UnREAL’s Rachel is a complex character
The show: UnREAL, Season 2, Episode 6 The moment: The bruise photos
Reality TV producer Rachel (Shiri Appleby) lies on the floor of the wardrobe trailer, shaken. Her exboyfriend Jeremy (Josh Kelly) has just grabbed her arm and hit her in the face. Her boss Chet (Craig Bierko) threw Jeremy out.
“Jeremy can’t get away with this,” Rachel says.
“He didn’t, I fired him,” Chet replies.
“Well, I’m going to go to the police,” Rachel says. “I’m not going to be another silent woman.”
“You sure you want to do that to Jeremy?” Chet asks. “You sure you want to do that to us? Jeremy knows where all the bodies are buried around here.”
“Did you see what he did?” Rachel protests.
“Yeah,” Chet says. “But it’s our word against his and if he talks — this has to stay in the family.”
Rachel seems to accede. But when Chet leaves, she photographs her bruises with her phone.
As we saw in Season 1, Rachel is a complex cookie. Super smart, she knows how to manipulate people, but she’s also mentally unstable, an emotional grenade with a loose pin. The fun of this show is the conundrum: How low would you go if that was your job?
At this point, though, what Rachel wants is utterly unclear. It’s one thing to ricochet between sabotag- ing your show and yourself across a season. Now she’s doing that several times per episode.
So a few scenes later, when she deletes the bruise photos from her phone, we’re supposed to be yelling “No!” at the TV. But I’m wondering, “So soon?” And, “Am I still rooting for her?” UnREAL airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on Lifetime. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on popculture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.