SPOILERS Rivals Season 2 🥳

[Blossombunnyy]

On Disney in May 15th 2026

Who's excited?

I can't wait the trailer looks so good.

Santiago Cabrera! I love this series 😬😬

I’ve loved Rivals until this episode. But I was so invested in Monica finding happiness with Enid! Feel like there are two horrible troupes at work here. ‘Bury your gays’ as discussed above and ‘fridging’ a woman has to die so a man (Tony) can experience personal growth and character development.

I remember that storm though it was half term and we were staying with a posh relative with large lawn ringed by huge conifers - they lost about half over the course of the night. Nobody slept a wink.

Furious they killed off Monica….. was also totally looking forward to her and dame Enid!
Excited to see more of Perdita. I read the books in my teens and though she was amazing although definitely blonde not dark haired.

I'm already pissed off that Rupert and Tab are dark haired. Perdita should have thick white blonde hair as per book description.

I watched S1 before reading the books, so when I read the books I see Rupert as Alex Hassell, I just can’t imagine him blonde.

I slept right through that storm, I lived in West London and we didn’t have a power cut, so when the radio alarm came on talking about it and I looked out the window to see trees down along the road it was something of a shock.

i thought it was the dark head one who did a kiss and tell on Rupert

Yes same would have been lovely for her to get her happy ending

Ah

@thenightskyabsolutely and don’t get me started on Helen!! 🤣

Beattie Johnson?

AkA the ‘grubby blonde’ 😂

Interesting that Rachel Stirling is joining the cast, she was great in Detectorists, (daughter of the late great Diana Rigg who would have been a brilliant as a Jilly Cooper character).

She used to be engaged to Oliver Chris (James Vereker) who is more like the book Rupert to me. He’s playing James for laughs but is a versatile actor.

I treated myself to a weekend binge of series 2 for my birthday 😁Also cannot believe Monica was killed off! It's such a big departure from the books that I wonder where else they're going to go. As PP have said, it must have been Jilly-approved, but all the other tweaks have been relatively minor. It looks like there's going to be a mash up with some of the Polo storylines, although David Hawkley only appeared in The Man Who... so not sure what he's doing here. Presumably Lysander will be there as well?

Patrick is not really doing it for me. The character was supposed to be this gorgeous brilliant arrogant (too arrogant) young go-getter and here he's worrying about whether women like chest hair! I can't see anything in the TV version that would attract Cameron; I wonder if they do end up together or if that's changed as well.

Oliver Chris played yet another shitty husband in Maternal, and Lisa McGrillis played his wife. I must give that another watch, it was pretty good. I do hope Valerie gets a happy-ish ending; I've always had a sneaking sympathy for her, although she's a social climbing snob. She's just trying to act and behave in the way she thinks is necessary to fit in with a way of life that she's totally unfamiliar with, but she just gets sneered at and because she commits the ultimate Cooper sin of not liking sex she's the villain.

Can we just have a moment for Rupert bloody Everett!! I thought he was excellent. My other observations, in no real order:

• I thought Maud's make-up was deliberately a bit heavier to underline how "washed-up" she is now she's over 40
• I feel like Deirdre will be important, sooner or later!!
• Exceptionally annoying yet predictable about Monica (see above re Bury Your Gays) - can'l believe the Enid actress is Annette Crosbie's daughter though, voices are exactly the same!
• My first thought was, like a pp, that she'd faked her death but seeing what look like funeral scenes in the next tranche's trailer that looks unlikely.
• Desperate for Lizzie and Freddie to get together, Wayne to not have to go to Eton and Sharon to have something nice happen to her.
• Shelley and Kevin!!!!! I love them 😂
• Beattie is far too panto villain for me, ever for this show
• I love the little camera guy who lost the tapes
• I REALLY love Charles (ménage à trois with Muffy and Gérald?)
• the dinner party ep was really excellent telly

The little camera guy who lost the tapes was the annoying post-uni boyfriend of the main character in Netflix’s One Day (which is why I don’t like him 😂).

Deirdre is clearly carrying a lot of pent up anger!

I am rooting for a happy ending for Charles and Gerald, but Muffy is sweet and I don't want her to be hurt. Maybe she will end up with Dame Enid!

Of COURSE he was, @BunnyMcDougall !!

Am I making this up, but doesn’t Sharon go away to boarding school and come back slim and hot, Jilly style?

I like the Shelley character. Those flashes of brilliance that make all the rich folk look nice-but-dim.

@BunnyMcDougall I knew Enid reminded me of someone. I just didn’t twig who.

I remember her as the mum’s friend from Cuckoo.

@Yetanotherone12 I don't think so, she and Wayne and Valerie all just fade out of sight by the end of the book. I do love a Jilly-style glow up, and was always tempted to spend a week eating salads and grapefruit like Janey Lloyd-Foxe and Fen Maxwell so I could emerge as a raving beauty 😂

I think that was Natasha Rannaldini

Oh - Monica’s death has shocked me.
I have only just had the chance to watch ep6. I had seen some social media spoilers over the weekend about a main character being killed off and I thought it would be Tony. But not Monica. Like so many of you I really wanted her and Dame Enid to have their happy ever after.

And I am bloody well fucked off that we have to wait until November for the rest. So annoyed I am going to let Disney know, harrumph!!

Yes she quit her job and started busking. It was very funny

Jilly Cooper has always been very snobbish about nouveax riche social climbers. Being middle class is THE Worst Thing. Valerie /Mousie characters have appeared in other books. My vague memory of the book is that Valerie was ghastly but she's rather sweet in the TV series albeit misguided.
I did like that Freddie - falling in love with Lizzie - did not rewrite history and said he married Valerie because he loved her.

I don’t remember a Natasha-who was that?! Rannaldini had Cosmo but I don’t remember a daughter.