MTVP So Cal Summer 2016: UnREAL 1.09: "Princess"

“Really? I’m sorry, your below-the-line, coupon-cutting boyfriend is going to offer you something more interesting than a five year deal with me?”
-Quinn

The penultimate episode of “UnREAL’s” first season didn’t fail to bring the drama. Adam was down to his final three women, and there was continuing jockeying for position. The relationship drama also heightens, as Quinn starts to try and make her moves against Chet, and Rachel finds herself torn between Jeremy and Adam. Not gonna lie, I think I’m pretty firmly Team Adam in the Adam vs. Jeremy showdown. Jeremy is kind of bland, and he has treated Rachel horribly. Adam, however, while he’s a bit of a horndog, at least has some depth to him. He’s more of a fully-drawn character than Jeremy is. I can believe that Rachel would find him intriguing enough to risk her career over. This episode also sees Dr. Wagerstein come into her own a bit. She becomes aware of some of the gamesmanship going on between Quinn and Chet. It’s hard to believe she is played by the same actress who plays Josh’s super-loveable mom on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.”

This episode picks up pretty much right where the last one left off. Rachel and Adam have just had sex. Rachel notices she has a bunch of text messages from Jeremy, and she instantly regrets her decision. She hustle’s out of Adam’s room, claiming their night together was a mistake, and heads right back to the electric truck to be with Jeremy. Jeremy invites Rachel back to his house for an evening so she can take a real shower and enjoy some creature comforts. He thinks she deserves to not live like a homeless person for a night. Rachel does go back to the cabin with Jeremy, and they end up showering together. Later in the episode, Rachel goes to a party with Jeremy and some of his friends. They have a lot of fun, and Rachel seems to fit into that life easily. Jeremy suggests that maybe they should get out of the reality TV business, go back to LA, and live a “real” life with his friends. This seems odd to me given that just a few episodes ago, he was insisting that it was never his dream to get out of the business.

Ridiculously, Chet says he wants to have a baby with Quinn, and Quinn seems to agree, letting Chet finish without a condom. The next day, Quinn says she has a gynecologist appointment back in LA, and she takes some emergency contraception during the flight. I was glad to see Quinn hasn’t completely lost all reason. Her actual appointment is with the jerk network executive, though, not a doctor. She wants to pitch show ideas to him solo and completely cut Chet out. She’s got a whole notebook of ideas, apparently. The network exec agrees to give Quinn a chance to pitch some ideas, and Quinn thinks she’s on her way to starting her own company. She’s so sure that she tries to blackmail Rachel into joining her. She’s going through old footage, and she happens to see footage of Rachel and Adam having sex. Rachel had tried to cover up the camera in Adam’s room, but it wasn’t good enough. Quinn tells Rachel that if she doesn’t join her new company, she will tell Jeremy all about Rachel’s extracurricular activities. Adam agrees to keep quiet for Rachel’s sake, since he does seem to have real feelings for her.

Quinn also tries to use Madison against Chet, but it appears that move is going to come back to haunt her. She gets Madison to admit what she did to Chet, then she insists that Madison needs to report the incident. Because you know, there was a massive power imbalance, and what Chet did was not at all okay. This is all true, of course, but it’s not coming from a genuine place with Quinn. She just wants Chet to go down, and if it’s direct repercussions for his cheating on her, so much the better. Madison, however, is not down with this plan at all. She doesn’t think Chet did anything wrong, because she was completely okay with what happened. She’s so torn over what to do that she talks to Dr. Wagerstein about it. Dr. Wagerstein tries to reassure Madison that Madison can handle the situation in whatever way makes her the most comfortable, but then she quickly turns the information to her own advantage. She tells Chet about Quinn’s whole plot to use Madison against him, but in exchange, she wants her own segment on Everlasting that could eventually turn into a Dr. Phil-like spinoff. Something tells me Quinn’s dream’s of having her own company free from Chet aren’t long for this world.

As far as Everlasting goes, this week the final three spend some more time with Adam at the vineyard. In one especially memorable scene, Adam and Faith have some fun with demolition and find a “secret room” that turns out to all be courtesy of production design. Faith tells Adam that she actually wants to win Everlasting. She thinks it would be a win-win for her and Adam, because Adam wouldn’t feel like he was leading her on, and she could maybe introduce Amy to San Francisco and the idea that they don’t have to hide their relationship. Both Adam and Rachel think that Faith playing pretend for another year would not be the best thing for her. She needs to come to terms with who she is and make her peace with that and her hometown. Adam ends up eliminating Faith from the competition at the elimination ceremony.

In addition to the vineyard dates, Adam is supposed to select one woman for an overnight date. Determined to get Rachel’s attention, he chooses Anna, and he actually has sex with her. Rachel, of course, can’t resist watching this happening from the command center, even though monitors are supposed to be turned off for overnight dates. Rachel also sees Adam leave the room later in the night, and she gets concerned. She finds him by his favorite pond, and he drops a bomb on her. He doesn’t want her to start her new life with Jeremy without him saying how he feels. Adam wants to run away with Rachel. He thinks they should go someplace glamorous to start, then see where life takes them. He doesn’t think Jeremy can provide Rachel with the kind of life she wants. Rachel is going to have quite a decision to make.