Josie's portrayal of Rachel is riveting. Those ice chip eyes, maniacal grin and posh attitude all combine to produce a character who, since she's only doing what she feels in her heart (albeit a black heart), works better than a cardboard, intentional villain.
Rachel loves her boss ~ well .. 'love' may be too tame a word .. she yearns to POSSESS her boss and his daughter, Isabelle. There are some roadblocks: the sick wife who is 'getting better', the colleague who treats Rachel as - hey! imagine this: a secretary, and the fact that David, while he acknowledges Rachel's unfailing devotion to 'the company' (seriously?), has no personal affection for her other than gratitude.
Then we have Nora. Nora is Rachel's cousin. She's weird and chirpy, has trouble with boundaries, and is nosy to boot, but otherwise is just a plain-Jane who wishes Rachel were more like a friend than an obligatory housemate. I think Rachel is unthinkably snobbish where Nora is concerned, and Nora's concern is that Rachel's obsession with David causes the most conflict. The tragic fall downstairs garners nothing more than a faked anguish as Rachel calls paramedics. Here we see the utter void where anybody but David occupies Rachel's brain & heart. He is not just her boss. David is her skin, and she will not be separated from him. "This can't happen. ... This can't happen." (shakes head as she ponders Mrs. Wescott's recuperation).
David himself is understandably distracted or I think he would have clued in sooner to the cloying, effusive attention. He's a brilliant businessman, but apparently doesn't perceive subtleties in personal relationships. He's literally the last to know. It took a terribly inappropriate come-on to wake him up, then David was swift to deal with the problem as kindly and cleanly as possible, but she's been so invested and tethered to him to have deluded herself; when he fires her, Rachel concludes (after initially seeming to grasp reality) that he wants to date her without being improper.
Showing up at David's house with a huge stuffie for Isabelle, Rachel admits to David that she loves him and thinks he let her go to set a good example at work, but that he can love her since his wife is gone. He is livid at this point: not only has Rachel completely ignored every word he said, she intruded on his sanctity and insinuated herself in his daughter's life. Now that he has seen what Rachel's been up to all this time, he clearly wants nothing to do with her ever again: she is no longer welcome in his life.
..... Rachel ain't havin' that.
Rachel loves her boss ~ well .. 'love' may be too tame a word .. she yearns to POSSESS her boss and his daughter, Isabelle. There are some roadblocks: the sick wife who is 'getting better', the colleague who treats Rachel as - hey! imagine this: a secretary, and the fact that David, while he acknowledges Rachel's unfailing devotion to 'the company' (seriously?), has no personal affection for her other than gratitude.
Then we have Nora. Nora is Rachel's cousin. She's weird and chirpy, has trouble with boundaries, and is nosy to boot, but otherwise is just a plain-Jane who wishes Rachel were more like a friend than an obligatory housemate. I think Rachel is unthinkably snobbish where Nora is concerned, and Nora's concern is that Rachel's obsession with David causes the most conflict. The tragic fall downstairs garners nothing more than a faked anguish as Rachel calls paramedics. Here we see the utter void where anybody but David occupies Rachel's brain & heart. He is not just her boss. David is her skin, and she will not be separated from him. "This can't happen. ... This can't happen." (shakes head as she ponders Mrs. Wescott's recuperation).
David himself is understandably distracted or I think he would have clued in sooner to the cloying, effusive attention. He's a brilliant businessman, but apparently doesn't perceive subtleties in personal relationships. He's literally the last to know. It took a terribly inappropriate come-on to wake him up, then David was swift to deal with the problem as kindly and cleanly as possible, but she's been so invested and tethered to him to have deluded herself; when he fires her, Rachel concludes (after initially seeming to grasp reality) that he wants to date her without being improper.
Showing up at David's house with a huge stuffie for Isabelle, Rachel admits to David that she loves him and thinks he let her go to set a good example at work, but that he can love her since his wife is gone. He is livid at this point: not only has Rachel completely ignored every word he said, she intruded on his sanctity and insinuated herself in his daughter's life. Now that he has seen what Rachel's been up to all this time, he clearly wants nothing to do with her ever again: she is no longer welcome in his life.
..... Rachel ain't havin' that.