Unreal S02E07 Review: Ambush

Deciding that she needed to get rid of Coleman in order to reclaim her title as show-runner of Everlasting Quinn called in last season's suitor Adam in an attempt to drive Rachel away from her new lover. Initially, his return didn't seem do too much - Rachel was adamant that she had moved on and wanted nothing to do with Adam (despite a steamy bathroom make-out session) and neither Rachel or Coleman took the bait when network owner John Booth approached Coleman solo about some of their ideas at Quinn's behest. Quinn had tried and failed to manipulate them, although potentially that it not how she sees it. As she posed to Coleman, 'I keep her in line here, do you really want to be on a full-time bomb squad?'. She thinks she's doing what's best for Rachel, in an obvious self-serving way, and as Coleman tells her, 'Rachel's fine Quinn. Turns out her big problem is working for a controlling manipulative bitch.' This is not a new conversation on Unreal, and the question has been raised for a while, what are Rachel and Quinn to one another? Can one survive without the other? The series is at it's best, for me, when it focuses on its dynamic and dysfunctional leading ladies so I don't mind it being repeated, but unless the series goes about trying to give us some sort of answer it'll become tedious. 

For a while it looked like this episode, Ambush, was going to do this. While behind the scenes Quinn tried to store up trouble with Adam on the cameras of Everlasting Adam helped Darius choose a date hosted by one of the ladies, which ended up being a romantic gondola ride with Chantal - until she tried to prove her love to him by throwing her dead-finance's ashes and through the magic of television ended up going all over Darius. It was all pretty boring until Darius - fed up with the way Rachel has been treating him - went for a joyride with his recently returned cousin and manager Romeo, as well as a drunken Yael and Tiffany. Seeing it as an opportunity to make the show she's being wanting to make (and no doubt as a way to get back at both Quinn and Adam who have been telling her that she's delusionsal) Rachel calls the police and reports the car as stolen. In an unexpected turn of events Darius gets pulled over, but when the situation quickly escaletes Rachel tries to stop it, only for one of the officer's to shoot Romeo. It was a surprising end to an otherwise uneventful episode but what made it truly enjoyable was the irony of the outcome.

Quinn was right - Coleman let Rachel run with her idea and someone ended up shot. Quinn wasn't on the set of Everlasting to stop her because of an earlier scene in which Rachel told her that she needs to stop being so obsessed with her and to get a life. So when Gary, the president of the network, interrupts her romantic date with John to tell her what has happened she has achieved what she wanted - Coleman is no longer show-runner of Everlasting. Accept that she hasn't. An emotionally distraught Rachel kicks Adam out of her trailer and calls her mother, who promptly takes her to a psychiatric facility and drugs her. Despite Quinn's aforementioned self-serving behaviour the series has also previously shown that at least she's treated Rachel better than her own mother has - who seems to think the only way to deal with such a difficult person as Rachel is to drug her. Quinn wanted Coleman gone to keep the Everlasting family together. And now it's daughter is gone. So can one survive without the other? 

Rating: 4/5