UnReal - Wife - Review: “Prices To Be Paid”

Last week was a good episode and it was fun, but it left me feeling a little unsatisfied. It was certainly the weakest of the four episodes Lifetime let us all binge. Thankfully it was only a quick blip on the otherwise outstanding record UnReal has crafted for itself. This week the series rebounded in truly scandalous fashion. The episode also delivers a lot of new material, which means an extra long review, so settle in and enjoy the below read then leave me your thoughts in the comments because we have a lot to talk about.

The show has a slightly different open this week as we get a peek into the life of Graham (Brennan Elliott), the host of Everlasting. As is the case with most of UnReal’s flawed characters he’s far from a saint. We find him practicing lines for the show after he just spent a fun evening with one of Adam’s cast off women. He seeks approval from her for his performance then when she tries to talk her way into a return to the show he sends her packing. I think this is the most time we’ve spent with Graham yet, but I hope we get to see more of him because he is a fun character whom I think has some fun story to offer us.

UnReal has a very large cast which means, unfortunately, some characters get lost for an episode, or in Mary’s case two episodes. Thankfully Mary, and her portrayer Ashley Scott, get a chance to shine this week. We open on Mary and Shamiqua preparing for the reveal of some group date. Shamiqua, for all her high standards and morals, takes a jab at Mary by reminding her she likely won’t be going anyway. As Jay and Rachel alert the girls that cameras are on the floor and ready to film we see Mary down a handful of pills. I’m no pharmacist, but those all looked like prescription drugs and they were all even filed away in a nice little daily planner. This is a very intriguing twist for a character whose only issue we were setup to know about was her abusive ex. If she is sick this could definitely be an interesting twist for the show. It was far too short of a peek into Mary’s life and I hope to see that followed up on soon.

Rachel and Jay slip envelopes under all the doors then have a good laugh making fun of all the girls’ excited screeches. The big Everlasting event of the week is a group date for a select group of girls. The envelopes reveal that Faith, Maya, Athena, and Mary are those lucky girls. I was very happy Mary got picked simply because Shamiqua’s earlier jab is avenged as she does not get an envelope. Even the morally high can slip and Shamiqua definitely had a slip this week.

Before we can witness this date Rachel and Jeremy, the newly minted Director of Photography, have to go scout out the vineyard with Adam. The unofficial triangle, built around Rachel, got some further reinforcement as she gets to flirt with both men and exchange banter with each. It is interesting that both of them notice her change of appearance and to be honest it is noticeable. For the first time since the series started she looks well rested and it looks like she even found an unoccupied shower somewhere. This is probably the happiest Rachel has been since returning to Everlasting and it is a nice change after the crappy few weeks she’s had. Well she was happy until Jeremy thanked her for helping him get this new job. The way her face drops when she turns away from him suggests she may not have done as much as he thinks.

Back at the Everlasting house Shamiqua is making me wonder just how moral she is. Now she’s trying to downplay the date as just being a consolation prize for the “B Team” and Athena isn’t quite as willing to take her crap as Mary was. Now that we’re getting all this time with Shamiqua I can’t help but be torn about her. Shamiqua doesn’t appreciate the way Athena is portraying black peoples and predicts Athena won’t last the week.

Rachel and her team arrive at the vineyard only to find it overgrown and condemned. Adam apparently left those bits of news out of his pitch to film there. He seems rather proud of the property while Rachel grows more horrified by the second. Adam thinks they can work some “Hollywood magic” to which Rachel quickly, and accurately, replies that they can’t “pull unicorns out of our asses” and given how rundown the vineyard is I’m not even sure a unicorn would be able to save the place. Rachel is willing to call it all a loss until Adam gives her his best “puppy dog eyes” and tries to charm her into helping him.

At this point Jeremy flies in to rescue them both with his plans to bring in his camera crew to do a quick face lift to at least make it look halfway respectable on camera. Jeremy is good at his job, but unless he has a magic wand in his tool belt he may need more help than his camera guys can give him. This place is the definition of a dump and it will be interesting to see what he does to try and make it aesthetically appealing on camera. It is fun to watch Jeremy dismiss Adam’s help in front of Rachel especially since both men clearly have an interest in her, even if both of them are still in denial over it.

The guys may have convinced Rachel to film at the vineyard, but the hard job was left to her as she had to convince Quinn to sign off on them going over budget to fix it up. She sells it, but only barely as she reminds Quinn that filming there was in Adam’s contract. Quinn folds and puts all the responsibility onto Rachel. Right now Quinn has bigger problems as she tries to avoid Chet.

Like most of the guys on Everlasting Chet isn’t very good at taking a hint. He stalks Quinn into her office where she complains about Adam using Everlasting as a glorified promotional piece for his vineyard. Quinn makes it quite obvious that she is pissed off at Chet and he believes it was because of the hospital confrontation with Cynthia from the week before, but that’s only a small piece of the problem. As they are getting older Quinn is finally realizing that she deserves better. It definitely took Quinn far longer than necessary to realize she was hooking up with a rich loser. Quinn calls things off with him and when he, not so eloquently, tries to remind her that he made her she goes off on him in one of my favorite Quinn lines yet as she tells him to “…get your run down, good for nothing, user ass out of my office…”. It was a liberating moment for Quinn and it has been long overdue. When Quinn then threatens to quit, and basically leave Chet with a show he has no idea how to produce, he vacates her office with a pissed off expression but not a single word spoken. He may be a loser, but at least Chet is smart enough to not mess with Quinn in that moment. Quinn does not throw around empty threats and Chet knows it.

Chet is not taking the whole Quinn thing well as he pulls Jay away from an interview to try and score some weed from him. He gives Jay a wad of money to score them some weed, a limo, and a couple Thai massages. I can predict at least a dozen reasons all of that is a bad idea, but Jay wants to be in good with Chet, so he’s on board for the insanity.

While Jay is being recruited to the dark side Rachel is desperately trying to save the shoot day at the vineyard by trying to get the power turned back on. That is until Quinn orders Rachel to her office and reveals to her, via the cover of a magazine, that the vineyard is only one of the Adam disasters of the day. He somehow got a phone and has been sexting his ex-fiancé which just makes him look like an epic douche. Now Rachel has to get Adam to apologize to everyone on camera while Quinn has to fix things with the media.

Rachel confronts Adam and she discovers that Roger is the one that gave him the phone. When he tries to deny all responsibility she takes away his phone and then tells him she’ll take care of it all. That should have been Adam’s clue that he pissed off the wrong person. Making Rachel clean up his messes is not the best play on his part and she is about to teach him a lesson.

Quinn is busy, as usual, and throwing around orders as she does her part to fix Adam’s debauchery. When she runs across the plans Chet gave her for the house she realizes she needs to further distance herself from him and reaches out to Bill (JR Bourne) who appears to be an ex. He is surprised she called him and so is she, but she makes an offer for dinner. It takes a high caliber actor to hold their own against Constance, so casting JR Bourne as Quinn’s new love interest was a brilliant choice because he’s a truly gifted actor.

Rachel is doing her own work as she drops the magazine into a very open and very accessible recycling bin near craft services where Jay is planning his day out with Chet. He revels to Rachel that he wants to pitch Chet some of his show ideas, but Rachel doesn’t seem convinced. Rachel is desperate to get the power back on at the vineyard so Jay reminds her that Chet has friends up there and she says she’ll get Quinn to talk to him. Apparently Rachel is out of the loop on the Quinn and Chet drama so Jay gets her up to speed by telling her that “mommy and daddy are fighting”. On a day where plans are falling apart it seems that Rachel’s master plan is coming together perfectly as Athena recovers the discarded magazine.

We finally get to meet the mysterious Bill as he and Quinn sit down for drinks. Here we learn a really fun tidbit of news as it is revealed that Bill is suing Chet over Everlasting. According to Bill the show was stolen not only from him, but from Quinn as well. This is an interesting twist. Even more interesting is that Quinn has no desire in being a part of his lawsuit. He believes her old look book is the key to his case, but she informs him she has no idea where it is. There seems to be a lot at play here and I have a feeling this will prove to be an interesting storyline. Anytime JR Bourne shows up you can expect something fun and unexpected out of the character he is playing and he does not disappoint.

Bill smartly changes the topic to focus on Quinn. He also reveals that Chet stole her from him, but Bill is clearly still hung up on Quinn. I need Quinn to drop all ties with Chet and get back with Bill because he is by far the healthier choice. Most importantly he seems to genuinely care about her which is something Chet seems to be seriously lacking.

Quinn is too involved in her evening with Bill to deal with work problems, so when Rachel calls her she tells her to deal with whatever the problem is. Dealing with it involves her selling her soul to Chet in exchange for him helping them get the power back on to the vineyard. He agrees to help with an ominous warning as he tells her he’ll find a way for her to pay him back. That is so not going to end well for Rachel. Nothing can be that easy, so it’ll be interesting to see how Chet calls in Rachel’s newly minted debt.

Now that Athena has the magazine she doesn’t waste much time showing it around. First she shows it to Pepper and before long the women are having a heated discussion about it. Rachel comes across the group which consists of all the group date winners as well as Pepper and Shamiqua. As Rachel promises to look into the problem she calls to Quinn that the bait was taken and she walks off with a smile on her face. She purposely setup Adam to have to deal with his own problem and good on her for making him fix this by himself.

Back in the control room Rachel confesses to Quinn that she had to ask Chet for help and Quinn is surprisingly supportive. She then warns Rachel of the hazards of being in Chet’s debt. They are putting some major effort into making sure we remember Chet has a debt hanging over her head. That means that whatever the repayment is it will be massive.

On set Rachel has thrown Adam to the wolves as she lets him blindly walk into a confrontation with the women. They waste no time revealing to him that they know about his texting, so he not so gracefully excuses himself to track down Rachel.

While Adam is trying to fix his mess on set Chet is off for his night with Jay. They are in the limo smoking weed with two random women. Jay looks so uncomfortable and out of his element. He tries to pitch a show to Chet while Chet is busy being taken care of by their female companions. Not the best timing on Jay’s part.

When Adam finds Rachel she tells him that he got himself into this situation and this time he has to clean up his own mess. Rachel does some role-play apology exercise with Adam where she takes on the role of his girlfriend. He tries a charming route and Rachel informs him that he needs to take that and multiply it on a much larger scale. She then leaves him to figure out his strategy.

He is forced to return to the women and clean up his mess without Rachel’s help. He delivers a charming speech that, while directed at the contestants, seems to be for Rachel. The way the camera pushed in on her during the speech and the look they shared at the end seems to indicate I may not be too far off base on that theory.

Surprisingly the women buy his sappy story and they all give him hugs. The reconciliation was a success and Quinn is impressed by Rachel’s scary ability. She is however not impressed by Chet who shows up in the control room after his joyride with Jay. Quinn did not miss their absence and quizzes Chet on where he went off to with one of her producers. He counters and wants to know where she went to when she left for dinner. They have a little spat which ends with Quinn trying to brush him off so she can wrap. Chet doesn’t like that so he vindictively informs her that he and Cynthia will be joining them in Napa the next day. Quinn does not at all seem happy about this and I don’t disagree with her. Chet is being true to the villain title I gave him and being a total ass to her every chance he gets.

The next morning in Napa, Rachel is fighting to get in the day with only eight hours of daylight to work with and a very small walkway of usable background. To add to her morning some potential business partners of Adam’s show up unexpectedly and Adam’s true plot is revealed. He wanted Everlasting to clean up the vineyard just enough to make it an easier sell to these potential investors. To make matters worse Rachel needs to deal with this situation before Quinn shows up and has all their heads. Adam tells Rachel that he can’t go to his dad for help, so he has to get these investors on board. She agrees to help Adam as long as they can clear them out before Quinn’s arrival. Her help comes with a price though and that price is a hot steamy kiss with one of the women. She doesn’t care which one as long as it is hot and can induce “dripping panties” and “sweaty palms”. This leads to an interesting moment as Adam plants a kiss on her cheek. That moment is made even more awkward as Jeremy was watching and recording all of it.

Jeremy thought Rachel was producing Adam, so he recorded everything. He apologizes and gives her the tape. She tells Jeremy that all she was doing was producing Adam, but he’s not as convinced as she is. He has her back because she helped him get his new job and this finally forces Rachel to reveal the truth, which is she didn’t talk to Quinn because she got busy. In Rachel’s eyes that’s a good thing because he earned the job on his own. Too bad for her he doesn’t see it that way and is none too happy with her.

Back on the group date Adam is having the women drink wine in an effort to help him craft a signature wine for the vineyard. All the while Rachel is doing her best to woo his investors for him. She’s very good at her job so she actually manages to convince them that there is potential in Adam’s dump of a vineyard.

Maya leads the women as she apparently has a background involving wine making. Athena thinks Maya should be disqualified on those grounds. Faith just thinks it takes like “sour grape juice”. I absolutely love the way Breeda portrays Faith’s innocence. She makes me root for Faith every time she’s on screen. Then there is Mary who isn’t drinking the wine and that draws Adam’s attention. She expresses that she’s had to deal with a lot in her life so doing this isn’t all that bad. With that Adam has his mark and he offers to take her on a private walk.

With usable walkway running out their little stroll ends within viewing range of the other women. On Rachel’s cue Adam grabs Mary and plants a hot kiss on her. Ashley and Freddie deliver on the steam this scene needed. They make me really enjoy the pairing of Adam and Mary, now only if the show would give them more screen time together. Hell I’d just be happy if the show would give Mary more to do so Ashley can show her wide range of acting skills. This episode has setup some more storyline development for her, so I can’t wait to see where all the hints dropped this week take us.

The other women do not seem to be too happy about this kiss, but that is just what Rachel wanted. Athena gets the best reaction as she declares that the kiss is “…just tacky”. This kiss also catches the attention of his investors, so seemingly everyone is getting what they want out of the deal. When the kissing spectacle is over Athena gets a moment alone with Adam and offers her assistance to him. She knows they wouldn’t make a good pair, but she’s willing to have his back if he’ll take her to the finals. Before he can comment Rachel interrupts and sends Athena back to set. Rachel needs Adam to get rid of his investors, but Rachel buys him a few more minutes while Adam does a meet and greet with Chet and his friends.

Adam gets his chance to pitch the vineyard to the investors, but when it’s revealed his father is not involved he is shot down. They tell him to get his dad on board then they can talk again. Rachel tries to console him, but Adam’s in a bad headspace as he storms off back to set. He goes onto set in a bad mood and Jeremy is quick to remind him that they do not work for him. On the bright side, Adam finally learned to take off his mic when doing things he doesn’t want everyone to hear.

Back at the main set Bill came to drop off flowers in Quinn’s office. He didn’t expect her to be there, but since she is she offers him to join her in Napa for the day. When they arrive in Napa an epic confrontation between Chet and Bill, for Quinn’s affection, erupts in front of everyone. Chet is a jerk to Quinn and Bill comes to her defense. There is definite history between these two men and it seems to be quite a dark history. Quinn calms the situation down, but not before Chet tells Bill to never set foot on one of his sets again.

Quinn is taking out her own frustration on Rachel when she learns that Adam wasn’t on camera when she arrived. Rachel makes an argument for the work she was doing with him, but Quinn just isn’t in the mood to hear it. No one is having a good moment as the whole Napa experience brings out the worst in them all.

After the day at Napa ends Quinn still has to deal with the recurring issue of Chet’s jealousy. He thinks she’s just like him and she’ll get bored of Bill. All Quinn wants is someone not married that she can have a life with. Good on Quinn for standing up for herself.

The elimination ceremony starts and there are envelops for all the remaining contestants. A few stray observations here, it must have been freezing when they filmed this because you can clearly see breath vapors before they cut away. I would not want to be those actresses wearing those dresses in weather cold enough to see your breath in. That could not have been pleasant. The other observation is that Grace and Anna, who have been absent all episode, as well as Shamiqua are also missing from the group shot despite having cards on the table. I guess it wasn’t within budget to bring the actresses in for only one quick scene, but to any observant viewer it is kind of jarring that these important characters are completely missing. As for the two cuts one is a girl named Tanya and the other is Athena, so it turns out Shamiqua has the gift of foresight. That makes it all the more odd that Shamiqua isn’t there to gloat about this. Athena does not take the cut well as she storms off.

Adam gets pulled aside by Chet and we are given a cut to a celebration between the two men and Chet’s friends. They are going to fund Adam’s vineyard and turn it into an Everlasting resort and spa. Since everything comes with a price the price here is Adam having sex with Chet’s friends’ wife. Of course he does it because nothing is more important to him then succeeding with the vineyard. Rachel catches them and is motioned away by Chet, who is creepily watching.

Quinn catches Jay working on the logo for the new spa. Since Quinn sees his loyalty wavering towards Chet, she fires him. He stands up for himself and says that he’d happily bring a lawsuit on the show for the things Chet made him do. He manages to keep his job, but is delusional in thinking he’ll work directly for Chet on future projects after the season ends. Quinn reminds him he’s not her and the odds of that working out for him are slim.

Adam finds Rachel and tries to talk to her about what she saw. He makes his argument for his actions and he’s just proud that he got the vineyard financed. She’s done listening to him and since she’s off the clock she doesn’t have to, so she leaves him to his own thoughts.

Quinn has her final confrontation of the day when she finds Chet in her office. The resort was her idea and she is not letting him steal yet another thing from her. She throws her look book at him for the original Everlasting idea. Let the battle begin because with that revelation Bill suddenly has a case against Chet and it seems like Quinn is ready to get on board with it. Chet stands to lose everything and I hope we get to witness his downfall before the season ends.

Rachel justifies her actions from earlier to Jeremy and because this is Jeremy he gives her forgiveness. He has got to be the most understanding person in Rachel’s life. He shows he really does care for her by begging her to be careful with Adam. She’s not sure what he’s talking about until she watches the tape he gave her. The look of realization on her face says it all as she realizes something may be unconsciously brewing between her and Adam. We leave this jam packed episode on her deleting the tape and a whole lot of drama setup.

UnReal delivered a very full episode this week, hence the extra long review, where a lot of storylines were setup. Unlike last week all the storylines flowed in a more coherent way. We got some interesting storyline setup for Mary, but the contestants seemed to only be an afterthought this week. I’m still not sure why they thought totally omitting Grace and Anna this week was a good idea after spending so much time setting them up as vital characters, but they did. Hopefully we’ll see their big return next week.

The MVP of this week has to go to Freddie Stroma who had a ton to do and nailed it all. He captured the turmoil within Adam as he realizes he has to cross a lot of lines to achieve his dreams. Adam is not perfect, but the great thing about him is he owns it. Freddie had to cover a whole gambit of situations and he nailed them all. In a packed episode he was a standout. Special shout out to Constance Zimmer who continues to find a way to show the growth within Quinn despite how closed off the character is to almost everyone.

Next week, we finally get a brand new episode and I am extremely excited to see what comes next. Tune in to Lifetime at 10pm next Monday then return here to SpoilerTV to read my review of the next epic episode.

Until then leave your thoughts and theories below. What did you think about the character omissions and the storyline setups?

About the Author - Aimee Hicks

Aimee works for a local newspaper and has a BA in Broadcasting and Cinema. She has been a TV lover since before she really understood what TV was. She has a long list of shows that she loves to watch and can be found on twitter (@ahicks83) live tweeting about each new episode whenever she can. A list of her favorite shows includes (but is not limited to) the following: 12 Monkeys, Orphan Black, Outlander, Chasing Life, Scorpion, The 100, The Night Shift, Bitten, Black Sails, 2 Broke Girls, Arrow, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Continuum, Lost Girl, Faking It, Falling Skies, Finding Carter, Once Upon A Time, Orange Is The New Black, Switched At Birth, The Fosters, The Flash, The Originals, Teen Wolf, Under The Dome, & Z Nation. The upcoming shows she is most excited about are: Supergirl, Dark Matter, UnReal, Blindspot, Lucifer, Legends of Tomorrow, Stitchers, Recovery Road, Shadowhunters, Quantico, Code Black, Heartbreaker, and Chicago Med. She has a large and passionate dislike of ""reality"" TV, espeically ""reality"" dating shows, but has a weakness for Americas Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance. But those two don't really count as ""reality"" shows, at least that's how she justifies those guilty pleasures. She was the original creator and co-founder of LOST Video Island (lostvideo.net) which is still operting under the management of the very capable and skilled group she turned it over to.

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