Rivals star Emily Atack reveals how she helped craft major season 2 paternity reveal – and talks "really sad" moment

*Warning: This article contains full spoilers for the first three episodes of Rivals season 2, which are now available to stream on Disney+.*

At the end of season 1, as it became all too clear that ambitious TV presenter Sarah Stratton (Emily Atack) was pregnant, fans started to wonder just who the father of her unborn child was.

Seeing as she was married to Paul (Rufus Jones) and was having an affair with co-host James (Oliver Chris), many were left thinking that it very well could be Lizzie’s husband who was the father.

But Rivals just continues to bring us plot twists aplenty, and with the dawn of season 2‘s first three episodes also comes the realisation that we were all wrong. In fact, the father is none other than Tony Baddingham (David Tennant).

When we asked Emily Atack how she reacted to such a dramatic twist in her character’s story, the actress said that she was actually one of the people responsible for the direction of the story.

Chatting exclusively to Radio Times, Atack revealed: “I don’t know if I should go round saying this really but it was kind of my idea. No, I can’t say that! I don’t know if David [Tennant] remembers this conversation – he probably thinks it’s his idea, I think it’s my idea.

“David and I had a conversation at a party and we were talking, I said ‘I think Tony should be the dad’ and then we had a conversation about that. David then took it to Dom [Treadwell-Collins] and the writers loved that idea. So yeah, I’ll say we both came up with that idea, we had a conversation about it.”

She went on: “I did know that was going to be a thing, yes. I thought what would I want that twist to be? I just thought, ‘Well, it can’t be Paul’s, it can’t be James’s’. And then I remembered there was a scene that was kind of unspoken, there was a bit between Sarah and Tony Baddingham. I thought at the time, ‘Sarah would be trying to shag Tony, surely’. And so I kind of made that up in my mind.”

It’s clear from the offset that Sarah’s pregnancy is merely a thorn in Tony’s side, with him making it very clear that he doesn’t even want to talk about it and pushes Sarah to get an abortion. Merely a representation of the ways in which women were treated back then, Atack says of Sarah’s character this season: “She’s obviously feeling very vulnerable, physically, mentally, everything.

“Feeling like she’s having her job threatened to be taken away from her, she’s not the young, sexy thing anymore that people are trying to have it off with – and that stings.”

Read more:

• Rivals star reveals how new arrivals Hayley Atwell and Rupert Everett impact season 2
• Rivals star reveals which “sacrilegious” couple he’s quietly rooting for

But the sad arc for Sarah doesn’t stop there and actually, at the end of the third episode, we see her return home to Paul. With the pair starting up a mini war of their own, Sarah eventually goes home even though she may not personally agree with the way that Paul’s treated her.

Chatting to Radio Times in an interview alongside Jones, Atack said: “There’s a scene in the kitchen when you come home … it’s f**king sad because she seduces him and she’s doing everything she can to make him come home because she needs this foundation for her baby.”

Jones added: “And you play it in this really specific artificial homemaker kind of way, almost 1950s style.”

“It’s really sad. It’s the using your sexuality thing that can be really dark,” Atack says.

Rivals is available to stream on Disney+. Season 2 premieres on Friday 15 May 2026. Sign-up to Disney+ from £5.99 a month.

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