A Cartoonish Villain Overwhelms What Should’ve Been A Solid Second-Chance Love Story

November 7, 2025

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Maxton Hall – The World Between Us season 2 can, unfortunately, no longer be buoyed by the chemistry between its romantic leads. While Harriet Herbig-Matten and Damian Hardung try their best to keep the story from veering too far off the rails — they’re both very good at crying on command — anything that is good or at least decent in this season is overshadowed by its cartoonishly evil villains.

I won’t say that the first season of Maxton Hall – The World Between Us was a masterpiece of teen romance dramas. It did, however, have a certain charm, bolstered by playful scenes between Herbig-Matten’s working-class Ruby Bell and Hardung’s rich boy James Beaufort that made the clichés and inevitable tropes endurable. Watching Ruby flip James off on the lacrosse field as he looks after her longingly is what rom-com dreams are made of, after all. Season 2, though, no longer has any sense of fun.

Maxton Hall Season 2 Has Lost Its Romantic Spark

Credit: Prime Video via MovieStillsDB

Given the way season 1 ended with the sudden, tragic death of James and twin sister Lydia’s (Sonja Weißer) mother, the darker tone of this season’s opening episode isn’t all that surprising. The problem is that, from there, the darkness is needlessly, ruthlessly piled on. Ruby becomes a passive spectator in her own life as it’s ripped apart, piece by piece, by two people who have more than enough money to ignore her existence.

While one enemy embodies the jealous mean girl trope to the nth degree, the other is an adult man hellbent on destroying Ruby and her entire family’s lives. It’s not just about him wanting someone else for his son because of an outdated class divide; he’s taking grotesque pleasure in what he’s doing, seemingly unaffected by his children’s grief.

In season 1, James and Lydia’s father, Mortimer Beaufort (Fedja van Huêt), is a catalyst that allows Ruby and James’ “forbidden” love to flourish, a bullying background player in their greater romance. In season 2, his power and influence are almost godlike. What chance do our star-crossed lovers stand against someone like him?

At a certain point, this kind of character in this type of show is no longer intriguing but stifling. His hatred overwhelms the entire story. Mortimer’s final act in Maxton Hall season 2 is especially egregious and made even more so because, clearly, whatever he’s done in this season’s six episodes hasn’t come from a place of real concern for his children.

Frankly, it was exhausting to watch, and I found myself longing for scenes featuring Ruby and Lydia’s genuinely lovely friendship, Ruby’s relatable relationship with her sister, Ember (Runa Greiner), or James’ much-needed healing journey. I’d even go so far as to say that James is the real MVP this season. He’s the only one who gets a genuine shred of character development, as he acknowledges his grief for his mother — a scene in which he crumbles in Ruby’s arms is hard to watch in a way that is moving — his father’s hold over him, and his desire to be a better man.

Sadly, neither of these sequences nor the much-anticipated interactions between Ruby and James (some of which work, while others feel overly indulgent, including when he takes her to a lavish countryside restaurant) are strong enough to hide the repetitive nature of Maxton Hall – The World Between Us season 2.

Ruby’s entire arc this season revolves around putting together another important on-campus event, which she does brilliantly, and ticking the boxes in her quest to attend a geographically and culturally confused version of Oxford. Ruby and James also start the season at odds and then fall back into love with one another. Perhaps Mortimer’s new role as the devil incarnate is a result of that repetition. How else can you up the stakes when the rest of the story is essentially the same as it was in the show’s first season?

I doubt Maxton Hall season 2 will draw in as surprisingly wide an audience as its English-language YA romance peer, The Summer I Turned Pretty, did. That said, however, I know from my own, long-ago experience as a teenage girl that the sheer angst and desire on display in Maxton Hall – The World Between Us season 2 is something I would have absolutely devoured when I was roughly Ruby and James’ age. I have no doubt the show’s most devout fans will enjoy this season and eagerly await season 3, so in that respect, it succeeds. Still, a bit of narrative balance would have been preferable.

Maxton Hall – The World Between Us season 2’s first three episodes premiere on Prime Video on November 7. New episodes will be released weekly on Fridays.