James Dittiger / Lifetime

Does UnREAL's Rachel Know Why She's Still At Everlasting?

And more questions about 'Ambush,' an even more troubling episode than usual.

Tara Ariano

July 19th, 2016

Did this card adequately prepare you for what comes later in the episode?

"Here we are, I'll just sit right down here for my nasty soap about a reality show, and...what the--?"

Given the apocalyptic horror that is the daily news cycle this year, or the past couple of years, or the past few decades, or forever, I guess, this could refer to just about any kind of awful thing that might happen to a police officer or a suspect in the field, which is why, as a warning, it somehow feels insufficient. But we'll get there.

What do we think of Adam's new look?

I'm not 100 on this scarf when he's on his way out...

...but in general?

The longer, more unkempt curls age him up, and the scruff roughs up his pretty features (though it would be even more convincing if he could grow hair all the way around his mouth). I spent a lot of last year thinking he was like a Pooh bear in the face; this is an improvement.

By targeting Coleman for poaching in the short term, has Quinn screwed herself in the long term?

When we meet back up with her in this episode, she's apparently just finished boning Booth in his car when she gloats about her latest scheme for challenging Coleman as Everlasting showrunner -- not that she tells Booth, yet, what said scheme is. When he comments that he was impressed by Coleman at their first meeting, Quinn visibly pivots.

Instead of pursuing today's mini-game -- making Coleman look clumsy and foolish by impeding him on Everlasting -- Quinn sees a better opportunity to further her macro-game and get Coleman off her production and away from her protégée by causing him to bounce for another job. But if Quinn took it to heart when Wagerstein told her last week that Booth is a good guy and Quinn should try not to drive him away, isn't it worse for her in the long run if Coleman gets set up in business with Quinn's new boyfriend? Also, if Coleman has a better show idea than Incredible Residences (likely), won't Quinn also be damaging her own prospects at selling a project to Booth if he buys one from Coleman first?

Also, is Booth a good guy? Is Coleman?

I hate to profile rich white dudes -- probably there are some who aren't basically evil -- but so far all we know about Booth is that he has money, likes Everlasting, and really likes putting his thing in Quinn. It's just hard (hee hee) not to suspect he's also working his own game on Quinn somehow. My guess would be a bro pact with Coleman that cuts out both Quinn and Rachel, given how easily Coleman went along with Booth's one-on-one meeting despite all his "our show" talk with Rachel.

Is the success of Quinn's Adam manipulation the biggest contrivance of the season so far?

I get why Quinn thought to call Adam back to Everlasting (on this flimsy pretext of making him an advisor to the new suitor): she's threatened by the idea that Rachel might be replacing her with Coleman, Quinn's nemesis; she correctly assumed Rachel hadn't told Coleman about Adam; and she figured the return of Rachel's ex might start driving a wedge between Rachel and Coleman. I get all that. What I don't get is how Quinn -- who knew quite well by the Season 1 finale of UnREAL how weak Adam was and went to considerable lengths to force Rachel to see it herself -- thinks bringing him back is the answer to anything. And though there's a throwaway reference in this week's episode to Adam's popularity on "social media," it's not clear whether she means now or when he was on the show, so we don't know whether Quinn had been keeping tabs on him via his Instagram or whatever, and that's how she knew that he'd been hugging babies in Africa as opposed to catting around London with some new broad. Maybe that's it? But the show doesn't make that clear.

My point is: as far as we see in the episode, Quinn is really taking a risk by assuming that if she brought Adam back to the mansion, he and Rachel would pick up anywhere near where they left off. She may be around Rachel enough to have a sense that she still thinks about Adam, but not even Quinn could orchestrate a moment like Adam's looking straight into the camera as he talks about the woman he met on Everlasting and wanted to spend the rest of his life with until he got too scared of his feelings.

I absolutely buy that Quinn would come up with this plan to manipulate Rachel by muddling her romantic entanglements. But if the larger story is that Quinn actually thinks that Coleman might be dangerous for Rachel -- irrespective of the ways that Rachel's deepening relationship with him lessens Quinn's control over Rachel -- and is trying to reunite her with a man she thinks is a better long-term prospect for her...I am not sure I buy it. (Though Adam and Rachel's chemistry seems way hotter now than it did last season, I have to say.)

Even Adam is a Machiavelli now?

Sure, he was pretty canny in his on-camera discipline in his season of Everlasting, but now we have to see him giving Darius Rachel-worthy advice about which lady to take on a one-on-one date and why? (Chantal, and so that sitting through the tragic tale of her dead fiancé will make him seem like someone who'd never call a woman a bitch.) If every character on the show is a master strategist, then (a) watching them take turns winding each other up and/or seeing through their tricks makes it less compelling when our supposed protagonists do it, and (b) it makes Darius the dumbest guy on set, in which case, why would I want to watch him?

Is Rachel's staged seduction for Adam to walk in on worse than Coleman's secret meeting with Booth?

"I have been so honest with you about everything," says Coleman, scolding her, "about everything I see for our future." But HAS HE?! Would Rachel know about that Booth meeting if she hadn't walked in on it? Hey, kind of the way Adam walked in on her about to blow Coleman! Maybe Rachel's live sex show was a surprise to Coleman, but at least it didn't happen behind his back (though who's to say that's not where it was headed, heh heh heh). I'm just saying, Coleman is shady, and having to tell his supposed producing partner what an awesome guy he is all the time just makes me more and more impatient for the reveal that he's actually planning to sell her out.

Does Rachel know why she's still at Everlasting?

I don't love the question coming out of Adam, since fuck him, he came back too, and I don't buy that it was only to try to win her back; if he's handing out free image tips to Darius, he's still at least partly thinking about his own PR.

Is it because she's addicted to the drama Coleman has been telling her he wants her to give up? Is it that Everlasting has always been her abusive boyfriend and Jeremy's assault just personified it? She keeps saying that a season built around the first black Suitor is important and groundbreaking -- including in her answer to Adam (and lord knows that sounds a lot more convincing than that "he invited me to his cousin's wedding" business, yeesh) -- but does she still believe that? Is she just marking time until either Quinn or Coleman -- whichever gets a break first -- offers her a seat on some coattails? And if Rachel doesn't quite know why she hasn't left, does UnREAL?

Where did Romeo come from?

Rachel mentions that things were better when Romeo was around since he could help manage Darius, and then like a commercial break later, there he is.

Was a scene cut where someone called him and groveled for him to come back? Didn't Darius fire him?

Where do I even begin with this traffic stop shooting?

Lifetime stopped releasing episode screeners in advance three episodes ago, which means that as I write this, at 4 AM ET, I haven't been exposed to the thinkpieces that I have no doubt are coming. But I have to question the taste level of exploiting a very real problem that increasingly plagues police departments across the country -- officers shooting unarmed black suspects who turn out not to be guilty of any crime -- and turning it into a soap opera plot twist. Real people are dead because of unchecked police aggression. On the first night of the 2016 Republican National Convention, I watched cheers and applause meet the announcement that Brian Rice was cleared of all charges in the shooting of Freddie Gray. Was Rachel more wrong to call the police when Darius took off in the Bentley so that she and Coleman could secretly film a racially motivated traffic stop of a famous black athlete? Was Coleman more wrong to stop her from intervening when it became clear that the situation was escalating? It's hard to get invested in how complicit these white morons were in setting this potentially fatal trap for black men they know -- and know are not car thieves -- because they are pretend, and real life is more shocking.

And yes, I know, on a postmodern level there's a lot to chew over here in terms of the metatextual elements of UnREAL producers crafting a story in which Everlasting producers craft a story. But it feels distasteful to make that analysis about a scene that was distasteful to watch. Jay telling Rachel "This is not your story to tell" only makes the fact that we're watching a different white lady tell it all the more glaring.

SO LET'S JUST MOVE ON to: Booth wants Quinn to have his babies?

First of all, who cares, but second, this feels like further proof that he has a plan to bro up with Coleman and cut out Quinn, which will be easier if he can divert her to a mommy track. Don't do it, Quinn.