5 times Wilhelm was impulsive and 1 time he wasn’t

Young Royals season 2 is here. We’re watching and rewatching, and we simply cannot get enough of this show. Season 2 is nothing like we expected it to be and when Prince Wilhelm (Edvin Ryding) returns to Hillerska after Christmas break, the kid is a disastrous mess. He’s furious about August’s (Malte Gårdinger) betrayal, he’s love drunk over Simon (Omar Rudberg), and he’s working out his complicated relationship with his place in the monarchy. As a result, Wilhelm is impulsive, he’s hurt, and he’s angry a lot too. 

So much of what happens around Wilhelm this season is entirely out of his control. Because of this, we often see him reacting impulsively to the events that occur around him, rather than taking his time to plan his responses rationally. Considering all that he has on his plate, and the fact that he doesn’t have a support network to help him through such a difficult time, his behavior is completely understandable. 

Sometimes Wilhelm’s impulsive actions actually work in his favor, and sometimes they really don’t. However, one thing is for sure, Wilhelm charges through the entire six episodes of S2 grasping at whatever he can to hold on. The list of his impulsive actions is actually quite long, but we’ve narrowed it down to just five times where his impulsivity set something else in motion. However not everything he does this season is on a whim, and he comes back to Hillerska with a well-thought-out plan that is the very antithesis of impulsivity.

Here are our top five moments where Wilhelm was impulsive, and one time where he wasn’t.

#1 Jealousy-fueled phone calls to the Queen

After Wilhelm sees Simon out on a “date” with Marcus (Tommy Wättring) on Instagram, he becomes completely overcome with jealousy and flies into a rage. He storms out of the room and goes to call his mother (Pernilla August). Except he isn’t really calling his mother, is he? He’s calling the Queen of Sweden. They don’t really have a great mother/son kind of relationship at this point, and everything between them always comes down to the monarchy and the public perception of them. 

This is so impulsive and he doesn’t think this through at all. When she picks up the call he tells her that this is all her fault and that Simon is on a date with someone else (imagine calling the Queen of Sweden to complain that the boy you like is on a date with someone else y’all). He yells into the phone that he doesn’t want to be Crown Prince and demands that she put him on speakerphone so the rest of her staffers can hear his demands too. 

The yelling only amplifies when she puts him on speaker and he makes to clear that he doesn’t want to give the speech at the jubilee, that he doesn’t want to be king, and that if they don’t listen to him, he’ll go public on Instagram. Then he hangs up!

The monarchy takes his words as a threat and this leads to the attempted forceful (and bodily) removal of Wilhelm from Hillerska. 

It’s abundantly clear here that Wilhelm is losing control of his emotions and his anxiety is what causes him to act on impulse, something which could have been negated if the poor kid just had a support network. In this specific instance, his impulsive behavior has a negative outcome for him and only complicates his life even further. When the Queen’s henchmen show up to Hillerska to take him away, the whole thing turns physical and Erik’s (Ivar Forsling) snow globe is broken in the process.

#2 Kissing Felice

Mr. Impulsive really threw us for six with this one. Felice is hanging out with Wilhelm in his room, comforting him after Wilhelm had to watch Marcus and Simon kissing at the rowing competition. Wilhelm is clearly not okay and asks Felice to hug him. He goes from asking her how long he will feel like this (meaning how long will he hurt over Simon) to putting the moves on her lightning fast. 

On its own, this scene doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at the time. Wilhelm quite literally just told Felice that he is desperately hurting because of someone else, and then he is very impulsively leaning in to kiss her. However, she goes with it and allows the kiss to happen. The only reason they stop is because Henry (Fabian Penje) barges into Wilhelm’s room and interrupts them. God only knows how far they would have taken it otherwise. 

Wilhelm explains later that he did this because he wanted to see if it felt the same kissing someone else as it did when he kisses Simon, which oof. Sure, fine, whatever, we get that he had to work that out for himself but the answer was always going to be no, it absolutely does not.

Wilhelm is really lucky that Felice forgives his actions so easily, because, without her, he would really and truly be all alone in the world. However, because they were interrupted, Simon does end up finding out that he was making out with Felice and this motivates Simon to spend more time with Marcus. 

While the outcome of this impulsive action wasn’t completely and totally bad, it had the potential to cause even more drama for Wilhelm than it did. 

#3 Sharing his abdication options with Simon

So this is one of our favorite moments in the entire season, and it ends up having very positive outcomes for Wilhelm, however, it also remains true that this action was incredibly impulsive. 

Wilhelm is fresh out of options by this point in the series. So much has happened between him and Simon, and so many other people have their paws all over their relationship. So much of it is just out of their control. Wilhelm obviously feels powerless against all the external forces, so he does the very last thing that is within his control, and he goes to Simon’s house as a last-ditched effort to communicate his feelings to the kid. 

When he gets to Simon’s house, he tells Simon that August is now next in line of succession if Wilhelm wants to step down. However, if Simon follows his gut and reports August to the police, this action will effectively remove August from his position within the monarchy and the royal responsibilities will fall to Wilhelm again. He tells Simon he doesn’t want to disrespect Erik’s legacy by leaving the royal family with no other options. 

But it’s also clear here that Wilhelm seems to understand that he can’t have the Crown and Simon – Simon seems pretty determined to stay far away from that whole mess. While he doesn’t outright say he is willing to abdicate for Simon, the implication is there. Very clearly there.

Sharing that information with Simon is vehemently impulsive for so many reasons. First, that’s an awful lot of pressure to place on another human. Wilhelm’s decision to walk away from his family and his responsibilities should be solely about him, not someone else. And second, a close examination will reveal that Wilhelm doesn’t really want to abdicate, but his feelings for Simon have him so messed up he can’t work out any other way to get what he needs. So he shows up at Simon’s house and bares his heart and soul one last time.

Fortunately, this impulsive conversation seems to help Simon understand the depths of Wilhelm’s feelings and exactly what he is willing to sacrifice so they can be together. But this isn’t just about Simon. Wilhelm is also articulating here that having August as a backup provides just Wilhelm with an out of his royal obligations if he ever wants to choose that for himself (independently of Simon). The absolute burden of the monarchy that Wilhelm carries around with him seems to finally register with Simon during this conversation.

So was it impulsive? It sure was. However, Wilhelm gets his boy and he gets to keep the Crown too. It’s undeniable though that this one impulsive action had the potential to go in the other direction. This time Wilhelm was lucky that it worked in his favor, but the way we held our breath as we waited for this outcome to unfold was next level. 

#4 Confronting August

What happens in this scene is a real doozy and is actually so much more than just impulsive behavior. When Simon and Wilhelm storm the shooting range to try and find out who tipped August off (ahem, IT WAS YOUR SISTER, SIMON) Wilhelm loses all control of his emotions and does something that we had a really hard time understanding. 

He picks up the gun that August was using for target practice and aims it right at August, demanding that his cousin reveal who tipped him off about Simon’s intentions to tell the police about the sex tape. Simon, clearly shocked by Wilhelm’s behavior, gasps in surprise and takes a step back. However, like Wilhelm, he is so absolutely done with August’s manipulative behavior, that he doesn’t even try to stop Wilhelm. 

The distress that washes over August reveals that he thinks that Wilhelm is capable of pulling the trigger, and the reaction from Sara and Felice suggests they might too. Us? We quite literally couldn’t believe this was happening and were rendered incapable of forming thoughts at that time. 

This moment epitomizes just how not okay Wilhelm is in season 2. While Wilhelm is not a perfect human, he’s definitely not this guy. This is undeniably his breaking point in season 2 and his behavior moves well beyond impulsive and lands in the scary and dangerous category. 

The outcome of this could have been so much worse than it was. It was almost a blessing that Sara drops the bomb that she does because it causes Simon to walk off in utter ruination and that seems to snap Wilhelm out of his foray into the Land of the Very Not Good. 

From the onset of the show, Wilhelm is forced to deal with a barrage of extremely adult situations, yet no one gives him the tools to successfully navigate these difficulties. The only guiding light that he has to lean on is his psychologist, but clearly, Wilhelm needs much more than that *coughs – his parents – coughs*.

#5 “It was me in the video with Simon”

This is one impulsive decision we’re elated that Wilhelm made in season 2, despite the fact that we don’t really know what it all means for him and Simon now. As the episode comes to a close, it looks like the outcome of this action is favorable, but when contemplated further, viewers don’t have enough information at this point to know whether that’s actually true.

After Simon tells Wilhelm that they can keep their relationship a secret, that he loves him and wants to be with Wilhelm, the Crown Prince does something irrevocable. In the heat of the moment, he decides he isn’t going to turn his back on the Crown. He stands up to give the speech at the jubilee (suck it, August), but halfway through the said speech, he makes the impulsive decision to spill the tea on all his sexytime secrets while he is on national television. 

He tells everyone that he was, in fact, the second person in the sex video with Simon. While it’s obvious that this is defintiely what fans want for Wilhelm, the reality is that we have no idea whether this is going to go in his favor, or not. Yes, the relief of speaking his truth is undeniable. That’s definitely a win here. Being able to start a relationship with Simon on the right foot, instead of one buried in lies and secrets, must also feel pretty spectacular. As does standing up and telling the world exactly who you are. 

However, the season ends really quickly after Wilhelm does this and we have no idea what consequences he is going to face when the cameras stop rolling. If the Crown’s behavior throughout the last two seasons is anything to go off, they are not going to take this laying down. 

Will they be able to keep him away from Simon? Will they remove him from Hillerska for real this time? Lesser families have disowned their kids for lesser queer things, so we don’t think that this is off the table for Wilhelm either. Especially since they seem to have a backup plan already. The Queen is clearly mortified by Wilhelm’s revelation, and the facial expressions of horror worn by the other royal representatives at the jubilee demonstrate that they are equally outraged by his actions. Wilhelm’s impulsive actions will be met with consequences, we’re sure of this!

Are we glad he did it though? You bet our little rainbow hearts we are!

And the one time Wilhelm wasn’t impulsive

The one thing Wilhelm did that wasn’t completely impulsive and on a reactionary whim, was his carefully thought-out and concocted plan to take down August upon his return to school. By the time season 2 begins, Wilhelm feels like he knows August’s weaknesses well enough to take him down in his own calculated way. 

Erik once told Wilhelm that Hillerska was everything to August, especially after his father committed suicide. So Wilhelm comes back after Christmas break and instantly gets to work on stripping away the parts of Hillerska that mean the most to his cousin. 

Wilhelm gets August removed as prefect and captain of the rowing team – two things that matter immensely to him. August also likes to lord the fact that he is a senior over Wilhelm wherever he can, so Wilhelm goes after this as well. He systematically dismantles the tradition that the lower classmen are supposed to serve the seniors at lunch and dinner, and he demands that August refers to Wilhelm with his royal title – thereby reminding everyone around them that August has a lower status in the family than Wilhelm does (even though Wilhlem doesn’t actually care about this himself). 

But like so many other parts of Wilhelm’s life in season 2, there are many external forces working against him that he cannot control. August has an allegiance with the Crown that Wilhelm doesn’t know about at first, and then there is the whole thing with Sara as well (which serves to protect August during a time when it should have been relatively easy to enact revenge upon him). 

His carefully well-planned attempt at vengeance ultimately fails and as season 2 finishes, August hasn’t really lost much at all. Although he doesn’t end up squirming his way into Wilhelm’s place as Crown Prince, now that Wilhelm spilled all the gay beans and confessed to banging the local scholarship kid in front of the whole country, that could very well all be back on the table for August now. 

In season 3 (ahem, Netflix please renew our show) we hope that Wilhelm spends some more time in Boris’ (Claes Hartelius) office working on his emotional issues, and we hope he gets to spend some time with Simon feeling loved, as he deserves. Maybe don’t let him go to the shooting range any time soon, and if we were the Queen we’d probably keep him away from microphones for a bit too. But whatever it is, we’re here for it all. We can’t wait to see what’s next in Wilhelm’s path on his journey through this thing we call life. 

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Young Royals Season 2 is available to stream on Netflix globally now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!