Samchel

Samchel is the het ship between Rachel Berry and Sam Evans from the Glee fandom.

Season Two
Rachel and Sam first meet in Rachel's junior year and Sam's sophomore year when he transfers to William McKinley High School. He auditions for the Glee club and is immediately accepted. Rachel and Sam don't interact very often, until Rachel asks him to be her date to the junior prom. She gives him chapstick and calls his lips "cute". Sam rejects her proposal, and Rachel later learns its because he and his family don't have the money to pay for a ticket.

He ends up attending prom with Rachel and Mercedes on a budget; although it's not stated, they likely helped him purchase his ticket. They eat at Breadstix before heading to prom, where Rachel and Sam can be seen dancing together. They take a prom photo with Mercedes, with both girls kissing Sam on the cheeks.

Season Three
Between seasons two and three, Sam's family moves away from Lima, Ohio. This means that Sam transfers out of McKinley High and is forced to leave the New Directions. Prior to Sectionals, Finn and Rachel go looking for him to invite him back to the glee club. They find him performing at a strip club, despite being underage, and Rachel gets his attention with a dollar bill. They ask him to come back to McKinley, and Rachel even offers to let Sam stay at either her house or Finn's house. Sam agrees, glad to be going back to the life of a teenager.

In Extraordinary Merry Christmas, Sam defends Rachel's choice of a "sad" Christmas song. Later, Rachel and Finn are seen joining Sam and Rory to help collect money for the Salvation Army. In Heart, Sam and the rest of the "God Squad" are recruited to perform a singing Valentine to Rachel from Finn. Sam presents Rachel with a rose during the musical number.

Songs

 * Thousand Miles | Lea Michele and Chord Overstreet
 * Sam and Rachel sing this song before they share their first kiss
 * I'll Never Fall In Love Again | Lea Michele and Chord Overstreet
 * Sam and Rachel sing this song before deciding to cancel their date
 * Time After Time | Lea Michele and Chord Overstreet
 * Sam and Rachel sing this song while saying goodbye to Rachel's childhood home

Fanon
Despite being a canon ship, Samchel is considered to be a rarepair in the fandom. This is likely due to Rachel being a popular character for multishipping, for both canon and fanon pairings. As Samchel didn't become canon until the final season of the show, by which point many fans had already given up on watching, it is relatively unknown when compared to other canon Rachel ships such as Finchel or St. Berry. It is also often rivalled by Samcedes, which had three seasons of development in contrast to only one season for Samchel. Fans also tend to prefer shipping Sam with male characters, such as Kurt and Blaine, over female characters.

Still, Samchel has its dedicated fans. Many shippers believe that it should have been "endgame" and were hurt when it was pushed to the side in the series finale in favour of Rachel marrying her ex-boyfriend. Fans enjoyed the dynamic between Rachel and Sam, the ways in which she helped him mature and he helped her mellow out. They were also glad to see a relationship blossoming out of a pair of friends that had known each other for a number of years.

Samchel currently has over 75 works on AO3.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION
 * Samchel tag on Fanfiction.net
 * Samchel tag on Fanfiction.net


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