Rivals Season 2 on Hulu: David Tennant Returns in the Raunchiest Drama of 2026

By James Liu · May 15, 2026

Rivals Season 2 premieres today, May 15, 2026, on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK, carrying a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score from its first five reviews. David Tennant leads the ensemble cast back into Jilly Cooper's scandalous 1980s British high society, and critics are calling it "bigger, better, and raunchier than ever." Twelve episodes total, with the first six dropping weekly and the remaining six later this year.

Why Season 1 Made Rivals Unmissable

I almost didn't watch Rivals Season 1. The premise sounded like it could go either way — a period drama about posh Brits behaving badly in the 1980s, based on a Jilly Cooper bonkbuster novel. I gave it three episodes out of curiosity and ended up finishing the entire season in a weekend. That hasn't happened to me since the early days of binge-watching Succession.

What hooked me wasn't the scandal, though there's plenty of it. It was the way the show commits fully to its own absurdity while somehow making you care about characters who are, by any objective measure, terrible people. David Tennant's portrayal anchors the whole thing with a magnetic intensity that makes you root for someone you probably shouldn't. The show understands something fundamental: great drama doesn't need sympathetic characters, it needs compelling ones.

Season 1 was a genuine breakout hit, the kind of show people discovered through word of mouth and then wouldn't shut up about. So when Hulu announced Season 2 was coming, expectations were enormous — and based on what early critics are saying, those expectations have been met and then some.

What's New in Rivals Season 2?

Season 2 expands the world in exactly the ways that a sophomore season should. Where Season 1 established the players and their feuds, Season 2 deepens those dynamics and raises the stakes considerably. Victoria Smurfit and Alex Hassell get significantly more screen time, and from what reviewers are hinting, their storylines this season are some of the strongest material the show has produced.

The show leans harder into the 1980s aesthetic that made Season 1 so visually distinctive. Big hair, bigger shoulder pads, and a soundtrack that genuinely transports you to Thatcher-era England. But it's not just nostalgia as wallpaper — the period setting serves the story's themes of class warfare, unchecked ambition, and the particular brand of cruelty that comes from people who've never been told no.

Critics are using phrases like "fabulously retro" and "far more than a guilty pleasure" — and that second one matters. Season 1 occasionally got dismissed as fluffy entertainment, a fun watch but nothing substantial. Season 2 appears to have silenced those critics. A perfect Rotten Tomatoes score from five reviews isn't a large sample, but it signals that the show has leveled up in ways that even skeptics can't ignore.

David Tennant Keeps Getting Better at This

I've been following David Tennant's career since his Doctor Who days, and what strikes me about his trajectory is how he keeps finding roles that use different facets of his talent. The manic energy of the Doctor, the quiet menace of Kilgrave in Jessica Jones, the grief-stricken detective in Broadchurch, the cosmic romantic in Good Omens Season 3 — each one feels like a different actor, and yet they're all unmistakably Tennant.

Rivals gives him something else entirely: a character who weaponizes charm. Where Tennant's previous villains relied on supernatural power or institutional authority, his role in Rivals is all about social manipulation and raw charisma deployed as a blunt instrument. The 1980s setting suits him perfectly — there's something about Tennant in a tailored suit with slightly too much confidence that just works on a fundamental level.

What early reviews suggest about Season 2 is that Tennant has been given room to explore the vulnerability beneath the bravado. That's where the show could transcend its genre. A posh period drama with outrageous behavior is entertaining. A posh period drama where the outrageous behavior masks genuine pain is something else entirely. If Tennant pulls that off — and I'd bet on him at this point — Rivals Season 2 could be the show that forces awards voters to take it seriously.

The Split-Season Gamble

Here's the one decision that gives me pause. Twelve episodes split into two batches — six weekly from today, six more later in 2026 — is a scheduling strategy that's worked for some shows (Stranger Things 4) and killed momentum for others. The risk is that by the time the second half arrives, audiences have moved on to something else.

But I think Rivals is well-positioned to survive the gap. The show's audience is intensely engaged — the kind of fandom that creates elaborate fan theories, ships characters aggressively, and generates the social media buzz that keeps a show in the cultural conversation. If the first six episodes end on a cliffhanger anything like Season 1's finale, the wait for the second half will only amplify the anticipation. For fans of bingeable new dramas filling the gap, The Boroughs from the Duffer Brothers on Netflix dropped just days ago and offers a very different but equally addictive viewing experience.

The weekly release format itself is a smart choice in 2026. We've collectively realized that dropping an entire season at once creates a brief explosion of conversation that fades within a week. Weekly episodes keep the discourse alive, give audiences time to digest and theorize, and — from a business perspective — keep subscribers paying for longer. Hulu learned that lesson the hard way with several binge-dumped shows that disappeared from the conversation overnight.

My Early Verdict: Clear Your Thursday Nights

I haven't seen Season 2 yet — it literally premieres today as I write this, and I plan to watch the first episode tonight with entirely too much wine and zero shame. But everything I've read from early critics, everything I know about the creative team's ambitions, and everything Season 1 demonstrated about this show's potential tells me Rivals Season 2 is going to be the drama event of May 2026.

A perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. An ensemble cast that's had time to settle into their roles. A show that's been called "bigger, better, and raunchier" by people who loved the first season. David Tennant in 1980s power suits doing terrible things with impeccable comic timing. I genuinely don't know what more you need to hear.

The first episode hits Hulu today. Six more follow weekly. Clear your schedule, pour yourself something strong, and prepare for the most entertaining bad behavior on television. Rivals is back, and it sounds like it brought friends.