Rachel: deliberate bitch, or just naive?

Until the final episode of series 2, when her grassing to Egg must surely be calculatedly mischievous (but an understandable reaction to Milly's overt rudeness), Rachel always seems thoroughly sweet and genuine. I never understood her critical reputation as a scheming villain, nor why Milly took such a vehement, apparently irrational dislike to her - apart from maybe feeling threatened, territorial or jealous when this apparently-perfect junior colleague seems to be taking over Milly's place and compromising her status both in the office and the house.

However, as alluded to in a posting above, it does become clearer in the scene where Milly visits a psychiatrist. The key line seems to be when Milly, having unequivocally vented her despising of Rachel by telling the psychiatrist she worked with somebody she really can't stand (or words to that effect), says Rachel is one of those people who is always right - even when she is wrong.

The camerawork and editing are fascinating in Rachel's early scenes, when she and Milly first meet. The extreme close-ups of their heads during the faltering dialogue accentuates their contrasting features and colouring(especially Rachel's round forehead) and creates a chilly, awkward, unsettling atmosphere - presumably designed to convey Milly's instinctive dislike.

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Oh, I definitely agree that Rachel deliberately did it - she was certainly provoked by Milly's behaviour, but this was an intelligent character with highly developed social awareness and ability to read people. She knew exactly what she was doing.

I loved this series the first time around, and it was great watching it again now that I've been in legal practice for a number of years; I related to so much of it. The dynamic between Rachel and Milly was SO close to home in a lot of ways.

Milly was at times thoroughly unlikeable, and no doubt she saw Rachel as a real threat, but I think it's too easy to dismiss her instinctive dislike of Rachel as "jealousy". I work with several women exactly like Rachel, some of whom I enjoy a chat with, but whom I wouldn't trust out of my sight. I've worked with others where I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about them that I just can't stand: I try to like them, I want to like them, but there's a "but" that I can't get past. Rachel immediately identified Milly as not only someone to model herself on, but to compete with. Ambition of course is a good thing, but Rachel struck me as the classic embodiment of "Golden Girl/Boy Syndrome" - we have it at work, the people who get promoted at a rapid rate because management thinks the sun shines out of their proverbials, more often than not over people who are just as if not more talented, have worked harder and for longer, but who get taken for granted because they don't play the game.

The common thread is the kissing up to management and colleagues, often "accidentally on purpose" dropping other colleagues in it when they make a mistake or something (I was also convinced Rachel at least hinted to O'Donnell about Warren's hangover, for instance), the manner that is just too sweet, the way of starting conversations to fish for gossip or confidences (so that someone might inadvertently give away something that could come in useful, the overweening ambition and competitiveness (Rachel's speeches about feminist sisterhood and so on made me laugh - she may have consciously believed in it, and I don't think she was necessarily evil, but she would sell her own grandmother to get a promotion if she had to).

The actress who played Rachel did it absolutely brilliantly - the perfect balance of manipulativeness and charm. I loved the fact that all of the major characters were flawed in some ways - each could be really obnoxious, but it made them all the more real and endearing for that.