Rivals Season 2 Everything You Need to Know

Rivals Season 2 Disney: Cast, Release Date and What to Expect

It is here. After one of the most genuinely anticipated waits in British television — a cliffhanger that left Tony Baddingham bleeding on an office floor and an entire audience holding its breath since October 2024 — Rivals Season 2 is on Disney+ today. The first six episodes of a twelve-episode second series are available from this morning. The second six episodes will follow later in the year. Clear the diary. Cancel the plans. Rutshire is back.

What You Need to Know Before You Press Play

Rivals is a British period comedy-drama adapted from Jilly Cooper’s 1988 novel of the same name, set in the world of 1980s independent television in the fictional Cotswolds county of Rutshire. The central battle — between David Tennant’s media mogul Tony Baddingham and Alex Hassell’s ex-Olympian Rupert Campbell-Black for control of the Central South West television franchise — is the spine of the show. The sex, the shoulder pads, the scandal, and the specific pleasure of watching extremely attractive people behave extremely badly in extremely beautiful countryside are everything else.

If you have not watched Season 1, stop here, watch it, and come back. Eight episodes. It will take you a weekend. It is absolutely worth it and Season 2 will make considerably less sense without it.

What to Expect From Season 2

David Tennant returns as Tony — and has teased that he does “really bad things” this season. That is not a spoiler. That is a promise. Tony is more ruthless than ever, determined to dismantle his rivals piece by piece, weaponising scandal and manipulating those closest to him to maintain his grip on power. The cliffhanger from the Season 1 finale — Tony confronting Cameron (Nafessa Williams) after his wife Monica gave him an ultimatum — is resolved in a way that sets the tone for everything that follows.

Rupert and Taggie’s storyline turns up the tension significantly in Season 2, and Taggie appears to be entertaining a new love interest — which will delight and infuriate in equal measure depending on your allegiances.

The new cast additions are the detail worth paying attention to. Hayley Atwell and Rupert Everett have joined for Season 2 — both casting decisions that signal the show has no intention of dialling down its ambitions. Rupert Everett in particular is the kind of addition that makes you sit up slightly straighter when the credits roll.

Why This Is the CSC Show

Rivals is not subtle about what it is. It is a show about power, money, and the specific dynamics of a very particular kind of British social world — the landed gentry, the new media money, the women who navigate both with varying degrees of success and varying degrees of collateral damage. The Cotswolds backdrop is not incidental. The horses, the houses, the way these characters dress for dinner and for war simultaneously — it is the world that CSC’s aesthetic vocabulary is in conversation with, even when the behaviour of its inhabitants is considerably less aspirational.

The fashion is also — genuinely — worth watching for. The show films in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and the 1980s costume design is one of the most considered period wardrobes British television has produced in years. The shoulder pad era has never looked this good. The way the women in Rivals dress — with intention, with armour, with the specific kind of effort that presents itself as effortlessness — is the 1980s version of exactly what CSC writes about every week.

When and Where to Watch

Rivals Season 2 is on Disney+ now — the first six episodes available from today, 15 May 2026. The remaining six episodes will stream later in the year. In the US, the show streams on Hulu simultaneously.

The first three episodes drop together today, with further episodes releasing weekly. The season is twelve episodes in total — double the length of Season 1, which tells you everything about how seriously Disney+ is treating this one.

The Cast

Returning: David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Katherine Parkinson, Danny Dyer, Emily Atack, Nafessa Williams, Bella Maclean, Victoria Smurfit

New for Season 2: Hayley Atwell, Rupert Everett, Olive Tennant, Bobby Lockwood, Eliot Salt, Amanda Lawrence

→ For the Amandaland coverage — the other British drama worth watching right now: Amandaland Is Back And It Understands You Better Than You Think

→ For Jilly Cooper books – I’ve Done The Research Here’s How to Read The Jilly Cooper Books in Order