May 15, 2026 6:15am PT
‘Rivals,’ Hulu’s British Dark Comedy, Is Pitch-Perfect in Season 2: TV Review
Hulu
Guilty pleasures are one thing, but utterly delicious bits of television are something else entirely. Season 2 of Hulu’s “Rivals,” the 1980s-set dark comedy adapted from Jilly Cooper’s “Rutshire Chronicles” novels, is exactly that. The series, which is set in the fictional county of Rutshire, England, follows an intense rivalry. Legendary television executive Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant), the managing director of Corinium, is on a rampage. His former show host Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner) has teamed up with retired Olympian turned politician and notorious rake Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) for their own television enterprise. While Season 1 was a delightful entry into this over-the-top world of the British elite, Season 2 has taken things up a notch with a tonally perfect and exceptional continuation of a truly scandalous series.
Season 2 (critics received five of the six episodes for review, with the remaining six episodes debuting later this year) picks up where Season 1 left off. Rupert, Declan and self-made tech billionaire Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer) have teamed up to form their own network, Venturer, as a direct challenge to Tony’s Corinium for Rutshire’s television franchise. However, things are already off to a rocky start. Rupert has fled town with Tony’s wonderkid American producer Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams), who bashed her boss and long-time lover across the head after he attacked her for getting close to Rupert. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on whose asking), Tony is very much alive. Knowing Tony’s menacing possessiveness over Cameron, and his ruthlessness, neither she nor anyone else associated with Venturer can even begin to conceive of the type of revenge he’s willing to unleash to ensure Corinium’s unblemished legacy.
