MTVP So Cal Summer 2016: UnREAL 1.04: "Wife"

“Yeah, but seriously? What does this douchebag not get about this business? Okay, we are selling true love here. True love, people!”
-Quinn

In this episode of “UnREAL,” we finally got to see the payoff for Adam’s demand that the vineyard he’s trying to develop be featured in the show. This week’s episode is supposed to take place at the vineyard, and it’s not at all what the production crew expected. This is also an episode that really tests the limits of what people involved in the show, both cast and crew, are willing to do to ensure their personal success. It’s not just the producers and the ladies caught up in the manipulation. Adam is determined to make his vineyard successful and gain some credibility all on his own, and he is willing to cross any line to make that happen. We’ve also still got Quinn and Chet sniping at each other, and they’re willing to go to new lows there, too. This show is just generally populated with pretty horrible people, but they’re all interesting to watch.

Like I already mentioned, back in the pilot, the Everlasting team made a deal with Adam that if he would agree to be the show’s Suitor, his vineyard would be featured prominently. It’s now time for that to happen. Several ladies are going to be chosen for a date at that very vineyard. There’s just one problem. When Rachel and Jeremy scout out the location, they find that the place is a disaster. The building itself has been condemned, there’s no power, and the landscaping is pretty much non-existent. It is going to be quite the job to get it ready for production in one day. Over Rachel’s objection, Jeremy, who has just been promoted to DP, has a bunch of his camera guys come up to the vineyard to set things right. There’s just one problem: Marin County won’t issue a permit to turn on the power at the vineyard because Adam owes back taxes. Quinn’s nowhere to be found, so Rachel turns to Chet for help. She knows he has a friend who is a Marin County politician, so she figures he can help. Chet offers to help alright, but he makes it clear that he’s going to expect something in return.

There’s a decent amount of tension between Rachel and Adam throughout this show, Early on, Rachel sees a story about Adam in the tabloids. Specifically, it’s a story about him sexting his ex-fiancée back in England from the Everlasting set. Quinn tells Rachel that Adam is going to have to apologize to the girls, and Rachel sets about making this happen. First, she makes a show of putting the tabloid in a recycling bin so that one of the other girls will see it and take it. And then show the other girls, of course. It works like a charm. Soon it’s all they can talk about. And this stuff really isn’t all that different from the show upon which this show is based. Just the other week there was an episode of “The Bachelorette” where the guys were all upset over an interview Jojo’s ex gave to a tabloid. Anyway, Rachel’s right there with some direction to Adam about how to solve the problem. He just wants to let it blow over, but Rachel reminds him that the core Everlasting audience are hardcore tabloid readers. He’s going to have to apologize, and she tells him to think about what he would say to her if she were his girlfriend. He blames missing home for the indiscretion, and the girls completely fall for it.

Later at the vineyard, Rachel instructs Adam to kiss one of the ladies. She describes exactly how hot the kiss should be, and Adam ends up kissing Rachel on the cheek (not just a peck). Jeremy happened to be filming this, so he’s all out of sorts over it. He turns the tape over to Rachel so that she won’t get in trouble, and Rachel keeps swearing there’s nothing going on, but Jeremy’s still not a happy camper at all. Adam again follows Rachel’s direction, making out with one of the ladies in plain view of the rest of them, and it stirs up the desired drama. By the end of the episode, Rachel and Jeremy have made up a bit, because Rachel says how happy she is that Jeremy got promoted to DP on his own merits (not because she said something to Quinn), and Rachel carefully deletes the tape Jeremy recorded of her and Adam.

Quinn is still extremely pissed at Chet after the events of last week (the whole Chet having heart attack symptoms and his wife basically telling Quinn that she lets Chet have sex with her). After yet another argument, Quinn thinks she has the perfect plan to get back at him. She meets up with her ex, Bill, for dinner. Bill and Quinn came up with the idea for Everlasting when they were together, Chet then stole the idea, and now Bill is encouraging Quinn to find her old lookbook from when they were pitching the show and confront Chet with it. Chet is incredibly pissed of when he finds out Quinn has been hanging out with Bill again, and to get back at her, he takes Cynthia up to Adam’s winery. Quinn decides to one-up him and take Bill to the winery, too. To make matters worse, Jay, who was one of the better producers (besides Rachel) has been seriously sucking up to Chet, helping him find weed and hookers, all in the hopes of pitching a show. By the end of the episode, he’s telling Quinn that he works for Chet now, and after this season of Everlasting, he’s going to work on one of Chet’s new shows. To say this makes Quinn unhappy would be an understatement.

Adam is the one who really finds himself in the worst predicament in this episode, though. Chet brings some investor friends up to the vineyard, and Adam already has some potential investors there. Those potential investors say that they’re only interested if Adam’s father is involved, because they know that he knows what he’s doing. They’re rather disappointed when they hear that Adam is planning to go it alone on this project. Just after that rejection, Adam meets Chet’s friends. Chet has pitched the idea (which was originally Quinn’s, of course) of turning the vineyard into an Everlasting-themed resort. They’re embracing Adam’s new identity instead of shunning him for it, so Adam is very enthusiastic. There is a catch, though. Rachel arrives on set just in time to see that catch. She peeks into a room where Adam is having sex with the investor wife while her husband and Chet watch. Chet signals to Rachel that this is her payback for his help with getting the power turned back on.