The rivals episodes of series two are back after a five-month hiatus, with the second part of Rivals now out after the show was split into two parts of six episodes each. David Tennant returns as Tony Baddingham, the unrepentantly villainous mogul who keeps the series’ engine running.
David Tennant as Tony Baddingham
David Tennant plays Tony Baddingham as the kind of figure who turns every scene into a business fight as much as a personal one. That gives the release its sharpest hook: viewers are not just picking up the story again, they are rejoining a feud that has been deliberately held back for five months.
Alex Hassell plays Rupert Campbell-Black, while Claire Rushbrook appears as Monica and Victoria Smurfit as Maud. Bella Maclean, Danny Dyer, Katherine Parkinson, Hubert Burton, Gary Lamont, Eliot Salt, Oliver Chris, Aidan Turner and Rufus Jones also remain in the mix, which keeps the second half of series two crowded with the same rivalries and alliances that powered the first six episodes.
The Venturer and Corinium fight
The Venturer v Corinium shenanigans continue, and that is the real commercial hook of the split release. The show keeps the rivalry alive while the gap between parts stretches the audience’s wait, a structure that trades momentum for a second burst of attention when the new run lands.
Monica’s death remains part of the backdrop after Rupert Campbell-Black broke the news to Tony that she had been killed. In the Great Storm of 1987, Monica drove off after discovering Tony’s affair with Maud and demanding a divorce, then died when her car hit a tree, and the second part returns to that fallout rather than resetting the story.
Sarah’s baby and Tony’s move
The second part also brings the reveal of Sarah’s baby’s parentage, while Tony fires two shotgun blasts and is later described with a brace of dead peacocks. Freddie and Lizzie’s relationship intensifies, and there is a mole in the Venturer camp shovelling information back to Tony, which keeps the power game moving even as the five-month break ends.
For viewers of Rivals, the practical change is simple: the wait is over, but the season has been designed in two six-episode blocks, so the story now advances on the show’s own staggered schedule rather than in one continuous run. The unanswered question is the one the split itself raises — why Disney chose to hold the second half back instead of releasing the full series at once.
