The end of last week's episode posed the question as to what Rachel and Quinn would do without one another, but wasn't really a question that Fugitive was all too concerned about deleting into. Rachel's stay at the psychiatric facility was simultaneously surprising at and not so. I would have thought the series would have wanted to play up this situation, but at the same time a prolonged stay there would have seemed out of focus for the series so understandably Rachel was quickly brought back onto the set of Everlasting. Coleman confronts Quinn about letting Rachel's mother take her to the facility but Quinn reminds him that Rachel called her - so things must be really bad and perhaps she needs some time off. Coleman insists that he is in love with her and goes to get her, but not before he catches Yael in his office looking up the footage of Romeo's shooting and she reveals that *GASP* she's actually an undercover reporter writing a book called 'Reality TV Kills' and wants Coleman to help her get the dirt about what really goes on behind the scenes at Everlasting. I like the idea that we don't really know Coleman's intentions with Rachel even after he gets her out of the psychiatric facility, does he really love her, or is he in it for himself and to get revenge on the series? I think his character is still conflicted about this, which makes for good viewing. Adding the Yael reveal is just too much though, and it is an unnecessarily soapy trope for Unreal to go down when when know it's capable of so much more.
Another somewhat soapy reveal was the true nature of Rachel and her mother's dysfunctional relationship - she was raped at their home by one of her mother's patients when she was 12. I do like they are are trying to explore what makes Rachel such a fascinating character but I'm not sure that I like the simplification that all her problems stem from the fact that she had been raped as a girl. Having been easily coerced (thanks to the drugs she was on from the hospital) by Coleman to record all the unethical things she knows that Everlasting has done over the years I guess Rachel felt compelled to tell him about that too. It was probably the wrong decision, her mother seems to have always told her that no one wants to deal with damage like that (although she was likely just protecting herself and her practice), and she's partially right. An already torn Coleman is going to have a lot more to think about. He lays awake staring at Rachel before meeting with Yael, seemingly willing to help her in exposing Everlasting and theoretically also ruining Rachel in the process.
The other parts of the Fugitive focused on the making Everlasting and as usual that weren't nearly as entertaining as the character insight into Rachel and Coleman. Darius was still missing after the shooting so the producers had to keep coming up with Survivor-esque challenges in which the ladies had to know all the answers to questions about Darius to avoid elimination, and then vote each other off. Jay eventually finds Darius thanks to eliminated contestant Ruby who lets him know when Darius contacts her and asks to meet. He tells her that he wants to quit the show and be with her and now that he's had his back surgery he can't play football and can focus on being abetter person. But she's not interested after being dumped on live-television, believing he practically told the world that she's too demanding. Jay tries to comfort an agitated Darius and tells him that without his football career his best chance to get anywhere with his life is to finish off Everlasting and marry the entitled Tiffany to set himself up. Back on set the other girls have turned against Tiffany though, and despite Quinn, Chet, and Jay's attempts to manipulate the situation they decide to vote her off. Until Darius appears at the last second and votes off Jameson. It sort of annoys me that after all the set-up they did with this boring producing of an episode of Everlasting that Darius can just come in and get whatever he wants. I'm sure that it wouldn't actually work since everything they filmed prior lead to a different conclusion, but anyway. Darius makes it clear he doesn't want Rachel anywhere near him and that he only talks to Jay and from now on he does the series his way. Quinn seems to think that it will makes things interesting, but I can't imagine anything more boring if he's already chosen Tiffany with two weeks left (although of course we all know her make-out session with Chet is going to come back to haunt her, so there's that at least).
Quinn also spent the episode fielding questions about having children from John Booth and while I'm not particularly adverse to Quinn having a love interest that's not Chet, I always hate how series' think it's okay to have an older couple talk about children so soon in their relationship because they are old and their biological clock is ticking. They've still only been dating for a couple of weeks, writers! Baby talk is too soon. Apparently not for Quinn though who agrees to keep dating John because she doesn't completely hate the idea of starting a family with him. Perhaps this is because of Rachel? It was made clear to her that Rachel is not her family in this episode, so whiteout her she doesn't have one at the moment. Perhaps another bad decision that will come back to haunt her.
Rating: 3/5
