Viewers of “Maxton Hall” Season 2 are in for a tumultuous ride in the German teen drama’s sophomore outing — if the opening shots of a crashed car are any indication.
“I just had a worst time on set,” Damian Hardung, who stars as tortured rich bad boy James Beaufort, says. “I’m laughing now. I was crying then.”
Season 2 officially dropped on Prime Video Nov. 7 with the first three episodes, each clocking in around one hour. Like Season 1, it will have six episodes, with one new episode dropping each week until Nov. 28.
Season 2 picks up right where last season left off. Ruby Bell (Harriet Herbig-Matten) is confident she and James had reconciled their relationship after he called it off due to a threat from his dad. Meanwhile, James is reeling from the death of his mother, Cordelia.
In the final moments of Season 1, a bereft James stumbled to Ruby’s house. As he peered into her kitchen window, he saw a smiling Ruby surrounded by her parents and sister. But when Ruby looked up, he was gone.
“I love that shot of me looking in and just deciding that I don’t want to destroy her life because I know what my family entails,” Hardung says.
The first episode of Season 2 alone sets the stage for plenty of heartbreak — so much so that star Herbig-Matten says she had to learn how to separate herself from her character after shooting.
“When we shot Season 1, I was 18. … I think in Season 2 I achieved to separate her emotions from mine, and that was really healthy for me,” Herbig-Matten says. “I know I’m safe, and when we had really intense and emotional scenes, at the end of the day, it’s not my life and it’s not hurting me.”
Below, Hardung and Herbig-Matten break down the first few episodes of Season 2 — including a shocking betrayal — and set the stage for what’s ahead.
🚨🚨🚨Warning: Spoilers ahead for the first three episodes of “Maxton Hall” Season 2.
Why Does James Cheat on Ruby?
People who’ve read Mona Kasten’s “Maxton Hall” book series — the first of which was published in English July 1 — won’t be surprised by Episode 1’s big twist.
“Everyone who read the book knows that originally, the kiss with Elaine was at the end of the first book,” Hardung says.
After the death of his mother, and after he decides not to confide in Ruby, James temporarily goes missing. His twin sister, Lydia (Sonja Weißer), also starts looking for James. They eventually find him drunk, mid-bender at a raging pool party. Ruby watches his out of control partying in horror. After telling Ruby she doesn’t belong there, he kisses his old flame Elaine in the pool right in front of her.
Ruby walks home alone from the party inconsolable.
The next morning, James wakes up dazed, confused and horrified at what happened.
Hardung describes the kiss as part of a “brutally honest” depiction of James’ grief. His character tries to push away Ruby because he knows the public spectacle his family brings, especially in the wake of his mother’s death, Hardung says.
In addition to self-isolation and drinking, James also turns to drugs. As his father announces Cordelia’s death at a press conference outside their house, James is inside, using cocaine.
“We took the time to truly acknowledge his period of grief and to tackle the loss, and I think we were brutally honest about it,” Hardung says.
“I just hope fans are willing to go on that suffering journey with him,” he adds. “I feel like that was my main goal, to make them root for him or feel for him even though he is so inherently flawed and even though he f—- so badly — to still make people understand that this is the best that he can do at that certain time.”
Why Does Ruby Go Back to James?
So to recap: Less than 15 minutes into Season 2, Ruby and James’ relationship is again on the rocks. But this is “Maxton Hall” after all.
When Ruby witnesses James cheat on her, she doesn’t yet know about his mother’s death. The next morning, still reeling from the kiss and the mounting pressure of a scholarship opportunity, her best friend tells her Cordelia Beaufort had died.
Without hesitating, she goes to the Beaufort mansion to attempt to comfort James.
“I think Ruby has a really good heart, and I think when she loves someone, she loves them deeply, and she gives them everything,” Herbig-Matten says of her character’s decision to go to James’ side. “I think that was no question because she just want to show him that she’s thinking about him and to show her presence, and also to be there for Lydia. I think that was also really important for her.”
Ruby finds James on the bathroom floor. His eyes well as she holds him. Through tears he says he regrets being mean to Cordelia the last time he saw her. He eventually falls asleep in Ruby’s lap.
But after Ruby checks his phone and sees a video message from Elaine from the night before, Ruby starts to withdraw. James tries to apologize and says Elaine means nothing to him. He begs her to stay, but when Ruby tells him he needs help, he shouts for her to leave.
Hardung says he and Herbig-Matten were “really afraid” of this scene specifically.
“When we looked at the the shooting schedule, we’re like, ‘Oh, s— it’s coming up in two weeks,’” he says.
In this scene, Hardung says his character is lying to himself.
“There’s a scene objective really clearly — it’s almost written on my head, ‘I need you to stay. I need you to love me.’ And then it breaks into, ‘I need you to leave.’ Out of a fear that I’m not going to achieve my goal, and I can’t stand failing again because I fail so much. So I’d rather change my goal and lie to myself than to fail miserably again,” he says of James.
After James’ mom’s funeral at the end of the first episode, he hijacks a car and goes on a rampage. He tries to call Ruby, and when she doesn’t answer, his driving gets more and more out of control until he spins out and flips the vehicle.
In Episode 2, once he’s released from the hospital, James again apologizes to Ruby and says he wants to fight for her.
“I can’t save you, James, only you can,” she finally says, a callback to the name of the second book in the series.
This line sets the stage for Season 2’s overall theme of “healing,” Herbig-Matten says.
“Season 2 for me is about growth and about healing. And healing means sometimes to fall apart and to get yourself together again and to let people go,” she says. “I think that’s what we’ve learned and what people can learn, and we see that she has to let him go and to heal himself.”
