The “naughtiest show on television” is back,” and Season 2 is “150%” a tribute to the late, great Jilly Cooper, the author of the source material who was beloved by millions.

Cooper’s agent, Felicity Blunt, was one of five Rivals executive producers who delved deep into why the author meant so much to the world and how the show starring David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson pays tribute to her memory. She died suddenly aged 88 late last year and the Rivals set was subsequently visited by her good friend, Queen Camilla.

“Jilly always said that her job was to entertain,” said Blunt. “We all try and ensure that that is our North Star. So this season is 150% a tribute.”

That tribute is sweeping but can be found in numerous Easter eggs laid out for eagle-eyed Cooper fans, Blunt revealed. She cited one from Season 1 when Taggie, played by breakout Bella Maclean, loses a manuscript on a train, which famously happened to Cooper when she left her first draft of hit novel Riders on a bus.

“We take the language from the books and we make sure we use the precision of her dialog in our show,” added Blunt. “If you are a Jilly aficionado you will be able to point to certain scenes, beats or words that she uses.”

Having become possibly Disney+’s biggest hit outside of the U.S., and certainly one of its most expensive, Rivals Season 2 was given an extended 12-episode order and the story has now expanded far beyond the books.

“We are able to play out the repercussions of some of the bigger dramatic beats of series one, and I think we do that really effectively and still utterly in sync with Jilly’s voice and her storytelling practice,” added Blunt. “She read every script, celebrated all our choices and gave us complete permission to deviate from the text.”

Dominic Treadwell-Collins, a Cooper stan who spent 25 years trying to get her work to screen, said the author “held us to a very high standard, and we all hold each other to a very high standard.” “We give each other more notes than Disney does,” added Treadwell-Collins.

As writer and EP Laura Wade summarised: “Making a television show about television sets the bar quite high.”

In Season 2, the stakes are upped as the battle for the Central South West television franchise reaches a fever pitch, with the war between Corinium and Venturer entering a dangerous phase. More ruthless than ever, Tony Baddingham (Tennant) is determined to dismantle his rivals piece-by-piece, weaponizing scandal and manipulating those closest to him to maintain his grip on power.

“We’ve matured a bit as a show,” Treadwell-Collins, who runs ITV Studios-backed Rivals production outfit Happy Prince, said of Season 2. “We’ve been talking a lot this series about the consequences of actions.”

Season 2 was simpler in a sense, according to director Elliot Hegarty, as “last time around we didn’t know what we had, we were working in the dark,” while EP Alexander Lamb claimed the “storytelling is richer, we have a bigger breadth of emotion and we are sillier, darker and sadder.”

Rupert Everett, Hayley Atwell & Campbell-Black’s backstory

Rivals Season 1 saw actors like traditional hard-man Danny Dyer play roles against type, while Season 2 is about taking these characters in unexpected directions. The first season ended with Baddingham being hit over the head by former lover Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams) and while it isn’t a spoiler to reveal Baddingham is still alive (see trailer for more), Hegarty said the “whack around the head dislodges something in his brain.” “He’s lost a bit of social grace, he’s a bit more bats**t,” added Hegarty.

Meanwhile, the audience will learn more about cad-ish hearthrob Rupert Campbell-Black’s (Alex Hassell) backstory, with the entrance of two starry new characters, his ex-wife Helen, played by Hayley Atwell, and her new husband Malise, played by Rupert Everett. “These familial connections are forever grounding the extremes of that character,” said Blunt.

Everett, who “brings just the right amount of twinkle,” was a fan who got in touch with the team to ask if he could be in the show, Hegarty reveals, while Treadwell-Collins described Atwell as bringing a “Dynasty pout” to proceedings.

The pair fitted into the ensemble like a glove, the team say, and will foreground Campbell-Black while some secondary characters such as Sarah, Paul, Charles and Gerald are handed meatier storylines.

“Cynical snobbery”

Prior to Season 1, Treadwell-Collins claimed that the “snobbery” of British TV had prevented Rivals from being adapted for so long, saying BBC and ITV executives “would look at me like I’d farted” when he pitched Cooper’s novels in years gone by.

Things have changed, but Lamb believes that snobbery has simply transformed into “cynical snobbery.” “They see that we’ve made something quite successful and want to jump on board, but I’m not sure they see the heart,” he said.

Blunt, who occupies a rare space in being both the agent of the source material’s author and an EP on the show, said there are lots out there currently pitching Cooper shows and many have asked her for the rights. “I think Jilly had this [snobbery] for years,” she added. “She was put in this place that was called ‘Bonkbuster’ and actually she just didn’t care. She would just say, ‘Literary writers would rather have my sales’. I think she taught us not to care.”

She also taught the team to think big. Treadwell-Collins has grand ambitions now that Rivals is so well established.

“The world is filled with lots of OK television but we keep talking about wanting to make people’s favorite television,” he added. “We want people to come back to this as their favorite show.”

Rivals launches Friday on Disney+ internationally and Hulu in the States.