WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Season 1 of Young Royals, now streaming on Netflix.
In Netflix's Young Royals, Prince Wilhelm (Edvin Ryding) has his life thrown into disarray as he enrolls in Hillerska, a boarding school for Sweden's elite, where members of the Royal Family have been taught the lay of the land. As the six episodes of Season 1 progress, Wilhelm finds himself torn between duty to the crown and his heart, as he's hiding a gay romance with Simon (Omar Rudberg). This culminates in a nasty betrayal by Wilhelm's second cousin, August (Malte Gårdinger).
August initially comes off as a brotherly figure as he's the big man on campus. Everything goes through him and he thinks by taking Wilhelm under his wing, he'll actually be recognized even more as someone shaping the influential in Swedish society. It helps that August is even closer with Prince Erik, Wilhelm's older brother who graduated -- but their world is rocked when Erik dies in a car crash.
This leads to emotional turmoil for Wilhelm as he's now feeling the pressures of being next in line for the throne -- which means he needs to marry a woman and produce an heir, per tradition. It doesn't help that August turns out to be a scumbag -- lying, manipulating and doing whatever it takes to maintain his prestigious status.
He ends up ripping off Simon for some booze at a party, but while it appears he's flexing his power, August admits that he's broke when Simon accosts him. It explains why he couldn't pay tuition fees, because after his dad's suicide, their estate's been running dry. His mom's off with a reckless new beau as well, but August doesn't want to sell his assets out of pride, even though their worth dwindles by the week.
Simon eventually tells Wilhelm this when August tries to pin drug sales and usage on him, as Simon's a non-boarding teen on a scholarship and someone August's "Society" deems expendable. It results in Wilhelm sticking up for his secret lover, pinning the blame on another teen, Alexander, and pulling rank in a way that shirks August as he never expected Wilhelm to be so alpha.
But August, ego dented, already has a trump card in retribution as he accidentally passed by Wilhelm's room during an evening when everyone was supposed to be indoors. His prank went awry as he thought Wilhelm was with a girl and ended up filming the prince and Simon engaging in sexual activities. After being chided in that Society meeting, where Wilhelm revealed August's financial problems to the guys, August, being an apex, uploaded the vid from his phone to the school servers and sent it public.
He's hoping to stay anonymous, though, as he can't risk being a snitch. The sad thing is that, despite their fallout, Wilhelm got his parents to foot August's bill to stay in school. August finds this out right after the upload, which proves Wilhelm really did trust August, not knowing his own blood was going to cause a scandal.
Young Royals is an original Netflix production, starring Edvin Ryding, Pernilla August, Malte Gårdinger, Frida Argento, Nikita Uggla, Samuel Astor and Omar Rudberg. Season 1 is now available on Netflix.
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