Which Of UnREAL's Love Stories Will Outlast Its First Season?

Anyone who'd seen a TV show before knew from UnREAL's series premiere that, before long, antiheroine Rachel and Suitor Adam were going to get involved in a relationship other than merely producer and reality star; and anyone who didn't see that coming still could have predicted that whatever kind of affair Adam and Rachel did have, it was not going to result in their forsaking all others. Of course UnREAL's season finale doesn't end in a romantic love match any more than the latest season of Everlasting: none of us thought it would. But that's not to say the finale doesn't boast some big surprises -- and the biggest one is which of its love stories actually is going to endure. Conveniently for me, it's the only one I really care about. Quinn and Rachel: I hope you each realize what a rare gift the other is.

No, I am not a crackpot. I'm sure there are some who'll argue that Rachel's relationship with Quinn is just as toxic as the one she has with her mother, Olive -- and, certainly, the episode in which we met Olive wasn't one in which Quinn would have impressed anyone with her capacity for love in general, and for Rachel in particular. Quinn's also had the chance to remove one of the biggest stressors in Rachel's life -- the lawsuit the network brought against her after her disruption of the last Everlasting finale -- and opted not to. Earlier in the season, I thought that was because she recognized what a star producer she has in Rachel and didn't want to lose her to another production (or to African AIDS babies, if helping them is a fantasy she's shared with confidants other than Adam). But based on Quinn's actions in the season's last two episodes, I have a different perspective on their relationship. Quinn definitely has selfish reasons for keeping a hold on Rachel by any means necessary. But it also seems increasingly accurate to say that Rachel needs Quinn as much as Quinn needs Rachel.

There was a point when things could have gone in a very different direction for both these ladies: in the tiny window between Chet's decision to leave his wife for Quinn -- when Quinn accepted his wedding proposal and believed they were going to get married and be happy -- and Chet's decision to get a very young PA to blow him. (Sidebar: I really appreciate that the season finale removed all doubt about Madison's consent in this event. Obviously there is an imbalance of power between her and Chet, but that doesn't mean they weren't mutually exploiting each other sexually, and her promotion to producer proves that her efforts weren't wasted. That's not to say they aren't both gross -- they are -- but I appreciate that UnREAL's producers clarified that despite the way Quinn characterized matters in the season's penultimate episode, Madison is not a victim.) Nothing that led up to Chet's announcement that he was ending his marriage gave the viewer any reason to think this was an eventuality Quinn expected -- or, perhaps, even hoped -- would ever happen; a stunted, intermittent relationship pursued in stolen moments might actually be the most convenient kind for someone in Quinn's position. The shock of Chet's proposal made Quinn start planning for a future she might have never thought to imagine before, and conducted herself accordingly in the present -- including rebuffing Rachel's attempt to tell her how Chet had taken her out for a drive/potentially fatal threat delivery by imperiously informing Rachel that Quinn and Chet are "together now." This mental state doesn't last the episode for Quinn, who immediately starts plotting to extricate herself -- a project that's well underway by the time Rachel tries to weasel out of Quinn's offer of a partnership in a production company because Rachel thinks she's going to leave the business in favour of a life with Jeremy. If Quinn were still thinking she was about to move into the beautiful house Chet was building for her and have his babies, she might be more kindly disposed to Rachel's claim to want those kinds of things for herself. Instead, it's (probably mostly) cynicism resulting from Quinn's own very recent romantic disappointment that has her telling Rachel she'll never be happy giving up the career she was clearly born to have, but from what we've seen of Rachel since we first met her, it also seems to be true.

The story of this season, to me, is Rachel's acceptance -- shading into enthusiasm and even passion -- for her job. The woman we met in the season premiere, in her "This Is What A Feminist Looks Like" t-shirt, took pains to tell everyone around her how much she didn't want to be working on another season of Everlasting and regarded the whole enterprise as shameful (which, to be fair, it is). But we've also seen her, like Quinn, come to a crossroads where making the opposite decision would have changed everything: in the immediate aftermath of Mary's suicide. Rachel wasn't culpable for Mary's having gone off her meds; if she had blown the whistle on Shia -- and, by extension, the production and the network -- it could have definitively freed her from her obligation to Everlasting by killing the show, which would have presumably also weakened the lawsuit against her in the process. But she didn't: she faked a suicide note that exonerated everyone at Everlasting. Did she do it for Mary's daughter, to keep her abusive father from winning custody? I'm sure that's how she would describe it if asked, but it wasn't the only reason: she pretty much single-handedly ensured that the show would go on. She might hate that she loves it, but she loves it.

So when Quinn closes the season's penultimate episode by confronting Rachel (and, to a lesser extent, Adam) with what she knows about their carnal relationship and how she intends to use it against them to get them to do what she wants, Rachel comes to another crossroads: she can submit, and stay with the show; or she can call Quinn's bluff, and make a new life with Adam. As Quinn discovers when she returns to the manse just in time to see Adam creeping out with his go bag, Rachel chooses wrong.

We don't see exactly what Quinn tells Adam to get him to change his mind about blowing up his life for Rachel -- we just hear his impression of it as he relates it to Rachel -- which I think is not an accident: the specifics don't matter as long as we see the outcome, which is the proof that Adam is weak, and all too ready to sell Rachel out. The conversation that matters is the one Rachel has with Quinn after Rachel finds out that Quinn induced Adam to stay. Rachel tries to lead Quinn into an admission by musing that she's wondering why Adam didn't go through with their escape plan. "Forget the why," says Quinn. "He dumped you. Done. Moving on." It's partly an evasion, but also a perfectly fair summation of what's happened. Rachel says actually she's interested in the "why" this time, and once Quinn knows she's busted, she readily tells her side: "What, you mean why you're not coming out of a blackout on the beach in Tahiti, using your panties as a pillow? Dumped and realizing you ruined your life on some half-wit narcissist man-doll?" "God forbid I make my own mistakes, right?" snarks Rachel. "Like you haven't made enough of those. Fine. Blame it on me, I don't give a shit. You should be kneeling down thanking...whatever that you didn't end up as Everlasting's ultimate tabloid idiot, all right? This was a gift....Love is swell, but it is not something you build a life around." When Rachel says some people do, Quinn shoots back, "Like Mary?" "Nice," drawls Rachel. They agree that there won't be any murder next season, Rachel adding the qualifier, "At least, not with the contestants -- behind the scenes, I can't be so sure." With a pointed glare at Quinn, Rachel explains that she means Jeremy wants her dead, "for example" (since by this time even that dullard has figured out what she and Adam have been doing and made a public scene about it), and Quinn promises to have his head if he gives Rachel any attitude. Rachel fixes Quinn with her gaze.

It seems like a look of pure loathing -- "Jeremy might kill me, but I hope I kill you first" -- but when Quinn snaps, "What?...Tell me!" Rachel takes a brief pause and says, "I love you. You know that, right?" Quinn can't look directly at Rachel as she says it, but she reciprocates: "I love you too....Weirdo." It's always possible that Rachel is just making this declaration to get out of the uncomfortable moment, but the look on her face suggests to me that she means it.

Maybe she hates that she loves Quinn the same way she hates that she loves the show. But I feel, in this exchange, Rachel knowing Quinn is right -- not about love, but about Adam. Quinn's definitely got a point that Adam didn't seem to take much coaxing to give up on Rachel: he didn't even try to take Quinn's claims back to Rachel for verification. He wasn't prepared to be Rachel's champion for the rest of their lives; he couldn't even follow their plan for a single night. Quinn saved her finale, true, but she really did do Rachel a favour, too, by putting Adam at his own crossroads and letting him make the choice that would show Rachel what a coward he is.

With this much meaty, real character stuff happening in the season finale, one might almost forget it's happening in the middle of some of the most absurd circumstances imaginable, but here we are: Rachel channels her heartbreak at the start of the episode into helping Quinn make the best Everlasting finale ever, and she's challenged in this project from the jump what with Chet bringing back bad girl Britney, cut in the premiere, for no really good reason. The production goes to England to stage Adam's proposal in the ancestral castle, with the seeming blessing of his grandmother, the only one of his relatives who cared to be part of this gauche affair and a salty old broad: "I was snorting blow off Mick Jagger's...you know, two days before I married an impotent Duke for his title." (If Quinn's looking for a new drinking buddy, she really could do worse than the Duchess.) Sure, Jeremy takes his big moment to out Adam and Rachel to the gathered crew and essentially gets a collective [shrug] in response -- pretty much the only necessary response to anything Jeremy's ever done to this point -- but Rachel moves straight on to outing herself to Anna and delivering Everlasting's first runaway bride, on live TV (while a posturing Chet proves he wouldn't actually know how to produce his way out of a turtleneck sweater, allowing Quinn to take over and save the day, for the benefit of stupid Brad). Let people who can't do this stuff take care of the African AIDS babies, Rachel. Don't squander your gift.

We end on a cliffhanger that requires Jeremy to do something significant for the first time ever: he goes to the senior Goldbergs' house and dimes out Rachel to her mom. I guess we're supposed to worry that Season 2's going to be taken up with Rachel fighting her mother to prove her sanity, and maybe we would if we didn't already know that Olive herself is the craziest of them all, and that if it actually does somehow come to a commitment fight, Quinn's going to defend Rachel with all the resources her power and money can buy. Rachel's essential Everlasting personnel, but we know that's not all Quinn thinks of her.

I never cared whether Adam would be back for Season 2, but if anything happens to part this tiger mother and her cub, I will riot.

Treasure what you have, Rachel and Quinn. I know in this moment at least one of you is considering killing the other, but that won't last. Your love is a sick, mutually self-serving seesaw, true, but you truly know each other in ways no one else possibly can.