds, bleeding from a head wound and unconscious only for a short stretch. An assistant to Tony has apparently fallen from the same tree and walked away without serious injury, which several characters quietly thought was suspicious. The official line in front of the staff is that Tony simply slipped while inspecting the property.
The hospital scenes that follow do most of the heavy lifting for the cliffhangers. Tony recovers fast, which the team around him finds hard to square with the version of events being briefed to the press.
Cameron Cook rides with him in the helicopter to the hospital in near silence. A later beat catches a hot mic during a Corinium set visit, and the audio suggests Tony already suspects who pushed him.
Across the rest of the hour, the episode rebuilds the Rutshire ensemble around that mystery. Taggie O’Hara is still quietly carrying a torch for Rupert Campbell-Black. Declan is back inside Corinium under sufferance and lobbying for the Yeats documentary that the BBC would never commission.
A pair of new polo twins are introduced for the upcoming storyline. Valerie Jones greets every guest from the top of the staircase, more bossy than ever.
The premiere also spends real screen time on the texture of Rutshire rather than rushing the plot. The pool party set piece runs for a long time. The Corinium boardroom and the BBC commissioning meeting both get full scenes.
Rivals Season 2 uses these scenes to plant suspects, motives and grudges that the kill attempt mystery will draw from across the rest of the season. The weekly release schedule only makes sense for viewers if every episode is as intense as the first three premiere ones.
Why the Rivals Season 2 premiere episodes leaves Rutshire on edge?
The closing stretch of the Rivals Season 2 premiere episodes tightens every loose thread that ran through Season 1. Tony walks back into the country house owned by Rupert, finds the man there, and the confrontation lands as the credits roll.
The audience is left with a list of suspects rather than an answer, which is the show choosing the long route over a neat and clean resolution. Rivals Season 2 also shifts the release schedule. Where the first season dropped all episodes in one go, the new season will them release weekly.
The premiere ends with the hosts of Uncensored back on screen and the cold open framing finally making sense. For the moment the show keeps the central question open.
Tony Baddingham survived a fall that almost no one inside Corinium believes was an accident. The next episode of Rivals Season 2 arrives next Thursday on Disney+ and is positioned to start revealing and exposing names.
The first week of viewer reactions online has already turned the kill attempt into a guessing game and the wait is to find out who is behind all these.
Keep following SoapCentral for more scoop on Rivals Season 2!
Edited by Subho Mukhopadhyay