Rivals Star Katherine Parkinson Praises Season 2's 'Radical' Approach To Sex

Rivals actor Katherine Parkinson has heaped praise on the show’s refreshing approach to female sexuality.

Since Rivals debuted in 2024, much has been made of its many, many racy scenes, but at a recent Q&A event to promote season two, Katherine said she thinks the show deserves more credit for its “radical” approach to sex, particularly from the perspective of its female characters.

“There are truths being told that I don’t feel that I’ve necessarily seen,” the former The IT Crowd star enthused, as reported by The Guardian. “There’s a sort of bravery to that. And it sort of feels quite radical.”

Katherine puts this down to the fact that Rivals is based on the works of the late Dame Jilly Cooper, noting: “Jilly wrote brilliantly from the female perspective about sex. And oddly, we still haven’t seen a lot of that on television.”

The Bafta winner plays Lizzie Vereker in the Disney+ series, whose budding romance with Danny Dyer’s businessman character Freddie Jones formed a major part of the action in season one, culminating in the two having sex in the finale.

She and Danny have plenty more scenes together in the new run of episodes, which began airing on Disney+ on Friday morning, with new instalments dropping on the streaming platform every week until early June, at which point the season will take a pause.

Critical reception for season two have been even more glowing than those for the first run, with Rivals’ second outing currently boasting a coveted 100% score on the reviews aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.

Joining Katherine in the new run of episodes are former co-stars like David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Emily Atack and Nafessa Williams, in addition to some intriguing new arrivals, most notably Hayley Atwell and Rupert Everett.

The first three episodes of Rivals season two are now streaming.