Rivals turned up the heat again in episode five, with Aiden Turner’s Declan O'Hara taking a naked swim in a loch as the latest instalment landed on Disney+ today. The scene was one of two raunchy moments in the episode, and it arrived with a wider shot that showed Turner baring his backside before he pulled on his trousers.
That is why viewers are searching for Aiden Turner now: the second series has made nudity and sex scenes one of its selling points, and this episode pushed that line further. Last week, Danny Dyer’s Freddie was already getting steamy with Lizzie in his pool, before the pair gave in to their secret desires again in episode four, so the loch scene feels less like a one-off than the latest step in a pattern.
Turner plays Declan O'Hara, whose estranged wife Maud becomes increasingly intimate with Tony Baddingham, played by David Tennant. Tony turns up uninvited at Maud’s house while her children are away, the pair end up on her grand piano, and later she visits him at work, where they kiss before he presses her against the internal glass windows. Tony’s stunned assistant quickly leaves after spotting them through the blinds, and Maud then pushes him into his chair and takes charge.
The show’s cast has been leaning into the notoriety. Dyer, 48, said his daughters wanted time codes before watching his full-frontal scene, but insisted nobody is under pressure to be naked if they do not want to be. “Nobody's under pressure to be naked if they don't want to, but if a woman's getting her breasts out, why shouldn't I get it all out?” he said, adding: “I've got breasts as well, to be fair!” He also said he had to learn to play polo for the series, speak French and pick up more Japanese, while noting that Freddie speaks five different languages, including Dutch and Italian.
For now, the question is not whether Rivals has become more explicit. It has. The question is how much further the second series will go, and episode five gives no sign that the show is done raising the temperature.
