Maggie Lovitt is the Deputy News Editor at Collider. In addition to reporting on the latest entertainment news, she is also an actor and member of the Screen Actors Guild based out of the Mid-Atlantic Region. Lovitt is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Critics Choice Association and National Press Club. While she spends her time writing and editing articles about the entertainment industry, Maggie’s background is actually in history and anthropology. She loves it whenever she can bring those two facets of her life together, such as with reviews for series like We Were the Lucky Ones and The New Look, and engaging interviews with talent like Ben Mendelsohn, Liev Schreiber, or Jonas Nay.
As Episode 4 of Rivals Season 2 lands on streaming today, fans of the raunchy Hulu and Disney+ series can’t help but look ahead to where things might be headed for one of the central couples. Especially when the first half of the season has not been particularly kind to Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) or Taggie O’Hara (Bella Maclean).
The current state of affairs is, of course, entirely because Rupert put the kibosh on their burgeoning romance in Episode 1 by becoming Cameron Cook’s (Nafessa Williams) white knight in her moment of need. While last week’s three-episode premiere gave a glimpse into what a coupled Rupert and Taggie might look like, the joy of their day out with his children was swiftly snatched away, and this week continues to leave the fan-favorite couple at odds. But fear not, we have a scintilla of new intel about the impending hunt ball, which will — hopefully — at long last push Rupert and Taggie into each other’s arms. Perhaps, quite literally, if the details we’ve eked out are anything to go by.
Collider’s Michael Zimmermann caught up with Hassell and Maclean earlier this week while the duo and their co-stars, Williams and David Tennant, were in New York City to support the launch of Season 2. Armed with questions about the iconic hunt ball, which Disney+ has been mercilessly teasing fans with by way of featurettes, news segments, and behind-the-scenes snaps, Zimmermann got two rumors confirmed in swift succession.
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Will "Lady in Red" Appear in 'Rivals' for a Second Time?
While chatting with Hassell, the star revealed that the hunt ball “had a very special guest singing cameo,” all but confirming The Sun’s exclusive reporting that Chris de Burgh will perform his song, “Lady in Red,” during the episode. While The Sun stated that the song would be performed during a wedding scene, it makes far more sense for de Burgh to perform “Lady in Red” during the hunt ball, considering the song — and the ball itself — are part of a pivotal scene in the late Dame Jilly Cooper’s novel, which sees Rupert and Taggie’s romance move forward. It also wouldn’t be the first time the pair swayed to the tune, as the song featured in Season 1, Episode 3, too. Hassell did claim that he wasn’t sure if this bit of news had been revealed yet, so perhaps Rivals has another surprise in store if this musical cameo isn’t a perfectly-timed de Burgh appearance. After all, he also teased that “there's quite a lot of dance numbers that I don't think you'd expect.”
Maclean opted to be quite tight-lipped about the hunt ball with Zimmermann, revealing only that “there are a lot of animals in the hunt ball.” However, she also revealed that there was “a lot of spinning” for her, which conveniently ties into something she recently mentioned in an interview with British Vogue. During the junket for the series, she told the magazine that she “nearly threw up” while filming a sequence where she had to hold the camera and spin around in a tight dress. The scene seemingly included Hassell, whom she joked called for a bucket for her to puke in. Within that conversation, Hassell also revealed that it was a “really big Taggie moment” with “a lot [of] stuff going on underneath,” which does sound like the hunt ball scene from the book. We also know that Taggie will be clad in a red dress for the hunt ball, furthering the theory that the "Lady in Red" moment will indeed come to fruition.
It may not be a lot, but while Rivals fans endure a RuTag drought, it’s nice to know that the pair may actually end up together by the end of Season 2 — even if the series is going to make audiences wait the better part of a year for those scenes.
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Stay tuned to Collider for more updates on Rivals and be sure to check out Zimmermann’s conversations with the cast.