Warning: The following contains spoilers for Rivals season 1.
Rivals EP explains why season 1 ending is so different from Dame Jilly Cooper's book, which the Hulu show is based on. Rivals follows an ensemble cast and sees Rupert Cambell-Black (Alex Hassel) and Tony Baddingham's (David Tennant) fierce rivalry conclude with Tony learning about his producer and mistress Cameron's (Nafessa Williams) relationship with Rupert. They get into a physical fight. Cameron fights back by knocking Tony with the award they won, leaving Tony's fate unknown, whereas in the book, Tony is the one who beats Cameron.
Executive producer Dominic Treadwell-Collins explains to TV Insider that they decided early on not to put the "awful big moment" where "a man beat a woman to a pulp" in the show. They wanted to leave Cameron "stronger" with a "noisy cliffhanger" that "leaves a lot of questions" with Tony's fate up in the air. The EP further stresses that though the dynamics between characters come from the ones in the book, they wanted to give them more nuances. Check out what he said below:
Treadwell-Collins
: We’re always hopeful. Alex Lamb, who works with me, we ran EastEnders, this long-running soap opera in the UK, for a very long time. So we’re used to dropping down story bombs and delving into character a bit more deeply. I’ve been so desperate to put these books on television for such a long time and we’ve brought the rights to all of them. So we’re always hopeful that we’re going to come back and we left it on a very big cliffhanger on purpose. It’s not in the books. That was a big creative decision. We wanted to delve into the books as much as possible and we’ve done half the book.
At this point where we end in the book, Tony beats Cameron up and he beats her to a pulp and she goes to Rupert. That is an awful big moment in the book, and we in the writers’ room said very early on, we are not going to, in our version, just have a man beat a woman to a pulp. Because we decided very early on to make Cameron a woman of color. We’re not showing that on the screen. Our Cameron is slightly different to the Cameron in the book. What I think is wonderful is we’ve always said Tony hits Cameron, but Cameron hits Tony back and really hits him back.
It came out of a moment in lockdown. I was moving a cupboard and my BAFTA for EastEnders was on the top and my husband said, clear the cupboard before you move it. I ignored him. The BAFTA fell on my head and I was concussed, I was hospitalized. I was told that if it had fallen by an inch more, I’d be dead. Which death by BAFTA for a television producer, actually, if you’re going to go, it’s kind of cool. But early on, Felicity Blunt, Alex, Jilly, and I laughed about that and said, can we not layer in this award that in a Chekhovian way is played earlier, that ultimately Cameron grabs and whacks Tony over the head with. It gives us a really good noisy cliffhanger. It also is something that is a shock to people who love the books. So it comes out of nowhere. It gives you a brilliant cliffhanger. If we never come back, it leaves a lot of questions up in the air, but hopefully, we come back to do more.
But it was also a serious point. I did not want to have Tony beat Cameron to a pulp. Our message for our show is that if you look at the journey that every woman takes in Series 1, they’re all much stronger by the end. We were not going to have Cameron weaker. We actually wanted Cameron to be stronger and Cameron to whack back and hit Tony as he’s surrounded by himself doing a speech on lots of televisions about the power of television felt delicious to us.
TV Insider:
Is Tony dead?
Treadwell-Collins:
There are so many possibilities about what could happen but what we do know is revenge is a dish best served on television.
TV Insider:
Another change from the book is that ring and Tony’s offer to leave Monica. Did he really love Cameron? Would he really have left Monica?
Treadwell-Collins:
Yes. I love this book so much and that’s why I wanted to delve deeper. Monica on screen is more nuanced than in the book. Monica in the book doesn’t really care about—Tony comes to her room once a week for athletic sex and that’s about it. We painted their relationship as a lot more nuanced. In the book, Tony possesses Cameron. Cameron is a possession. I still think in our show he sees her as a possession, but, because we’ve got David Tennant, we want more layers there. And so when Tony finds out that Cameron has been sleeping with Rupert, we wanted not just anger, but we wanted heartbreak.
Rivals Season 1 Delves Deep Into The Book
Rivals season 1 has made several changes that differentiate itself from the book. Treadwell-Collins' comment explains the unique dynamics among these characters and why the changes are made. Though it seems that the show has derived from the source material on the surface, the EP's comments indicate that it's from a place of deep exploration. The show isn't replicating what happens in the book on the outside, it delves into the characters and events and shows how and why they happen while adding more layers.
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The Hulu show follows the blueprint laid out in the book. However, Treadwell-Collins' comments also suggest that viewers shouldn't take the show's characters as exact duplicates of the book. Through the show, they want to leave their female characters stronger instead of weaker, which is why season 1 ending is different from the book. The EP also sheds light on how Tennant's performance in Rivals also comes into play in shaping Tony, which makes events in the show more nuanced.
Our Take on Rivals Season 1
Many Questions Need Answers
The ending is drastically different from the book. Maud leaves her family to go to a play in London, which is unique to the show. Monica threatens Tony with a divorce, which would never happen in the book. Rupert and Taggie finally kiss, and the season 1 finale ends with Cameron hitting Tony over the head, which is an unexpected cliffhanger.
With all the changes, the show amplifies different aspects of these characters and makes them fiercer and more intense than they are in the book. Monica, for example, prefers her dogs' company much more than Tony. She couldn't be bothered less about Tony's affair, let alone threatening to leave. The change in the show makes her a warmer person instead of being cold and indifferent. The ending no doubt leaves Tony at his lowest point with plenty of questions that Rivals season 2 needs to answer. Hopefully, the series won't leave viewers hanging and will make a comeback.
Set in the high-stakes world of 1980s British television, a bitter rivalry between two powerful men reaches its boiling point. Declan O’Hara, a TV presenter, vows revenge on Lord Tony Baddingham after feeling betrayed. Amidst romantic entanglements and corporate backstabbing, the drama unfolds with intense personal and professional clashes.
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