It’s all change at Corinium as the fallout from Declan’s latest interview continues. Here’s our Rivals episode 5 review.
Episode five of an eight-episode series is usually time for a slowdown, of sorts. After last episode’s climactic showdown between Declan and Rupert left the bitter rivals (‘ey up) with a newfound emotional respect, this seems like the perfect opportunity for a lie down with a cream tea and a labrador. This being Rivals, however, the show’s pace seems to have sped up.
There’s rather a lot going on here. Lizzie (Katherine Parkinson), inspired by her passing encounters with Freddie (Danny Dyer) and fully embracing her role as morally upstanding author surrogate, has completed the first few chapters of a new erotic novel which (quelle surprise) everyone says is brilliant. Will her agent (surprisingly, Felicity Kendal) read these aloud in a crowded restaurant? Of course she will. This is Rivals.
Katherine Parkinson also turns out to have a very good Thatcher impression, relevant because she’s volunteered herself to help her talentless husband, James (Oliver Chris) prepare for an interview. You thought that was Declan’s gig? Well, he’s upset Tony and been demoted to judging a beauty pageant. This all happens in the first 20 minutes, do try and keep up.
Anyway, after neatly side-stepping the who-will-they-get-to-play-Thatcher question by only showing the back of her head from a distance, there’s still enough time for Declan to fall into an angry alcoholic malaise, rekindle his newfound best-friendship with Rupert, and throw more emotional grenades at poor Taggie, who seems pretty put-out at all the emotional grenades she’s already carrying. “This is the only place I’ve ever lived in that I loved”, she says – London must have been flipping awful.
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All this before we get to the Miss Corinium pageant proper, which takes over much of the episode’s second half, and a conclusion that seems to set out the direction the series will head in as it trundles sexily towards its finale. As a result, it feels oddly like a filler episode, despite moving the plot along arguably faster than any episode prior. As long as you can stomach the sight of James Vereker for far longer than anyone should be subjected to, it’s still a thoroughly neutral, if action-packed, way to spend 56 minutes of your time.
All episodes of Rivals are streaming on Disney+ now.
