UnREAL season 2 started off with a war between Quinn and Chet. The former lovers had the most insane quarrel of all time and used their reality show as a shameless pawn. Now, though, UnREAL has morphed into a far more compelling conflict. It’s no longer Quinn against Chet; it’s Quinn against Rachel. The two dark queens of UnREAL are fighting for the soul of the soulless reality show, and neither wants to lose. Though she started off at a disadvantage, this battle (and episode, titled “Treason”) goes to Rachel.
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Rachel’s Problems Intensify
Rachel is still worried that Quinn is going to destroy her when she gets an alarming bit of news. Quinn’s father has died. As you can probably imagine, this makes Quinn even more angry that usual, which is no small feat. It also makes the eventual confrontation between Quinn and Rachel even more frosty. It’s essentially a repeat of their conversation from episode two, where Quinn tells Rachel that she is unstable. Since Constance Zimmer and Shiri Appleby are so good at playing Quinn’s rage and Rachel’s fragility, respectively, this repetition hardly matters.
Rachel goes straight from the frying pan into the fire — the sports injury fire. It turns out that Darius’ injured back from the previous episode is no simple thing. Rather, it is a very serious injury that could end his career and definitely requires surgery. Darius’ doctor wants him to immediately quit the show and get help, as does Romeo. Darius, for his part, is determined to rehabilitate his public image by staying on the show. Darius feels that the injury will end his career, and he needs to land a broadcasting deal post-NFL. Darius figures that Everlasting is the way to do it. Rachel, and later Coleman, take this view as well because they are just as interested in using Darius as Darius is in using them.
The Battle for the Body of a Football Star
When Quinn and Chet catch wind of Darius’ injury, they take the exact opposite view. They figure that seriously injuring Darius will be the best way to tank the show and, as a side effect, tank Coleman’s career. They plot to force Darius into a situation where he has to play bikini football against the girls. This flies in the face of Rachel’s idea to have Darius comment on the bikini football game with the football owner’s daughter, Tiffany.
It turns out that Quinn and Chet’s plan is one that even Chet can’t screw up. While Rachel is distracted, Chet manages to manipulate one of the (severely) drunk girls into tackling Darius to win a one-on-one date. Since this unnamed and honestly unimportant girl is so compromised, she falls for Chet’s lies — and so does Darius, literally. Darius is tackled to the ground, and his back is even more danger.
Quinn thinks she has won and is ready to whisk Darius away in an ambulance. She will get her footage of Darius in the hospital, the girls will cry and, most important, everyone will blame Coleman for Darius getting injured on his watch. Rachel and Coleman won’t take the loss lying down, however, and Coleman calls in a sports doctor who owes him a favor.
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Winners and Losers
Since it’s not UnREAL unless someone is abusing medicine — anyone remember Mary? — Rachel convinces Darius to use this doctor. They will give Darius an epidural. No pain, all smiles and Darius’ body will probably be put into even more of a precarious situation for the sake of reality TV. Still, you have to admit that this whole Darius back injury thing and the exploration of how sports stars are forced to push their bodies to the limits is way more interesting than whatever was going on with Adam in season 1.
Quinn has the ambulance ready to go when Darius arrives looking perfectly healthy and happy. This disgruntles Quinn, but she probably has the least significant emotional reaction. Romeo is particularly enraged to learn that Darius would risk his body at the expense of his public image and a TV show. Chet, oddly, is the one who loses the most.
You see, the entire episode Chet has been wheeling around his son in a stroller, a son that is way cuter than any spawn of Chet has a right to be. This is an odd situation because Chet lost custody of his son and shouldn’t be able to see him at all, let alone take him to work. In fact, it’s actually super illegal. Chet has, in reality, kidnapped his son. Quinn’s ambulance doesn’t get used, but sirens do show up as the police arrive to take Chet away in handcuffs.
Hook-Ups and Break-Ups
With the crises of the day kind of averted, everyone figures that now is the time to just shamelessly hook up. Ruby finds Darius and has a very real conversation with him, as well as a very real make-out session. Yael finally makes the play she has been flirting with and sleeps with Jeremy, then she swipes his keys to the camera crew’s trailer. Seriously, everyone should be very, very scared of Yael. Rachel and Coleman also pick up where they left off in the romance department.
Yet with all the reunions, UnREAL‘s most important relationship suffers a huge break. Smarting over the death of her father, the arrest of Chet and all her other issues, Quinn really lays into Rachel. Quinn tells her former protegee that they are done as friends. All they both have in their lives is work, and Rachel betrayed Quinn and her work. Quinn is getting rid of all the garbage people in her life — and that includes Rachel.
UnREAL airs Mondays at 10pm on Lifetime.
(Image courtesy of Lifetime)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
Derek is a Philadelphia based writer and unabashed TV and comic book junkie. The time he doesn’t spend over analyzing all things nerdy he is working on his resume to be the liaison to the Justice League.
