The Cutprice Guignol

So, before we get started, I’m just going to take a hot second here to tell you that my debut novel, RAPE JOKES, is officially coming out at the end of this year! You can find my post about it here, and I’m running a Q&A on it soon so if you have any questions about the book or the writing or publishing process, hit me up!

But on to less exciting news: UnREAL is back, and it’s still struggling to find it’s feet after last week’s dire episode. Recurrent is certainly a step up from the show’s last outing, but UnREAL still doesn’t quite seem to know exactly what it wants us to think right now.

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UnREAL is always toeing the line between meta-commentary on the operatic, over-the-top nature of reality television, and just becoming a bad parody of that kind of bullshit. And this episode was firmly in the latter camp.

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Hmm.

Last week was a strong, defined choice of direction for UnREAL: Chet and Quinn drawn back together, Quinn undeniably on top and ruling her Quinndom with an iron fist, Rachel breaking her father out of her mother’s “care” and smuggling him to set. Only thing is, after all those changes, the episode that follows them has to bed them into the world of the show, which is what this week’s outing, Transference, finds itself doing.

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What an odd episode.

Not that I totally mind odd episodes of TV – I am a die-hard fan of the oddest show on TV, Riverdale, after all (which I also recap on this blog, but like, you know, whatever). And UnREAL suits oddness – it’s a show that revels in the bizarre internal workings of reality TV, as last week reminded us, and that lends itself to some choices that would be seriously strange anywhere else on television. But let’s take a look at the oddness at work in this week’s outing, Confront.

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Now,  I know that UnREAL (God, that stylised title is already getting exhausting to type) can’t spend all of it’s third season promising us that it knows what it did wrong in it’s second like it did last week, and I don’t want it to. At some point it has to strike out and be it’s own thing, and this second episode, Shield, is certainly an attempt at that.

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