‘Shiptober: Should ‘UnREAL’ season 2 feature more of Adam, Rachel?
We admit openly at the moment that going into the first season of “UnREAL” on Lifetime, we had no idea that the show was going to be setting up some sort of romantic storyline between the characters of Adam and Rachel. He was the British party boy determined to prove himself at the center of “Everlasting,” and she was the producer who was trying to get him to follow orders. They were not a match made in Heaven, not even in the slightest; instead, they seemed more destined for a certain other place that involves a lake of fire.
Yet somehow, they made things work enough to be a very interesting pairing. Rachel represented both authenticity and a challenge, two things that Adam does not often get a whole lot of in life. This is why he wanted to run away with her in order to avoid having to marry one of the other contestants … at least at first. All of that changed in the season finale, where he ended up with no one and Rachel had a quiet conversation with her boss Quinn. These two are not romantic, but in many ways they are the couple at the center of the show.
Should Freddie Stroma return in the second season as Adam? This is something that we hope to resolve right now in the latest edition of our ‘Shiptober series.
The case for more Adam – If you want this show to have a strong romantic component, do you really want Rachel together with Jeremy? It felt to us for the most part like they were the couple the show was trying to get us to ‘ship, but watching the two of them was rather boring. There was more chemistry between her and Adam, and of course there was something racy about the “you want what you can’t have” mantra that defined the two of them and the way they spent time together. While some of that forbidden fruit would be gone with a new season of “Everlasting” with new characters, we still imagine there potentially being a part of this that would be frowned upon.
The case for less Adam – You really want this show to remain dark, and for Rachel to have a hard time finding someone that will make her happy. Keeping her single is the best case situation if the goal of the writers is to pair her off with some other different people through out the course of the series, and continue to show us that she is so committed to the work that she has no time for anything else. Or, who knows? Maybe the show is putting her on a more progressive story path where they prove that she does not need love in order to find what she is looking for in life.