The first season of UnREAL ended with Quinn (Constance Zimmer) and Rachel (Shiri Appleby) — the show's central and most interesting relationship — affirming their (weird) love to each other. In the second season, which boldly goes where The Bachelor (the inspiration for UnREAL's reality show-within-a-show Everlasting) has never gone before, the focus remains squarely on the couple.

"War," the Season 2 premiere, opens with Rachel and Quinn getting matching wrist tattoos that say "Money. Dick. Power," which seems like the duo's mantra. From there, the premiere doesn't waste any time catching us up on the new status quo: Quinn, who recently received a seven-figure production deal from the network, is taking a small step back from Everlasting and letting Rachel run the show. In other words, Quinn is becoming Chet and Rachel is becoming Quinn.

Rachel and Quinn are especially jazzed about the upcoming season of Everlasting because they're introducing a black suitor, the first in the show's history. (If you're keeping score, this places the fictional dating show ahead of its real world inspirations.) Rachel is especially excited about this.

"First black suitor, it was me! We're going to make history!" says Rachel, as she's having sex with the suitor's manager in Las Vegas.

Quinn and Rachel seem more excited about ratings than making history. That's how they convince network president Gary to go along with it.

"Hell yes, he's going to be dating white chicks, okay, and hopefully he's going to be making deep, dark nasty love to them too. The more white pussy, the better. Am I right, Gary? I promise you 20 million viewers. The minute he lays black hands on a white ass Twitter will melt down," says Quinn, revealing that she and Rachel aren't in this to actually help move society forward.

Hi Darius. Image: Bettina Strauss/Lifetime

The new suitor, Darius (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s B.J. Britt), is a professional football player who is looking to rehab his image after a PR incident. At first, he's reluctant to move into the mansion — as appears to be the case for most of the bachelors on this show — but Rachel uses her powers of persuasion to get him onboard.

She spent most of the first season torn between her duties to her job and to being a good feminist. However, the premiere makes it clear that Rachel has been seduced by the power of the job and has lost all qualms she previously had about manipulating these women on national television.

"I feel like God," she says after walking Madison (who was promoted to producer after fellating Chet) through bringing new Everlasting contestant Chantal to tears just so they can get a good line for the promo. It's horrible stuff, but Madison also becomes intoxicated with the feeling. "That was amazing," she says afterwards.

Poor Madison. Image: Bettina Strauss/Lifetime

Jay (Jeremy Bowyer-Chapman), however, has finally found the line he's not willing to cross. Quinn and Rachel want to bring a young Black Lives Matter activist named Ruby on the show to quarrel with Beth Ann, a contestant from the south who owns a Confederate flag bikini. However, Ruby declines to join because it would require her to miss her last semester of school, and Jay doesn't push because he doesn't want to mess with a strong black female's education. So Rachel, who doesn't care about that, uses her superpower to convince Ruby to come on the show, much to Jay's disgust

Although Rachel and Quinn love having the keys to the kingdom, their reign is quickly threatened by the men in their lives. Jeremy is still salty after the events of the Season 1 finale and his treatment of Rachel on set brings him closer and closer to a sexual harassment lawsuit. Short story shorter: Jeremy remains the most boring part of this show.

And then there's Chet, who returns to the set of Everlasting 50 pounds lighter and 50 times more awful after spending several months in Patagonia getting back in touch with his masculine side. He's basically become like one of those guys who watched Fight Club and actually took Tyler Durden's nonsense seriously. Now, he wants to take back Everlasting from Quinn.

On the first night of shooting, Chet steals Darius from set and refuses to return him unless Quinn ditches the traditional evening gowns in the premiere. He wants bikinis, because he thinks the show's usual narrative has "created a generation of wimps and bitches." So, Quinn acquiesces.

Chet's interference forces Quinn to take back the reins of the show from Rachel, much to the latter's annoyance. She's finally ready to do this job and her mentor yanks it back from her so she can go to war with Chet over the show's soul. And, Rachel lets her do it because she can't seem to quit Quinn.

"War" spent a lot of time setting the table for upcoming season and never quite got off the ground. However, I'm excited to see where this season goes and the battle between Quinn, Chet and Rachel is very exciting. Welcome back to Everlasting.

Extras:

Rachel received a wardrobe upgrade in-between seasons, further cementing her transformation into Quinn.

"I'm Chet, you're Quinn. I say crazy shit and you make it happen," Quinn, to Rachel after promising Gary a racist, a clergywoman and a terrorist.

Rachel's mother believes her daughter is going through another manic, sexual episode.

"We don't solve problems. We create them and then we point cameras at them," Rachel, to Madison after she asks if they can accommodate racist contestant Beth Ann's request to switch out of the room she's sharing with black contestant Chantal.

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