The 'Maxton Hall' Season 2 Finale Was Gutting

For those of you following along, Maxton Hall ended its second season in devastating fashion over the weekend. It’s clearly the Empire Strikes Back of seasons. It left me bereft. What the absolute hell? Television shows about kids in private schools should not be this intense, and yet, here we are.

Here’s a brief recap of the season and this finale: After a rough start to the season, in which James (Damian Hardung) returned to his old, entitled, drunken ways in the wake of his mother’s death, Ruby and James eventually reconciled after James gave an impassioned speech during a fundraiser. In it, he expressed not only his love for Ruby but also his vulnerabilities.

This did not sit well with James’s father, Mortimer (Fedja van Huêt). Although it briefly appeared as though Mortimer might warm to Ruby, he realized that he absolutely did not want to expose his own emotional weaknesses. In fact, James’s emotional speech sent the stock price of the Beaufort fashion company tumbling. In an effort to resurrect the company, Mortimer redoubled his efforts to break up James and Ruby.

This time, however, James did not buckle. He and Ruby remained steadfast, even after Mortimer forced Alice Campbell to pull Ruby’s Oxford scholarship. No matter. James and Ruby’s relationship would not be destroyed by Mortimer this time. Ruby decided to take an exam that could provide her with a scholarship to Oxford, keeping her dream alive.

Meanwhile, James’s sister Lydia (Sonja Weißer) — who is pregnant with twins — kept the pregnancy from her father and from the man who impregnated her, her former teacher Graham Sutton (Eidin Jalali), who received a prized promotion at Maxton Hall. Eventually, Lydia broke down and confessed to Graham, who decided to throw his career away to be with her.

It would be OK, Lydia reasoned, because she and James would receive their mother’s assets and shares of the Beaufort firm at the reading of her will. However, her will surprisingly left everything to her husband, Mortimer. There does appear to be shenanigans afoot.

To make matters worse, Mortimer bought the bakery where Ruby’s mother Helen (Gina Henkel) worked and had her fired, leaving Ruby’s family without a source of income. But the Bell family has dealt with worse. As long as Ruby could achieve her dream of going to Oxford, everything would be OK.

But in the final moments of the finale, even that dream was seemingly stripped away. Graham Sutton was called in by the administration to answer for an affair with a student. Sutton, who is in love with Lydia and knew there was photographic evidence of them together, confessed to the affair.

Except, unbeknownst to Graham, the photo they produced after his confession was not of Graham and Lydia. It was an innocuous photo of Graham and Ruby that took on an entirely different meaning in light of his confession. The whole thing was clearly staged to frame her by Elaine Ellington (Eli Riccardi) and/or Mortimer to finally bring Ruby down.

Ruby was suspended and not allowed to take the exams for the Oxford scholarship. Even her acceptance is likely to be pulled because she cannot graduate. Her life is over. Ruined. Graham, meanwhile, is taken into police custody. Lydia is devastated. Ruby is devastated. James seems devastated. Elaine smirks. And I am beside myself.

I should note that there is a lot of ambiguity surrounding the final wordless sequence. James had access to the incriminating photo. It’s unclear if Ruby believes that James is responsible for sending it to the director. It’s also unclear whether James looks caught out or grief-stricken. To me, Ruby looks at James briefly with horror, while James looks confused and heartbroken on her behalf. He doesn’t know what happened yet.

Naturally, the first thing I checked after the episode was whether there would be a third season and when it would air. Obviously, there will be — the show is huge internationally (and doing well in America). The good news is that filming of the third (and final) season actually wrapped over the weekend.

The bad news is that, based on the season 3 plot description, there’s a strong suggestion that James was behind the photo:

Ruby is on the edge: She has been suspended from Maxton Hall College, and all evidence points to James being responsible for her expulsion. A slap in the face that not only endangers Ruby’s Oxford dream but also puts their love to a severe test. While Ruby and James do everything to save Ruby’s graduation, their environment and James’s circle of friends get caught in an emotional whirlwind that completely disrupts the existing order. Ruby and James painfully realize: Their worlds couldn’t be further apart, and not everything is as it seems. Can their love and friendships survive the enormous storms while the shadows of the past grow darker?

I mean, obviously the evidence is wrong. James would never. But I do wonder, genuinely, whether James and Ruby can survive their socioeconomic differences. There’s no release date for the third season yet, and I’m curious enough that I’m tempted to read the novels upon which the show is based, Mona Kasten’s Save Me trilogy. The books have been translated into English since the first season. But I honestly don’t think the books could work as well as the series because the books do not feature Harriet Herbig-Matten and Damian Hardung. They are the show.

Prime Video has also released a couple of season 3 photos — the one below and the one in the header. Frustratingly, they are production photos and give nothing away.