‘UnREAL’: 6 Things to Know About Season 2
Forget love; it’s all about money, d–k, and power when UnREAL returns for Season 2 on Monday.
The Lifetime drama is back and in the words of creator Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, “crazier” than last year. There’s a new bachelor on Everlasting and — controversy! — he’s black! There is a whole new group of ladies vying for his heart (and screen time). And there are new power struggles to come between Rachel (Shiri Appleby) and mentor Quinn (Constance Zimmer).
The first, acclaimed season ended with Rachel abandoned by Everlasting lead Adam (Freddie Stroma) and Quinn having kicked her boss, Chet (Craig Bierko), to the curb. But Rachel and Quinn’s relationship has never been easy and smooth, and their alliance starts to crumble almost immediately.
Related: Ken Tucker Reviews ‘UnREAL’ Season 2
Yahoo TV talked to Shapiro and Appleby about what’s to come in Season 2, and here are 6 things we learned:
1. Who needs men, when you can be them?
Now that Rachel and Quinn are uncumbered by romantic relationships, they’re ready to rule the world.
“The second season is about living like kings and when women try to live like men,” Shapiro tells us. “Rachel and Quinn come back and are like, ‘Forget about the princess fantasy, we’re going to live like men.’ They get matching tattoos saying, ‘money, d–k, power.’ That’s their list of priorities.”
2. Casting a black bachelor is going to cause waves.
UnREAL sends up The Bachelor, but for Season 2, the drama is doing what the reality show has never done — cast a black lead.
“I just thought about what was most interesting and pressing in the world,” Shapiro explains. She noted that race came up a few times last season — like when Quinn gets annoyed that a black girl gets out of the limo first — but they didn’t have time to explore the issue.
A black bachelor also provided a great storyline for Rachel, who comes up with the idea. “She’s stuck in this terrible job and she hates her life, so I think for her, she’d want to figure out a way to make her life mean something,” Shapiro says. “It works really well for the Rachel character because this is something she came up with and wanted to do, and that she thinks is really important. That makes her really passionate and devoted to it. It’s good for me, Sarah Shapiro, because I care about that issue in the world, but it’s also really good for the character of Rachel.”
3. Too many bosses in kitchen = drama!
Rachel is running Everlasting now, with Quinn taking over Chet’s role in liaising with the network. But this is Quinn we’re talking about, and she’s having a hard time letting go.
“I feel like it’s watching a teenager asserting her independence and saying, ‘I don’t need you to be successful,’” Appleby says of Rachel. “This is a big moment for her. The idea of having a black suitor is her idea and it’s coming to life, so she’s getting high off of that — the power, watching your dream becoming a reality.”
That theme of motherhood and mentorship will be explored throughout Season 2. “Mentorship is really complicated — if it works, then you outgrow your mentor. But there’s not really a plan for when you outgrow your mentor,” says Shapiro. “The idea is that Rachel is outgrowing Quinn and that’s really hard.”
And someone new to the show drives a wedge between them. Producer Coleman (Michael Rady) comes aboard and forms an alliance with Rachel. And, Appleby concedes with a laugh, “Maybe more than an alliance.”
4. Season 2 is like a brand-new show.
Everlasting’s format means we’ve got a brand-new bachelor and a whole new group of contestants. The lead is Darius Hill (B.J. Britt), an NFL quarterback, whom Shapiro describes as “that Southern boy that was raised right. He’s a total gentleman. He’s so dreamy.”
But he’s got a bad PR situation that needs fixing (he told a female reporter, “B—h, please!). “He’s definitely not necessarily there to look for love, he’s there to mend a broken career,” Appleby explains.
The new crop of women is as delightfully controversial as last year’s, too. “We meet Beth Ann, who is a Southern girl from Alabama and she has 30,000 hits on Instagram for wearing this Confederate flag bikini,” Appleby says. “Then, there’s Yael, who the people on the crew called ‘Hot Rachel,’ because she looks like me.”
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5. But at least one familiar face is returning.
Last we saw Adam, the previous Everlasting bachelor, he had dumped Rachel and then been left at the altar by Anna (Joanna Braddy) in the reality show’s season finale. Lifetime confirmed to Yahoo TV that Stroma will be returning to Season 2 for an unknown number of episodes.
“I just think Adam and Rachel’s story is not over,” Shapiro says. “They left it in such a strange way. They have a lot more to do to each other.”
6. UnREAL could go anywhere from here.
The show-within-a-show format could allow UnREAL to go off on a completely different tangent for the third season (which Lifetime has already ordered). Maybe Everlasting won’t be, well, everlasting.
“I think for us, we’re telling the Rachel/Quinn story. And Rachel and Quinn could work on all kinds of shows,” Shapiro muses. “That’s one of the really exciting things for us is that the show could go in a million directions. Right now we’re still interested in talking about love and romance, and exploring how we all feel about falling in love and getting married.
But they could go anywhere, they could go around the world, they could go on a tropical island, they can be producing any kind of reality show.”
Missed last season? Catch up here:
UnREAL airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on Lifetime.
