David Tennant has revealed the future of his Rivals character Tony Baddingham as he sat down for a Q&A at SXSW and discussed the mid-season finale that saw a major character die20:17, 06 Jun 2026Rivals stars David Tennant and Claire Rushbrook, who play Tony and Monica Baddingham in the beloved Disney+ series, appeared at a screening of the mid-season finale of Rivals on Friday night and reacted to their mid-season finale.‌For those who haven't yet watched the sixth episode, look away now, and for those who have - the lead actors opened up on the heart-breaking moment that saw Monica die after a tree fell on her car while driving Caitlin home in a middle of a storm.‌The episode saw Monica confront Tony about his philandering, this time with her friend Maud O'Hara, and announce she was divorcing him before immediately meeting her untimely death. Despite their fractious relationship, the couple had a mutual love for one another after decades of marriage, which David reflected on when asked about his character's future in Rivals now his wife has gone.‌"Well, nowhere good!" he began at a Q&A after a screening of the episode at an event for the SXSW festival in London. "I mean, his, his final moral compass, his final anchor, his home place, his solidity has gone, and if ever he needed it. He needed it now. You're not going to see some episodes now for like six months, right?"The audience gasped and quickly the other members of the crew on the stage corrected: "Later in the year!" It has since been announced by Disney that the part 2 of season 2 will be released in November.‌"My math isn't very good, but we will pick up exactly where we left off," he promised. "I mean, yeah, the aftermath will be there for all to see. And it ain't pretty!"When asked about his character's reactions to major narrative points in the sixth episode, he reflected that Tony is constantly just trying to "wriggle through," but the death of his wife is "cataclysmic" to him.‌"I think he just he's instinctive in the way that he reacts to moments," he said. "He tends to wriggle through and make the best of things, so a moment like this is cataclysmic for him, because suddenly he can't see a way forward, or a solution, or a plan, or a plot, and that's that's almost inconceivable to him."Claire, who plays Monica, added that had very mixed feelings about her character's death: "I felt very sad, naturally. I love Monica, and I love this gang, but the script. The scripts are extraordinary. Laura Wade is an extraordinary writer, and there was no doubt that, these scenes that I'd been given were a real honour and a privilege."She added: "So there really are mixed feelings, it's very painful, but I'm extraordinarily proud."‌David revealed that he and Claire knew of Monica's death before the rest of the cast and managed to keep this major spoiler under their hats for a long time."Claire, and I knew what was coming. Claire and I had been told what the plan was, and we'd had that script, but when we read through these episodes for the first time, the rest of the cast didn't. This has been a spoiler. We've all been keeping very tightly for a long time now. We managed it as well!"‌He added that watching the episode live on Friday night reminded him of reading the scripts with the cast at the read through, and the "devastating" moment everyone realises what is going to happen to Monica."But, the response tonight, watching people who didn't necessarily know what was coming, and that slow sort of dawning dread, as you realize, 'oh, I see where this has to go, I see what we're being taken to', was experienced by the cast. And the moment tonight took me very much back to that moment where all those people in the room."It's a very tight knit bunch, it's a very happy bunch, it's a very close bunch, and we enjoy working with each other, and we're very supportive of each other, and it was sort of devastating that moment as people around the room started to realise where the story was going, what that meant in terms of losing Monica, and what that meant in terms of losing Claire from our gang, and the real sort of devastation of that moment was, I felt it very keenly again tonight.‌"It's, it's a very double-edged thing, because of course it allowed that extraordinary script to be written, and it allowed us to have these amazing scenes to play. It takes a moment like that in character's existence to sort of be at the extremes of their emotional journeys, and yet the cost is we don't get to do it enough anymore."The writer of the series, Laura Wade, concluded that while killing Monica was a deviation from the original books, they had been given Jilly Cooper's blessing, who worked as an executive on the series before her death in October 2025.‌"Although very sad at the idea of losing Monica, who was a very dear character to her - and her typewriter was actually called Monica, it was a very dear name to Jilly - but she understood that in deviating from the book like this, we were able to give Monica this huge moment in this episode."Laura then entirely credited Jilly with the success of the series: "There's there's a lot of fun and fizz on the surface, and she was like a really good party as a person, and in her writing. But then there is just this beautiful emotional and characterful and vivid depth underneath her understanding of humanity and people and the way that people f**k each other and f**k each other over."She added: "It's all her."Article continues belowRivals returns in November on Disney+