‘Rivals’: Is David Tennant Returning for Season 2?

Well, head wounds do tend to bleed a lot but don’t have to be fatal. Such seems to be the case for Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) of Rivals. The first season ended with him seemingly bleeding to death on the floor of his office, but an update from Hulu and Disney+ — the series is released on the former in the U.S., the latter internationally — seems to confirm Tennant’s return for Season 2.

“Did someone ask for a #Rivals update?” reads the caption of a look at a Rivals Season 2 script and a name card for David Tennant as Tony Baddingham at what could be a table read. See it below. TV Insider has confirmed that he is back for Season 2, plus production has now started. Get all the scoop and see the cast at the table read here.

Rivals, based on the Jilly Cooper novel, follows two people in the ruthless television world of 1980s England who maintain a long-standing rivalry that comes to a head. Tennant plays Tony, and Alex Hassell plays Rupert Campbell-Black of that rivalry. While it does stay faithful to the book — Cooper is an executive producer — there are some significant changes, including that cliffhanger ending.

 

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Tony had been having an affair with Cameron (Nafessa Williams), only to learn that she and Rupert became involved. Their fight over just that in the finale ended with her hitting him very hard with the award they won, leaving him bleeding on the floor of his office. Their fight in the book ends much differently.

“At this point where we end in the book, Tony beats Cameron up and he beats her to a pulp and she goes to Rupert,” executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins acknowledged when speaking with TV Insider about the Season 1 finale in October 2024. “That is an awful big moment in the book, and we in the writers’ room said very early on, we are not going to, in our version, just have a man beat a woman to a pulp. Because we decided very early on to make Cameron a woman of color. We’re not showing that on the screen. Our Cameron is slightly different to the Cameron in the book. What I think is wonderful is we’ve always said Tony hits Cameron, but Cameron hits Tony back and really hits him back.”

He continued, “But it was also a serious point. I did not want to have Tony beat Cameron to a pulp. Our message for our show is that if you look at the journey that every woman takes in Series 1, they’re all much stronger by the end. We were not going to have Cameron weaker. We actually wanted Cameron to be stronger and Cameron to whack back and hit Tony as he’s surrounded by himself doing a speech on lots of televisions about the power of television felt delicious to us.”

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We, of course, had to ask if Tony was dead, and all Treadwell-Collins would say at the time was, “There are so many possibilities about what could happen but what we do know is revenge is a dish best served on television.”

Nafessa Williams told us that Cameron “thinks there’s a huge possibility” she killed Tony. “She definitely is scared as hell hoping that he’s not dead. … It’s bad either way. It’s so bad. If he’s alive, it’s just as bad.” That’s because either she’s dealing with an angry Tony or she’s dealing with Tony being dead as a Black woman in the ’80s.

It certainly seems like we’re going to get to see some revenge with this update about Rivals Season 2. After all, imagine just how angry Tony is going to be now. Plus, there’s what this means for Cameron and Rupert’s relationship since, after all, he has his slow-burn romance with Taggie (Bella Maclean). The two shared their first kiss at the end of the finale.

But what do you think? What are you hoping to see in Season 2? Let us know in the comments section below.

Rivals, Season 2, TBA, Hulu