‘Maxton Hall’ Stars Harriet Herbig-Matten, Damian Hardung Had to Beg To Change Season 2’s Ending

Warning: This story contains major spoilers for the ending of “Maxton Hall” Season 2.

“Maxton Hall” finished its season on a major cliffhanger — but this time it’s Ruby who’s left in a heartbreaking lurch.

The Prime Video German teen drama is beloved for its soapy plots, angsty relationship dynamics and powerful chemistry between leads James Beaufort (Damian Hardung) and Ruby Bell (Harriet Herbig-Matten).

But their enemies-to-lovers romance has brought plenty of strife to their lives due to the class difference between them (hence the subtitle, “The World Between Us.”)

If it wasn’t clear from Season 1, Season 2 has firmly established that James’ father, Mortimer (Fedja van Huêt), is the show’s big bad. In the wake of the death of his wife — which was revealed in the last minutes of the Season 1 finale — his efforts to control his children, James and Lydia (Sonja Weißer), only intensified.

He circumvents their efforts to modernize the family’s company, seemingly removes them from their mother’s will and of course, tries force James and Ruby apart. First, by getting Ruby’s scholarship rescinded, and then, by forcibly taking over the Bell family’s bakery.

But it’s final manipulation that makes up Season 2’s shocking final moments.

What Happens at the End of ‘Maxton Hall’ Season 2?

The final few moments of “Maxton Hall” Season upend all of Ruby’s efforts to secure her future as a student at Oxford.

In Episode 6, which dropped Nov. 28 on Prime Video, it’s revealed that professor Graham Sutton (Eidin Jalali) has been having an affair with a student. Since Season 1, he’s had on-again, off-again trysts with Lydia Beaufort, who’s now pregnant with twins. He’s summoned before school leaders, including Mortimer, to explain what happened.

During that meeting, it’s revealed the affair was discovered via a photo. (Remember: In Episode 5, Elaine (Eli Riccardi), who’s in love with James, and Cyril (Ben Felipe), who’s long pined for Lydia, discovered Lydia and Graham embracing in the woods during a school function and took a photo as evidence.)

But when Graham sees the photo that started the inquest, it turns out to be a picture not of him and Lydia, but of him and Ruby from a school gala in Season 1.

The scene then cuts to a meeting with Ruby, her mother and the headmaster. He tells her she’s been expelled from Maxton Hall and will never attend Oxford.

The final minutes of the show feature no dialogue, just an acoustic rendition of “Chasing Cars.”

As Ruby walks out into the courtyard in tears, Lydia watches as Graham is escorted from Maxton Hall by police in handcuffs.

Exchanging no words, James hugs a shell-shocked Ruby.

Damian Hardung tells TODAY.com it’s unclear what James understands is happening in that moment.

“What we see right now only is obviously, how beautifully Harriet has acted out that scene, and just seeing everything being destroyed, and just looking at her face and reading that off of her eyes,” Hardung says. “He’s just in complete shock, but he doesn’t know which direction to go.”

It’s made more emotional because ” a moment before, everything was perfect,” Hardung adds. After his character cheated on Ruby in Episode 1, James pursued therapy and finally, the couple seemed on a healthier, more secure relationship path.

Herbig-Matten says throughout the season her character was “in conflict with herself.”

“She knows that she has to let him go, and that he has to fix himself and she’s not responsible for his feelings and loss, and that he’s getting back in these toxic behaviors or character traits,” she says. (“What do you mean?” Hardung jokingly interjects.)

She identifies the turning point for her character as James’ speech in Episode 3. Filling in as a last minute speaker for Ruby’s gala, James opened up about his mother’s death and his mental health — even at the risk of his father’s ire.

“She’s deciding to give him a second chance, and I think I love that about her,” Herbig-Matten says.

But true to form, it all could fall apart after that finale.

“I think that’s this roller coaster of ‘Maxton Hall,'” Hardung says. “And a part of the reason why this show is so successful is because we just have such a dense high and low-point structure throughout the entire episodes.”

But Season 2 almost ended on a different scene entirely, the actors say.

How the Season Was Originally Supposed to End

Herbig-Matten and Hardung say originally, the show creators wanted to cut the scenes where she finds out about her expulsion and sobs to James.

“We were all like, we need this ending,” Herbig-Matten says. “I need this ending for my character.”

They watched the show at a screening around June 2025, and “it was ending on Graham … seeing the photo,” Hardung says.

“But then the audience wouldn’t have known what does that mean to Ruby, what does that mean to the couple,” Hardung adds.

“We saw it all on the screen. We’re like, ‘You can’t do it,'” he continues.

After a “whole conversation,” they changed the ending to include the scenes of Ruby reacting.

“Now we got our ending back,” Hardung says.