The relentlessly, scrumptiously cruel UnReal returned Monday on Lifetime with its knives (and dialogue) sharper than ever. This drama about the unholy drama that goes on behind the scenes of a Bachelor-style reality show is a tough one to watch if there’s any part of you left that feels a twinge of pain for fictional characters who wind up on the receiving end of bitter insults or profound humiliation.
Though it can be very funny, UnReal, which recently won a Peabody Award, shouldn’t be mistaken for a comedy; instead, it seems to originate from some dark Jacuzzi of the soul, never failing to bring out the worst in its characters, who will do just about anything to manufacture sensational TV.
UnReal is best regarded as a mirror held up to those of us who partake in the sick Schadenfreude of trash culture and celebrity foible on a daily basis. UnReal (created by Marti Noxon and Sarah Gertrude Shapiro) can be enjoyed purely for its shock value, but at the same time it compels viewers to examine their own conscience. There’s a specific message here for Bachelor and Bachelorette fans who would in almost any situation consider themselves enlightened feminists and proud B.S. detectors in the fight for social justice — just not during the rose ceremony.
But that was last season’s theme. As has already been breathlessly reported and pre-analyzed, this season’s theme is race. Season 2 of UnReal returns us to the contentious set of the hit reality show Everlasting, where the executive producer, Quinn King (Constance Zimmer), and recently promoted show-runner, Rachel Goldberg (Shiri Appleby), have persuaded network honchos to do the unthinkable and cast an African-American man as their next bachelor. (Indeed, it’s the very move ABC has lacked the courage to make in 14 years of Bachelor and Bachelorette cycles.)
UnReal is never more real as when Quinn and Rachel make their case for bringing in professional quarterback Darius Beck (B.J. Britt) as their bachelor. “He’s football black,” they explain, promising that 20 million viewers will watch as Darius, who recently tarnished his sterling persona in a verbal exchange with a female reporter, seduces a white woman on prime-time TV. “Or I can just get you another small-(penis) white boy from Missouri with a bunch of horny kindergarten teachers,” Quinn fumes. “Because nobody’s bored by that.”
Of course, Quinn and Rachel have pre-schemed the plot lines that will shape Everlasting’s so-called reality, by picking conflict-prone bachelorettes: an Alabama hottie, Beth Ann (Lindsay Musil), who posts Instagram selfies wearing her Confederate-flag bikini; a Berkeley “blacktivist,” Ruby (Denee Benton), who dons an “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt, not only to get her message across but also to protest the show’s manipulations.
Meanwhile, a power struggle between Quinn and her former boss/lover, Chet Whilton (Craig Bierko), becomes so disruptive to the production that the network installs a new show-runner — another personal defeat for Rachel, who, as you might expect, has gone off her meds again. (Along with everything else, UnReal is particularly bold in its portrayal of mental illness.)
Watching UnReal so ably slice up and serve all this topical relevance can be exhilarating, and also exhausting.