Is UnREAL Still UnREAL If Adam And Rachel Are More Decent Than Not?

Did...Anna get eliminated?

I know Episode 3 ended with Quinn and Rachel watching Anna pick a fight with Grace over shit Rachel told Anna Grace had talked about her (I promise if you go through it one more time slowly, that clause totally makes sense), but were we to assume that was followed by Anna getting sent home? Because she wasn't in last week's episode, and she's not in this week's, either -- not even to get assigned a video invitation for Adam to meet her family when he decides to go on a hometown visit with Faith.

After the better part of Episode 2 revolved around making sure Anna didn't quit the show, shouldn't we have seen her reaction to getting cut? And if she hasn't been cut...like, where is she? They can't actually be shooting around her trips to the bathroom to purge. (And even if they are: it's a behind-the-scenes show; we should see that.)

Would I care more about Mary if she were played by someone else?

Mary's plotline in this week's episode is intriguing in that it shows us, once again, the difference between Rachel's nefarious artistry and Shia's: since Shia is #2 in Quinn's eyes, she tries harder, and this week that means both encouraging her to drink and tampering with Mary's medication so she'll do some kind of crazy shit on camera. This feels like it should be more alarming than it actually is: Mary's backstory as a spousal abuse victim is legitimately horrifying. And while I realize part of the reason so much of this has to be told to us by third parties is that Mary has an iron will and is savvy about not revealing more of herself on the show than she has decided is acceptable, I think part of it might also be that Ashley Scott is not quite capable of making Mary's vulnerability believable -- even vulnerability she's determined to conceal.

In case producers have a character of a similar age and degree of fragility planned for the second season I desperately hope we'll get, here's a list of casting suggestions that might have worked better this time around: Alexandra Holden; Liza Weil (How To Get Away With Murder has a short season; it could spare her for a few days!); Amber Benson. You're welcome.

As I write this, someone's putting together Untitled Breeda Wool Project, right?

Because holy crow, what a find this woman is! It's been obvious since the pilot that Faith had a secret, and this week those who didn't guess when she showed up at the manse in a jumpsuit and sat with her knees apart in every scene got to find out what it is: she's in deep denial about the fact that she's in love with her lifelong best friend, Amy. When Rachel -- who has eyes and sense -- figures it out after spending about ten seconds in Faith and Amy's presence, she tries to use her interview powers to steer Faith toward admitting the truth to herself (and the camera); Faith tiptoes toward saying it, but instead, she announces that she's going to get Adam to relieve her of her virginity that night. In a very short sequence of events, Faith attacks Adam's face and then tries to cover up how grossed out she is by kissing him...

...lets Rachel convince her to tell Adam that she's in love with Amy and then be shocked that the Lord doesn't immediately smite her...

...and celebrate getting to live the rest of her life honestly.

Faith has, to this point, primarily been a comic-relief role (her seeing Adam kissing Mary barely out of frame and yelling "Are we supposed to be watching this?" in last week's episode was a literal LOL moment for me), but her storyline this week requires Breeda Wool to flesh out Faith with real pathos, and the deftness with which she does both at once is a real treat to watch, both in the context of the show and in that it feels like we're seeing the birth of a future comedy star. At least, I hope we are!

Are we really supposed to care about Rachel and Jeremy getting back together?

You can give them all the aborted sex scenes you want. You can even have Rachel finally getting herself off by watching an old video of the two of them together in (completely G-rated) Happier Days. I refuse to invest any interest in that side of beef with a Steadicam. He's boring and he lowers her worth.

Is UnREAL still UnREAL if Adam and Rachel are more decent than not?

At first, when Rachel manipulates Faith into admitting her attraction for Amy, one assumes -- based on past evidence -- that Rachel's decided she's not going to get Quinn's promised $10K bonus for getting Faith and Adam in bed together so she's creating a splashy new storyline to replace it. But this seems to be a week when Rachel's Women's Studies training is reasserting itself, and Rachel is helping Faith declare her true self not because it's good TV but because it's just good, for Faith. You don't get this misty-eyed when you've just crafted a buzzworthy episode, you know?

Adam, once he gets over about a second's worth of shock, is also happy for Faith's breakthrough: though Quinn had dismissed the vibe between Adam and Faith in the pilot as his looking for "a buddy," it seems like the two actually have become buddies in a non-sarcastic way, he's just glad he was there for his friend at her big moment.

When Faith gets a little too brave about who should know what about her life, and when, Adam (at Rachel's direction) interrupts her public declaration at a church dance and saves her from herself.

That's not such a big deal -- it makes a better moment for the show, and dovetails with the fraudulent virginity-ender Rachel, Jeremy, Adam, and Faith have all conspired to stage -- but when Jay goes against Rachel's express instructions and shows Chet the footage of Faith's coming-out, Rachel and Adam join forces to preserve Faith's privacy. Rachel's appeal for Chet to run with the sex scene doesn't work -- he didn't get to be a millionaire dating-show producer by being that credulous -- so Adam jumps on the grenade of her self-revelation with a trade, himself for Faith: he supplies a nightly entertainment "news" show with a sex tape of himself and "maybe" (not) Pippa Middleton. Sure, we've already established that Adam doesn't care about his image as peddled by American tabloids, so in the grand scheme, it's not that heroic. But it is a purely unselfish act that, until this week, I might not have been certain he was capable of. Can it be that Adam and Rachel are going to spend the rest of the season each being led by his/her conscience? Probably not...but what would that be like?

Who's actually going to win this thing?

The creepy, chemically altered, underwear-dancing Mary who closes out the episode is probably not really a contender. Maya's probably got at least a couple more rounds of elimination to sail through based on Adam's guilt over the sexual assault his friend perpetrated. Pepper hasn't gotten that much face time, but at least we know her name and that she's willing to perform sex acts in exchange for Adam's consideration. Speaking of performing sex acts: Grace may not have impressed any producers with her sexual agency, but at least she was wise enough not to have been indiscreet on camera, so she's still a contender. But let's not sleep on Faith! Having accepted Adam's face-saving necklace at the church dance, she's still in the mix, and if the season were to end with him as her Mississippi beard and her as his sweet woman of substance who erases the public's memory of the hookers he slept with, everyone knows where they stand and no one has to do more than pretend to like each other for a while! How many Bachelor/ette franchise pairings have ended so well?