Rivals season two part two: David Tennant unleashes villainiest villain Tony Baddingham

As always, it comes back to a 30 Rock episode, this time, a third season instalment called The Generalissimo in which Alec Baldwin pulls double duty as a character on a Spanish-language telenovela.

The Generalissimo is a cartoon villain, with a literal moustache he could twirl if he so desired. He lied, cheated, manipulated, chortled and strapped dynamite to a kid’s head. He was irredeemably a bad dude.

The thing about villainy in fictional stories is that they are supposed to function as “the other”, a representative figure who unites the heroic protagonists against them.

The most interesting villains are usually multi-dimensional with motivations and back stories that are, sometimes, uncomfortably relatable. Take, for instance, Killmonger in the Black Panther movie, a violent and ruthless character trying to overthrow the legitimate leader, T’Challa, and has a body count that is etched into his skin.

But he was also a product of both personal tragedy and a wider social construct of oppression, which contextualised his psychology and his actions. He was complex, which made the audience reactions to his demise complicated.

On the other hand, those out-and-out bad guys, like The Generalissimo, like Rivals’ Lord Tony Baddingham, played with gleeful, dastardly intent by David Tennant, provoke something else from us viewers safely ensconced from his schemes – a schadenfreude and a catharsis.

When Rivals premiered two years ago, it was bonkbuster TV, a delicious 1980s-set soap opera in the environs of the wealthy Cotswold elite. It was big hair, big betrayals and a healthy dose of sexy times.

The show opened with a shot of a naked butt engaged in mile high amorous activities onboard a Concorde jet, and continued with all sorts of bedroom antics including an orgy. Rivals, adapted from the now late Dame Jilly Cooper’s books, knew exactly what it was, and that was over-the-top fun.

Its characters were larger-than-life, whether that be the polo-playing wild boy Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell), the righteous Irish journalist Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner) or the ambitious American TV executive Cameron Cook (Nafessa Williams).

Even the “sweeter” characters, such as Taggie (Bella Mclean) or romance novelist Lizzie (Katherine Parkinson), all had distinct shading and story arcs. For a series that had a surplus of characters, it knew what to do with all of them, and that is really to its credit.

But none were as attention-grabbing as Tony Baddingham, the new money businessman who married into his title, and wields his resources and influence like a sledgehammer.

There was nothing Tony wouldn’t do to achieve his goals – to destroy his personal and professional rival, Rupert, and to win at all costs, usually through his TV station, Corinium.

Every relationship with Tony is transactional, and he has amassed a trove of secrets that he uses to blackmail, extort and manipulate others. He rules through fear and bullying, exploiting others’ pain and vulnerability, and he has zero qualms about cheating on his wife, Monica.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SEASONS ONE AND PART ONE OF SEASON TWO

At the end of the first season, after eight episodes of Tony’s villainy, it seems as if he had met his comeuppance with a surely fatal thwack to the head with a sharp object, but (only on TV), he survives and fights on to make everyone else’s lives worse.

Tony became a character you wanted to see punished, while simultaneously delighting in just how far he could push his black hattery.

He stirs something in an audience, a figure into which we could channel our frustrations about real-world villains whether they be political scoundrels, tech barons, corporate criminals or just the arsehole who almost ran you off the road this morning in their enormous American-style truck.

Where we feel impotent in our actual lives to exact change, there was Tony Baddingham, someone towards which we could direct that anger.

At the end of the first half of season two – the series returns this week with the second batch of episodes – Tony faces an almost reckoning. His long-suffering wife, Monica, has had enough and threatens him with divorce, which would shatter the foundation of his power.

Unfortunately, she is quickly killed off in a car accident, and we’re left with the question of whether Tony will feel real remorse and then change, or will he be completely unleashed, the one tether to a good life now removed?

In these upcoming six episodes, it’s the latter, and the series takes him to darker places you didn’t think possible. But it is all in service of a catharsis, of sorts. Because you can only tighten the tension of that string so much before it snaps.

When that retribution is exacted, it will feel even sweeter. Because that’s what TV villains are for – so we can experience that moment, however fleeting - of justice in the world.

Rivals returns on Disney+ on November 11