Even though she had her flaws, I love how she actually changed when her and Brooke became friends in Season 4. Out of all the support cast (up to S5), Rachel remains my favorite. Her sparkly personality really shone through in the series - in Season 4 I prefferd her to sulky Peyton. I wish they continued with Rachel. She added alot of fun dynamic to the show, plus she has some cool lines.
shareAbsolutely, she was the best, and hilarious. Was so weird when she was married to Dan, though it made sense once you were used to it. Shame she didn't come back in the final season to wrap up her storyline and make peace with her friends, but I understand it was the actress's schedule, or lack of desire to return. But, like the showrunner said once, I imagine she's doing just fine wherever she is, she's a survivor and good at playing whatever cards she's dealt. Plus, realistically, they'd still have their house in LA to sell, which, between her being the woman, not working as much, being the dumpee, him having given away all their cash, she'd probably have gotten most (all?) of that. And I'm sure she had cash stashed away that he didn't know about, just in case.
shareI like Rachel as well! I didn't like her all that much at first, but she honestly just grew on me after awhile. I wish they kept her character around more
shareI guess I must've really liked Brooke when the show originally aired, because I sure hated Rachel. Now, rewatching it alllll these years later, I feel just the opposite. I liked Rachel instantly and thought Brooke was awful and so selfish right off the bat.
share[deleted]
As much as I like Mouth and Miley I was also digging his relationship with Rachel. Mouth was a really good influence on Rachel and there was a spark there that writers seemed to just toss aside to keep her as that character who screws up a lot.
shareI agree, I thought her and Mouth could have been a great couple. As I mention in the post below it was like she was brought in because they thought Sophia Bush might leave as Rachel started off like a Brooke clone but then when Bush didn't leave they made Rachel worse and worse.
Absolutely. Heck, they had a great opportunity to move forward with that relationship when Mouth chose to go with Rachel that time. but nope. They had her abandon him to end up getting arrested if I remember correctly. Shame.
shareYeah he got arrested for sleeping on a park bench. What a threat to society he was!
After that they abandon the idea of Rachel having any redeemable traits and just paint her up as evil which culminates in her running Dan Scott's talk show. A waste of a potentially good character.
Agreed.
shareI feel like she was brought in almost because they felt like Brooke (Sophia Bush) might leave so they wanted a back up plan in case it happened. And then when Brooke/Sophia didn't leave it was like they didn't know what to do with Rachel as she started off as Brooke clone.
So they made Rachel into another unbalanced villain. When she released all the damaging time capsule tapes which led to the school shooting, it was hard to really like her after that and she became progressively more evil. I would have liked to see a relationship between her and Mouth actually, that would have been interesting but by that point the writers didn't want her to have any shades of light anymore.