MTVP So Cal Summer 2016: UnREAL 1.05: "Truth"

“What? No, I’m not moving. This is my home. This is where I live. I’m gonna stay here. I’m gonna make ‘em all believe.”
-Faith

I appreciate that the “UnREAL” creative team is devoting various episodes to letting us get to know the various Everlasting contestants. This week, the focus was primarily on Faith, the virgin, devout Christian rodeo competitor from a small town in Mississippi. Faith has a bit of crisis of faith (pun not really intended) as Rachel helps her come to some realizations about herself. Rachel also genuinely tries to be a good person when she comprehends what problems publicly airing these realizations will cause Faith, although it’s Adam who ultimately comes to the rescue. That boy certainly does have the whole self-sacrifice thing down. Rachel’s altruism impresses Jeremy to the point that he briefly contemplates a fling with her (shocker…that doesn’t last long, and the resolution is really twisted). There’s also continuation of the Quinn and Chet drama, and Shia continues to be the worst producer ever. Through Shia being the worst, we also get to know another contestant, Mary, a bit better too. Overall, this was a solid episode.

The theme of this week’s episode of Everlasting was hometown dates. We only get to see one of the dates in this particular episode of “UnREAL,” though. Adam is supposed to choose the first hometown date from the outset, then while he’s on that date, the other ladies will make invitation videos for him to choose from. Mostly to stick it to the producers, Adam chooses Faith for the first date. The producers all think the situation can potentially be salvaged if Faith agrees to lose her virginity to Adam, and Rachel sets about trying to make that happen. Faith is pretty shocked at the request, but she doesn’t completely dismiss it out of hand. Rachel is also going to be traveling on this date, which I don’t really think she’s supposed to be given that she’s in therapy.

In Mississippi, we meet Faith’s best friend Amy who has been taking care of Faith’s grandmother while Faith has been away. There seems to be chemistry between Faith and Amy beyond just being best friends, and Rachel notices it right away. Her suspicions seem to be confirmed when she sees that there are numerous photos of Faith and Amy in Faith’s bedroom. Rachel broaches the subject with Faith, and after some initial protesting, Faith finally admits that yes, she loves Amy. There is going to be a big town dance the next day, and Faith wants to profess her love for Amy at the event. Rachel’s first instinct is to get plenty of footage of all this mess for Everlasting. When Faith shares her feelings with Amy, however, Amy is conflicted. She thinks she does love Faith, but she has to give some thought to the best way to proceed in their small, religious town. Faith is convinced they can make their town believe being gay is okay, but Amy isn’t so sure. Rachel starts having second thoughts about her plan, and she calls Jay to ask him to intercept the tape of the footage she shot so far. She wants to make sure she doesn’t out Faith if she really doesn’t want to be outed.

Meanwhile, back in LA, Shia is trying to produce the hometown invite video of Mary, a divorced, slightly older single mom. The staff psychiatrist mentions to Shia that Mary is on a shit ton of mood stabilizers, and she’s been diagnosed with bipolar. This for some reason makes Shia think it would be okay to switch out one of Mary’s psychiatric medications and encourage Mary to drink alcohol to loosen up. Between some wine and not having all of her meds, Mary does indeed become more lively. I’m guessing she’s really just on the road to being manic, though. So, uber lively in a bad way. She starts preening in front of the mirror, and she decides to go off script for her invite video. In the unscripted video, she goes into detail about how abusive her ex-husband was. He even broke her arm at one point. Despite all that, she really, desperately wants Adam to meet her young daughter. To be honest, I’m kind of horrified they went to this place with Shia, and the consequences only get worse from here. I have a relative who lives with bipolar disorder, and even very small changes in medications can have a significant effect. You just shouldn’t mess with someone’s medications, no matter what those medications are for.

Quinn and Bill meet with a lawyer to talk about potentially suing Chet for stealing the idea for Everlasting. The lawyer says that their intellectual property case isn’t especially strong, but Quinn would have a decent sexual harassment/palimony case if she wanted to go in that direction. When Chet keeps acting heinous, Quinn decides that she does indeed want to go in that direction. Chet’s lawyers try to fight back, saying they’ll try to frame Quinn as a stalker instead of a long-term mistress. Shia, in a rare moment of clarity, tells Quinn that the way to solve this is to “produce” Chet. And produce she does. At a big meeting, Quinn shows Chet an old cast that she saved. She kept it, because when Chet signed it, he said he loved her, and that’s the only time he has ever said that. Chet is successfully manipulated, and he offers Quinn 40% ownership of Everlasting.

Anyway, back in Mississippi, Jeremy is so impressed at Rachel’s altruism in setting up the tape destruction, starts making out with Rachel. They get very close to having sex, to the point where they are undressing, when Jeremy says he just can’t be pulled into Rachel’s crazy anymore. He leaves the room, and I’m wondering what part of him thought doing what he just did would make Rachel any less crazy. At the big town dance, Faith is all set to proclaim her love for Amy to the whole town. She truly hopes that if everyone actually gets to know a gay person, they won’t be so hateful anymore. Just as she’s about to speak, though, it’s clear she has second thoughts, and Adam, at Rachel’s prompting, comes to the rescue. He gives Faith a necklace and asks her to join him in the next round of Everlasting. Faith, grateful to have a bit more time to come out, accepts. They also film some fake having sex footage to have a plotline for the show. Jay, even though he should be sympathetic, however, shows Chet the coming out footage anyway, and that’s the direction Chet wants to go. Adam has to offer Chet a juicy tabloid story about himself to get Chet to back off, which of course earns him some approval from Rachel.