Inside ‘Rivals’ Premiere: Cameron’s Power Move Against Tony, Dinner Party Chaos & More (VIDEO)

Rivals Season 1 left fans wondering if Corinium owner Tony (David Tennant) was dead after a fight with producer Cameron (Nafessa Williams) once he found out she’s sleeping with the enemy, MP Rupert (Alex Hassell). Between seasons, it was revealed he survives. And now that the series is back, with the first three episodes of Season 2, it’s time to see just how he reacts, what she does, and much more. And let’s just say that more than one person pulls quite the power move. Warning: Spoilers for Rivals Season 2 Episodes 1-3 ahead!

Read on for insights into the first three episodes from stars Alex Hassell, Nafessa Williams, Aidan Turner, Victoria Smurfit, Emily Atack, Oliver Chris, and Luca Pasqualino and executive producers Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Alexander Lamb. (Plus, find out why the producers gave Tony a key line to Rupert here.)

Cameron vs. Tony

In the immediate aftermath of leaving Tony bleeding on his office floor, Cameron turns to Rupert, who takes her away to protect her. (That leaves Bella Maclean‘s Taggie wondering what happened since they’d just kissed.) But Tony tracks them down and seemingly talks Cameron into returning to him and Corinium, versus staying with Rupert and working for his rival company, Venturer, hoping to win the TV franchise. However, once she gets Tony on camera saying that what happened to him was only an accident, she walks right over to Rupert and kisses him.

“She’s always thinking 10 steps ahead, but sometimes also what makes her really great and strong and even a great producer is that she’s quick on her feet,” Williams tells TV Insider of that power move.

When trying to get Cameron to switch sides, Tony tells her he loves her and has chosen the path of forgiveness. But was there a world in which, had she stayed, he wouldn’t have made her life hell?

Courtesy of Disney

“I don’t think his love for her was really true. It was about having her,” says Lamb. “We talked in Series 1 quite a lot as Cameron being the prize for Tony. So I think it would have soured and I don’t think he would ever have been able to forgive her. I think ultimately the idea that she’d had sex with Rupert would be all consuming for him if Cameron had decided to make a go with Tony. But I also think that there was no way that was ever going to happen after the end of Episode 8 of Series 1 and that fight.”

After Cameron’s move, she and Rupert return to his house to find Tony waiting, with the trophy she’d used to hit him. He no longer needs evidence to punish them because, as he promises, the retribution he has planned will be far more painful.

Tony vs. Venturer

Over the course of Episodes 2 and 3, it’s Rupert who really feels Tony’s wrath. Thanks to her affair with him, gossip journalist Beattie (Annabel Scholey) delights in bringing all his scandalous behavior to the public’s attention — sex tapes, group sex sessions, no concern about AIDS, etc. — and it becomes the talk of, well, everyone. Rupert still wins the general election and is elected a member of Parliament for Chalford and Bisley, but in light of what’s been reported, he resigns. Furthermore, the Venturer board votes him out.

“His ego and his sense of self is massive bruised and unmoored,” Hassell says. So, while, like Cameron, he can adapt, “it’s much harder for him to trust his decision-making capabilities and his confidence. He’s always got by on some level of confidence that I think is being massively kind of called into question.”

With that, Tony is ready to turn his focus to the other three main parties of Venturer: Cameron, Declan (Aidan Turner), and businessman Freddie (Danny Dyer).

Cameron is “extremely worried” about what he’ll do, confirms Williams. “She’s definitely wise enough to expect that he is trying to get back at her.” Adds Hassell, “You can always count on him to do the worst thing.”

And it sounds like she’s right to be on her guard. “Cameron really hits hard because I think Tony loved having her as a possession,” says Lamb. “So, he’s now got to punish her. So I think there will be some kind of affairs of the heart that we’ll get into between Tony and Cameron.”

As for Declan, who used to be Corinium’s on-air presenter, expect Tony to know exactly where Declan’s weaknesses are. “Declan and Tony is going to be the most devastating,” warns Treadwell-Collins.

Turner admits that Declan is “quite scared of Tony. There’s several confrontations and I think Tony takes it in his stride so easily, whereas Declan takes it to heart. Declan sort of faces it with aggression, whereas Tony sort of almost does it with the legal side of things. He knows he can’t really be touched. He has a lot of power and money and contacts.”

He continues, “[Declan’s] aware that Tony is a dangerous person and won’t just go after him, but will go after the people around him that he loves. … Tony loves manipulation and Declan’s not so great at that. It’s really hard when you’re dealing with a benevolent force like Tony. Yeah, it’s tricky, isn’t it? Somebody who loves to be bad so much.”

Courtesy of Disney

We’re already starting to see that by Episode 3, when Tony approaches Declan’s wife Maud (Smurfit) with an offer to star in Corinium’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. After Declan doesn’t show up for her big night — she goes on when the star can’t — and Tony and his wife Monica (Claire Rushbrook) are there, well, Maud says she needs to check with her agent, not even talk to her husband, when that opportunity is presented to her.

“She’s like a spider in a web except she doesn’t realize she’s the fly,” Smurfit explains. “She’s really taken by Tony’s offer, his attention, his power, his success, and she has to struggle with the idea of working for her husband’s mortal enemy, but she also has to stand her own ground and choose her own path and work. … Sometimes she makes decisions on instincts that are good, sometimes she makes decisions that aren’t, and that’s the mad rollercoaster of Rivals.”

According to Lamb, “Tony’s got a long game plan there” with that casting move, which Treadwell-Collins calls “exciting and dangerous.”

As for Freddie, “he hits him in more of a financial way,” Treadwell-Collins hints.

“He’s got big plans,” he continues. “Tony’s very good — we keep coming back to chess. Tony is very good at laying down pieces.” He can “anticipate the moves,” says Lamb.

Cameron & Declan in Ireland

Declan’s Yeats documentary is a go, and so he and Cameron head to Ireland to scout locations. (The series filmed in Ireland.) The two are growing closer and working much better together than in Season 1. “Aidan and Nafessa have great chemistry,” says Lamb, “so we thought we had to explore that.” Where it takes them has yet to be seen, but it’s fun to see these two going head-to-head holding their ground and on the same page.

“She’s definitely admiring him in a different light,” says Williams. “They have a love for the work in common. It’s been nice to see the evolution of that working relationship build because they hated each other at first. So the trust has been built between them two and it’s really exciting to see the exploration of that, which I think is going to shock a lot of people as they’re watching it. I mean, fans of the book will have maybe expected it to a certain extent, but it’s really cool to kind of see where that goes.”

On Declan’s part, Turner notes that in the first season, “he didn’t see her talent or what she was going to bring to the table. I think he was also intimidated by her because somewhere maybe he recognized that she could be very powerful and knowledgeable about the business more so than he is in a lot of ways. I think he was scared of that, but that I think she’s grown on him a lot.”

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'Rivals' Season 3: Cast, Premiere Date, Book, More Details

Dinner Party Chaos Gold

In the second episode, Sarah (Emily Atack) hosts a dinner party and has Taggie do the cooking. But since Taggie’s father is with the opposition (Venturer), she insists no one can know she’s there. That means the chef hides in the kitchen … as does Rupert when he comes to her rescue after a salt mishap with the main dish. In the book, this is a quick moment. For the show, they’ve extended it to have characters coming in and out of the kitchen and hiding in the pantry and the like to keep from being seen, and, of course, overhearing conversations they maybe shouldn’t, including about Sarah’s pregnancy — the baby is Tony’s!

“We really enjoy the Strattons and Emily and Rufus [Jones]’ performances,” Lamb tells TV Insider. “They’re so quintessentially rivals. Their marriage is so flawed. They do so silly things and sexy things, but ultimately in the end, you feel a bit warm about them. So that became important.”

Laura Wade wrote the episode, and Elliot Hegarty directed it. “Alex said to her, ‘Laura, how about you write a farce and we give you lots of doors,’ and Elliot, the director went, ‘Yes, yes, yes,'” Treadwell-Collins recalls. “So we crafted a farce with Sarah in the middle of it trying to hold everything together and Elliot embraced it, Laura embraced it, Emily and Rufus and all the cast embraced it. It plays into the doors and the cupboards and the naughtiness.”

Lamb points out, “There’s a British tradition of that kind of theater as well. It’s very nostalgic for viewers to think, God, that’s like the theater I used to go to when I was a kid or when I was young in the ‘80s. That also plays into the whole thing of the series.”

Watch the full video interview above for more from Alex Hassell, Nafessa Williams, Aidan Turner, Victoria Smurfit, Emily Atack, Oliver Chris, and Luca Pasqualino.

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