‘UnREAL’ episode 6 review: Manipulating on the edge
We cannot sit here with a straight face and say that Monday night’s episode of “UnREAL” was an easy one to watch. It was tough. This was an emotional, gut-wrenching episode, and at times it was even uncomfortable. One of the trickiest things about this show is mostly that the people on it are for the most part pretty terrible, and you have to struggle at times to find the good in some of them.
At times, we wonder whether or not Adam Cromwell is actually one of the nicest in the room. Sure, he’s a womanizer just agreeing to do “Everlasting” for the sake of his brand, but at the same time we do see a certain level of goodness in him. He took a punch to protect Mary from her ex-husband, who showed up at their “family date” as a part of a move to orchestrate her staying in the competition. Quinn and Chet had created a bet in order to determine whether or not she would last the week, and the end result of that was something that they never saw coming.
The big reveal of the night was learning that Mary killed herself, jumping from the roof of the man after her bipolar disorder went completely out of control. There is a clear trail of evidence as to how this came about.
1. Shia tampered with Mary’s medication, thinking that this was going to get her to bring out the big personality the show so desperately needed. What she did not predict was what the side effects of her actions were going to be, or anything that came after that.
2. The bet triggered some of the biggest range of emotions possible. You were seeing Mary spend time with her kid for the first time in weeks, while she also had to confront an ex-husband who continued to verbally abuse her. Then, there was Adam.
Mary’s sister warned Shia that something was off, but she didn’t listen. She’s the most culpable of all, and depending on what sort of autopsy is done, it feels like she’s going to get found out about this. However, at the same time the superficial evidence is going to of course blame Chet, Quinn, and Rachel all for the roles that they had in all of it.
There’s no doubt to us that this was a very difficult episode to watch, even if we were for the most part completely glued to the screen. Sure, we would’ve loved more Faith after last week and we really don’t care about the whole Jeremy story, but the show really made a bold move tonight. We don’t know how production can continue or what the final four episodes will be like … which is probably in term what the writers were going for. Grade: A-.
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