Yikes, a lot of stuff to work through in this one. But the main theme of this episode — "Treason," which is the perfect name for it, by the way — is that Rachel has gone past the point of no return. Some of this shit is just straight-up evil.
At the beginning of the episode, all the ladies are gearing up for a little game of powder puff football, team pink against team blue. Jay is worried that their uniforms are a little too far on the slutty porn side, but Rachel says they're perfect. So much for dyed-in-the-wool feminism. But while the ladies are out on the field, Darius is nowhere to be found.
Turns out, his secret health battle is keeping him down for the count: Darius is in his room, writhing in pain, and Rachel is trying to get a doctor dressed up as a FedEx messenger on set without anyone noticing — especially not the Entertainment Weekly reporter who is poking around. (Also on set today: Chet, and his infant son, which is galvanizing the contestants' attention but not rating well among the staff.) When the doc arrives and Rachel turns the camera off, Darius is told that he basically needs to have surgery immediately, and that putting it off any longer could result in longterm serious injuries — potentially including paralysis. No bueno, obviously. But Rachel is so invested in not losing her leading man that she manipulates him into staying for the day so that they can finish the episode, leveraging the fact that he is still trying to rebuild his public reputation and land a sports announcer role.
This isn't the only major medical item of "Treason." Turns out, Quinn's dad has died, and while she's taking the news in classic Quinn fashion (see: cold-hearted), it's clear that she's more than a little ruffled. When Rachel hears the news she enters Quinn's office to give her condolences, but Quinn uses the opportunity to finally call Rachel out about going behind her back to Gary. She reminds Rachel that without Quinn backing her, she is nothing. Rachel gets a little teary but generally stands her ground. Clearly, these two have a long road back toward their bestie relationship — and they might not make it.
Rachel confesses to Coleman everything that's going on with Darius, and they devise a plan to keep him safe for the day by making him an announcer instead of putting him out on the field with the women. But when Quinn and Chet realize what's going on, they combine forces to thwart the plan. Chet tells the powder puff teams that their sole goal is to tackle Darius — and the first girl to wrestle him to the ground gets a one-on-one date. Madison, who is becoming ever-more Rachel-like, tells London, that the only way she's going to get Darius's attention is if she starts drinking. London does, and ends up getting pretty wasted. When Darius gets up and joins the contestants on the field, she tackles him, slamming him to the ground, and all the other women pile on top of him.
It's a nightmare: When they get up, Darius is pinned to the ground, in serious pain. Rachel and Coleman realize that Chet and Quinn are behind this whole debacle, and confront them on what happened here. Rachel — who seems to have forgotten that she's doing the exact thing to Darius that Quinn just did — reminds her former mentor that this is a guy's life we're talking about, not just a game: He could legitimately end up paralyzed. But Quinn is solely focused on how to pry control away from Coleman and get her show back.
Rachel manages to convince Darius to undergo a secret epidural: With Coleman's help, they've brought a second doctor on the set to help him manage the pain in front of the cameras. Instead of being whisked away in an ambulance — Quinn and Chet's plan, which would have been amazing camera fodder — Darius walks out into a circle of crying women who think he's really hurt himself pain-free and without even a flinch. Game: back on. London rushes up to him and reminds him that they have a date to go on, and almost immediately vomits on his shoes. So much for graceful behavior. Darius walks off set to clean up, and Romeo follows him, realizing that he must have taken something for the pain — which he was warned by doctors expressly not to do.
Rachel interrupts the conversation between Romeo and Darius, trying to smooth things over, but it's too late: Romeo tells Darius that if he doesn't put his health first, he can't stand by and watch him hurt himself. Darius tells Romeo, in so many words, to fuck off and get off his back. So Romeo quits — but not before reminding Rachel that she's not just making a television show: She's majorly messing with a man's life. This version of Rachel seems totally unaffected by that. The show must go on.
The ambulance does end up getting used to pump up the drama though. After London's little vomiting incident, she gets driven around the block with the red and blue lights flashing, but they bring her back in time to glam up for the elimination ceremony. After tonight, there are only six contestants remaining: Darius chooses Ruby, Chantal, Tiffany, Jameson, Beth Anne, and Yael, a.k.a. Hot Rachel. London storms off the set, screaming, "I'm just a joke, I'm a drunk Muslim," while Madison commands the camera crew to follow her, just like Rachel would have done in the past.
Speaking of Hot Rachel: Something is super fishy here. She's encroaching on actual Rachel's turf — earlier in the episode, she tries to cozy up to Coleman, and toward the end she's set her sights on Jeremy. Speaking of that guy: Man, he is burly this season. Full-on off season lumberjack mode. Yael asks Jeremy for a tour of his trailer — we know what that means — but when he's not looking she slips a set of his keys into her pocket. She seems too smart to just be after the Everlasting bachelor. There has to be more to this mystery than that.
After all this goes down, Quinn and Chet are pretty baffled at how they have been cut off at the pass, but Coleman and Rachel are super impressed with Quinn's ability to manipulate circumstances. Because these two are both insane, Quinn's capacity for treachery reminds Chet of how into her he is, and he makes a play to get back together. Quinn isn't having it, but even if she was, the police show up at just that moment to arrest Chet, who is being accused of kidnapping his kid by his ex-wife. (Turns out, those custody rulings actually meant something.)
Rachel tries to go comfort Quinn — about her dad, about everything. And, like Chet's proposition, that's another thing that Quinn is rejecting today. She cuts Rachel off at the knees, and basically tells her that they aren't friends anymore, and that Quinn is dumping Rachel like the rest of the "garbage people" in her life. These two are really falling apart.
On a contestant side, though, things are heating up. Ruby seeks out Darius to see how he's doing, under Jay's tutelage. Darius is touched by Ruby coming to check up on him, and they have a frank talk about the internal politics of the show. Ruby assures him that the cameras aren't following her, since she's not a wifey, and Darius relaxes a little bit. But they end up having a horizontal make out session — which of course the cameras are silently capturing through the bushes.
The episode ends with another illicit couple finally giving into sexual tension. Rachel seeks out Coleman on the driveway at the end of the night. "Are we going to do this boss man?" she asks, leaning in to kiss him. Spoiler alert: They do. Things can only get ugly from here.