Rivals Returns: 33 Sex Scenes and Counting in Jilly Cooper's Rutshire

Rivals has logged 33 sex scenes across its first two series, and the Disney+ adaptation of the late Jilly Cooper's Rutshire Chronicles returned this month with six new episodes promising, in the source's words, "more of the same, with clanging bells on."

The series arrived five months after its previous run ended. Alex Hassell's Rupert Campbell-Black, the fictional Conservative MP for Chalford and Bisley, remains the show's engine. The catalogue of encounters below comes from a newly published ranking of the programme's ten most memorable scenes.

What defines the show's most notorious scene?

The series established its tone in episode one of series one. Rupert and Beattie Johnson (Annabel Scholey) join the mile-high club in a Concorde lavatory at 50,000 feet, scored to Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love". The review calls the Conservative minister's airborne buttocks the show's "defining image", quivering over the Cotswolds.

The same episode delivers naked tennis. Taggie O'Hara (Bella Maclean) stumbles upon Rupert playing in the nude with Sarah Stratton (Emily Atack), in a scene the ranking describes as a rare courtside view of the character.

Which scenes carry the politics?

Series two turns explicitly political. In episode three, Gerald Middleton (Hubert Burton) celebrates the general election results mid-encounter with Charles Fairburn (Gary Lamont), who pleads, "Stop talking about Margaret Thatcher." The debate that follows — "I'm going to change things FROM THE INSIDE!" — eventually resolves itself, flanked by what the review identifies as twin emblems of 1980s excess: a budgie and a dead cheese plant.

David Tennant's Tony Baddingham features in what the ranking calls the most "it's 1987" scene of all: a desk-slamming office encounter with Maud O'Hara (Victoria Smurfit) in series two, episode five, complete with flammable workwear and a towering perm.

Who tops the list?

The number-one entry belongs to Declan O'Hara (Aidan Turner), whose mid-shower orgasm in series two, episode one — courtesy of his faithless wife Maud's "wandering hands" — earns the review's highest praise. It describes his facial expression as a "ferret slowly realising he's left a Findus Crispy Pancake in the oven", and calls the scene "a high-water mark in the Rivals sex-Jacuzzi".

Other ranked highlights include:

• Rupert and Cameron in Málaga (series 1, episode 6): a hotel-suite encounter during a TV awards ceremony, with Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams) and Rupert in what the review terms full "Una Paloma Blanca" mode.
• Lizzie and Freddie in the swimming pool (series 2, episode 4): Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer) tells novelist Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson), "You're bloody brilliant," in a scene the review says made "a nation wept". [sic]
• The outdoor montage (series 1, episode 6): Rupert declares, "First of May, first of May, outdoor fucking starts today," launching a montage involving a haystack, a golf cart and wildfowl.
• Bas and four women (series 1, episode 3): Tony stumbles upon half-brother Bas (Luke Pasqualino) in what the review calls a "festive five-way", remarking, "How delightfully ambitious of you, little brother."
• Rupert and Cameron's stairs sequence (series 2, episode 2): set to the Ski Sunday theme, involving a riding crop, a mirror, two tutting labradors and a "bonking trestle".

What does this change for viewers?

Little, and deliberately so. The review frames Rivals as only "slightly" a critique of late-1980s social mores among upper-class rural England, and much more a celebration of exuberant excess. With six new episodes now streaming, the count of 33 will rise, and the show's formula — period satire wrapped around relentless physical comedy — remains firmly intact.