“Every town has that place that the community comes together” is how Jughead Jones opens the narration for this episode. A lot of what Jughead says about Pop’s over the years could sort of amount to a college application essay opener. He also calls it “Home away from Home.” Since he doesn’t qualify it with pablum about the community and so on, he’s really speaking for himself, with this one. Home in place of home, more like, for him.
Pop Tate, Tabitha and Jughead, during what must be an exceptionally slow day at the diner, are watching Alice Cooper’s TV show - “Riverdale Today,” and today’s special guest is Percival Pickens. Alice Cooper giggles at him because he’s given her head (my headcanon, pun fully intended, ignore me, sorry).
Alice Cooper’s career cracks me up. How is she this untouchable? She has the most Teflon of reputations and careers. Granted, she has a valid-seeming, patiently-built up journalism career. She ran the Riverdale Register for a long time, transitioned successfully into tv journalism, and now she’s this major (small town) authority with her own talk show kinda like the Fox News desk anchors who walk the line between reading the news and proselytizing their own opinions. On the other hand, she was too dumb and self absorbed to realize that her husband was a (very underperforming) serial killer, that Gladys Jones’ daughter who lived with her at the time was the one making and leaving terrorizing VHS movies, not to mention that time she fully became inculcated into a cult despite the intensive efforts of Betty Cooper. Unobservant, dense, and of poor judgment, but full of ambition and delusional righteousness = TV journalists, according to Riverdale.
Percival announces that he’s going to build a railway ‘through the heart of Riverdale’ which puts Tabitha immediately on alert but Jughead doesn’t immediately catch on. “Progress demands” that Pop’s be replaced with a train station which will bring revenue and tourism and etc. This entire proposal was also very funny. In the indeterminate forever 2020 but not really time that Riverdale exists in, they have / had smartphones with apps which to me implies uber/lyfts and by long-distance association, eventually self-driving cars, but A TRAIN STATION is Percival’s idea of progress.
Tabitha moves fast. She literally runs over to Percival’s residence inside Babylonium (I assume?) with her black leather biker jacket thrown on over her cute Pop’s uniform, to declare her firm intention to never sell the diner. He’s very sneery about the diner (“past its heyday”) and his way of being smarmy, like continually calling Riverdale “our town,” is laid on very thick, so I admire Tabitha not getting sidetracked with irritation. He tries using “the voice” on her but she doesn’t even seem to feel it. First (and) un-PC thought - Does British mind-control intimidation only work on white people?
Tabitha’s tries to rally the troops, in a very curious order and in a way that shows what she thinks are that person’s biggest priorities. And their responses reveal something terribly unflattering about each of them.
The sequence is Archie → Betty → Toni → Veronica → Cheryl before giving up and talking to Jughead.
Tabitha thinks this is what the others care about the most.
- Archie: Family legacy & Important Riverdale landmarks (first black owned business in Riverdale).
- Betty: ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION and it’s not clear that Tabitha actually gets to say anything before Betty rudely interrupts to say what she says to Tabitha.
- Toni: The Whyte Wyrm.
- Veronica: No direct dialogue is heard but given context clues it appears that Tabitha went with an ‘entrepreneur -to- entrepreneur’ heart to heart approach with Veronica.
- Cheryl: Longstanding blood-feuds of a historic nature.
- Jughead: He loves the diner possibly a bit more than Tabitha herself does, so she can take his support for granted.
And this is what we learn about each “main” Riverdale person:
- Archie is not the heroic brave person that Jughead Jones keeps making him out to be. He’s cowering because he is not physically invulnerable anymore. Oh, and Archie is a terrible boxer. (Personally I’m starting to think they picked this activity for him because it’s one of the sports where the male torso is routinely revealed.) He’s willing to go punch the Ghoulies bloody when he has superpowers, but without them he is going to hide. Aren’t these the basic instincts of a bully??
- Betty projects all her issues on to other people. She can’t imagine that someone else doesn’t have a weakness she absolutely does. Tabitha was just now safely in a room with Percival, but Betty doesn’t actually care to ask about that. She just says no person should EVER be alone in a room with Pickens because Betty Cooper has no capacity to resist his mind control and she must perforce assume nobody else can withstand it either. Oh and whenever Betty is caught in a weakness she lies by omission, compulsively. Very consistent.
- Toni is a person of limited vision and not a leader. As long as her little business is fine, as assured to her by a person who successfully engineered a near massacre against her, she is not going to stand with Tabitha. This may appear to be inconsistent writing as the characters of Riverdale often don’t remember what happened in the previous episode any more than I do, but it isn’t. Toni is someone who will talk about her individual accomplishments and awesomeness when her identity as a Serpent is denigrated. She tends to miss the point, you see.
- Veronica says the right things (“I’ll support you in whatever way you need”) but in essence she’s a true daughter of capitalism. She has no time or room for sentiment. The Pop’s brand and formula works in more than one location, so Veronica doesn’t see how Tabitha’s business is threatened so much as the location that she’s sentimentally attached to. One can always make a venture newer, bigger, improved. Like a lot of us half-assed/ former Catholics, Veronica is uninterested in the spiritual side of things.
- Cheryl is without obvious flaws beyond going through uncontrollable hot flashes that force her to keep her home icy cold. Why Riverdale is making menopause jokes like this is beyond me, but I am actually having the best time. If my menopause is going to be anything like my mother’s, I will be uncontrollably melting down with no warning (yay?) so I am taking notes about how I’m going to wander around my house in a red bathing suit with a gauzy white robe, wielding a fan. I guess if I had to reach for it, Cheryl’s flaw is that she has such a hard time escaping her childhood home.
- Jughead’s flaw is that he’s loyal to Barchie beyond all reason, prioritizing their needs to have their weaknesses covered up above all other priorities. He will lie to Tabitha to protect Archie and Betty, even though they have not been shown to make a priority of Jughead whatsoever since they all returned to Riverdale.
By the way, Kevin is working for Percival as his spy and really, Kevin can catch no breaks on this show. Why is he like this?
Jughead slips up in his conversation with Tabitha, answering her thought (“how can I fight him if I don’t have anyone’s support?”) out loud. I suppose you could read the exchange they have - she says she doesn’t have anyone’s support and Jughead insisting that he supports her - in a negative way towards their relationship: Why doesn’t Jughead count as anyone? Or you can read it in a way that condemns Archie & Betty, Toni & Veronica for the way they treat Jughead as being so very unimportant. That is to say, the people who have known Jughead the longest and deepest that Tabitha knows about treat him so poorly that she has no recourse but to assume Jughead Jones is not (ahem) an influencer.
Once Jughead has explained the recent developments that have happened to the survivors of the explosion plus Cheryl, Tabitha summarizes for those of us in the back, and to her left on the wall is an interesting painting of a black woman shedding a single tear into her palm. Is this a well known painting? I laughed because it just looked to me like a comment that went something like: Oh These White People.
By the way: IS JUGHEAD STILL DEAF? Or did his deafness just ‘go away’ like some alleged doctor allegedly told him a couple episodes back?
In any case, Jughead wants to try to get a place he loves declared a historic landmark, and hence untouchable, recalling that he had been unable to do this with the Drive-In back in the day. And it turns out that Pop Tate has a box filled with historic memorabilia about the diner!
Oh Jabitha are so cute, doing a little research project together, going from afternoon to evening. Pop’s was in the Green Book! The box contains a photo of Eisenhower at the counter (I guess if Nixon or Reagan ate there, it would be a no no?) as well as the diner being transformed into a polio vaccine distribution center. Jughead is so excited to realize that the place he loves for personal reasons (granted, important ones - he may have literally starved to death without Pop’s) is also historically significant. He’s composing the application he’s going to draft out loud (“Moral crises, national tragedies, they all took place inside these booths!”) when some blank faced white man comes in and shoots Tabitha.
Tabitha comes to on X-mas Eve, 1944, standing in the same place (behind the counter at Pop’s) wearing almost the same uniform but with very different hair, and someone calls her Teresa. She’s shown the same issue of the Green Book she and Jughead found in the ‘historic items’ box, except it’s fresh off the press this time.
When she sees Jughead in a booth, Tabitha runs over to ask him what is going on. And Jughead explains, then says:
“Also, I’m not Jughead. I’m an angel. Your guardian angel.”
Turns out, Tabitha is in a coma at the hospital, with Jughead at her side. According to Raphael-as-Jughead, guardian angels are always nearby but only show themselves for cataclysmic or cosmic events. He gives her a book that might explain things - Milan Elliott’s “The Enigma of Time Travel” (quick google reveals an actual book exists called The Enigma of Time, published in 1983). Through it, Tabitha figures out that she’s a ‘chrono kinetic’ - a time traveler. She speculates that this ability may be trauma-triggered like her boyfriend’s and the other’s special powers.
“Why to 1944?” she asks, which made me blurt out, very rudely, ‘Cuz you’re not white? I mean, if I had time travel abilities, I’m not sure I’d go to any time before 1980 for various reasons.
Raphael thinks she has a mission, but Tabitha is really only interested in finding a totem (an item of “symbolic, mythic or religious power”) so she can return to her immediate present. Raphael seems to get the upper hand because Titus invites Tabitha to a very important meeting, about whether to turn Riverdale into a “Sundown Town.’
A Keller ancestor is Mayor, with a very strange way of doing air-quotes: palm to the ceiling, fingers curling towards his face. Is this historical accuracy? Tabitha is alarmed to discover that a Perkins is Sheriff, who very much wants this Sundown Town ordinance. Artie (not Archie!) Andrews stands up as the lone white voice against this discrimination right on the heels of Tabitha’s fearless objection and confronts Sheriff Perkins. Thanks to their efforts, the attempt to railroad (ahem) this ordinance does not pass and will be reconsidered in the new year.
In the middle of Tabitha talking over the events of the evening with Angel Jughead, Toni and Fang’s 1944 versions come banging at the door for help, their car having run out of gas just as they are passing through Centerville, a Sundown town. I need to do more research about this because I just don’t know a lot about it - but would a POC family with a little baby actually run out of gas traveling through an area they know are Sundown Towns without vigilantly checking the gas nonstop? This seems more like, We got hunted down by white supremacists. So if that’s what happened, why would Fangs & Toni tell their story in this way to Tabitha of all people? In any case, ‘44 Toni begs refuge from Tabitha-Teresa. She says of course they can stay.
Sheriff Perkins and Kevin Keller ‘44 (Oh heavens, baby, WHY?) as his deputy (once a deputy, always a deputy?) show up to arrest the ‘trespassers.’ When the Tates put up a brave and united front, Sheriff Perkins opts to get a warrant sent from Centerville. Any plan to go on a run for it is impossible with the baby. When Titus Tate says they need a miracle, Tabitha gets a great brainwave and gets Angel Jughead to agree to show his true form to the villains, which causes both eye-rupture and brain-breakage while a heavenly chorus sings Amen Amen.
Then we never see Angel Jughead for the rest of the episode, which means that the ‘revelation’ of the true form of Raphael results in the total destruction (through immolation?) of the Jughead body. So, basically, Jughead even in an embodied angel form dies to fulfill someone else’s needs once again?
Tabitha then summons Artie Andrews to go with her, to make the impassioned case to Mayor Keller that he should reject the Sundown Law, because it would “cost Riverdale its soul.” And miraculously (this is the real miracle), this works!
Percival Pickens will not give up though, so just as Tabitha is trying to wrap up this story with Titus he bursts in, having escaped from the insane asylum (complete with frayed strait-jacket) to shoot her himself, this time making her push herself into April 3, 1968. She tries to stop MLK’s assassination, starting with directly going to Memphis herself. (So sorry to be shallow about this but her 1960s coat with the big black buttons is gorgeous and I love it). The bus breaks down just outside the city limits.
In the form of Toni, Angel Raphael tries to talk her out of it. Tabitha runs to the FBI office (her knowledge of exact dates and memory for stray bits of information astounds me) but it’s manned by a Percival and a Kevin Keller, so she leaves immediately. MLK’s assassination is a fixed event that can never, ever be changed, by any time traveler trying anything. Angel Toni says she will keep Tabitha company as she waits for the terrible news. They hear RFK make the announcement, making Pop Tate collapse. (I love young Pop Tate.) They decide to keep the diner open to give people a place to go.
FBI Perkins and FBI Kevin show up to tell her to clear out the diner at 6 p.m. because of riots in the three nearby towns. So there are actual Black Panther looking people in the Diner, which makes me wonder if the one guy in just the black jacket is supposed to be a Southside Serpent of this era? (I really want better lore for the Southside Serpents, who are implied to have had a long history). Tabitha calls - and reaches! - J Edgar Hoover to threaten him with blackmail, and uses the force of all this to muzzle FBI Percival. Operation Turkey Shoot was canceled in addition to firing FBI Percival for good measure.
They play Mahalia Jackson over the segment where Tabitha grieves MLK. That asshole FBI Percival does a very scary drive by because he just can’t let it go. In fact, he planted a BOMB. Tabitha takes it outside and lets it blow her into the future.
November 1999 is the new time. A white kid was caught spray painting hate symbols on the diner. He did it for a baseball card depicting Riverdale’s only major league player. The kid got it at the new shop that opened on the outskirts of town, owned by one Paul Prince, who is Percival, of course. She goes to the “Curious Items” shop, where she’s visited by Raphael Betty. Raphael Betty is the most activist and criminal minded (Go Betty!) so she just hands Tabitha the key to break into Percival’s shop.
Tabitha relying on intuition and an apparently vast knowledge of history, takes polaroids of items that look significant to her. Back at the diner, Angel Betty tells her that one of these things is the Spear of Longinus, “said to have pierced the side of Jesus at his crucifixion.” Oh and Percival also has the Holy Grail. Just, casually, he just does. So naturally Angel Betty tells Tabitha to go get the Holy Grail.
What follows is a really AMAZING segment that I wish was both longer and brighter lit. Percival creepily dresses up in one of his items for sale, an old military uniform (blue coats are Union, though, right?) to assault Tabitha with a saber. Tabitha engages in a sword fight (using the Spear of Longinus) with the (a??) devil, which doesn’t faze her one bit, handily winning based on college Varsity fencing skills. Percival just poofs out of existence. Later, Tabitha tells Angel Betty that she then burned the whole shop down, because she shares this arsonist tendency with Jughead.
OK so this is awesome, like I said, that Tabitha gets to win this fight against Evil / Darkness Incarnate. But now I’m wondering if this is really Riverdale. This seems so like the kind of twisted Valentine that Jughead would write for his girlfriend, don’t you think? The Holy Grail may be her talisman so she drinks a milkshake from it, hoping to get back to her real timeline.
Except with all the knowledge she now has! So Tabitha alters her future by chucking the giant can of tomato soup at the would-be assailant with deadly accuracy, knocking him out cold in front of the big yellow Dead End sign affixed to the counter.
Tabitha then gives Jughead an exposition dump, saying they need to gather everyone with powers to fight against Percival Pickens, who is continually obsessed with destroying Riverdale in a very Hiram-Lodge fashion in every major era. Jughead wants to know why he didn’t get an angel, which I thought was very cute of him. (Your angel, if you got one, would probably tell you that you have to die, Jughead.).
When the Riverdale Powers Gang has assembled, Tabitha announces that she has seen the future. Riverdale is currently destined to be decimated, and ground zero is Pop’s Chocklit Shoppe, which is also her talisman through time (not the Holy Grail). So wow Riverdale the Show has some ego - the 24 hr diner > The Holy Grail. All righty! The railroad is still being pushed forward, and Tabitha gets the final close up of determination.
I was so so scared that this was going to be an episode about chess. I am eternally grateful to whoever is owed that it wasn’t. Spoilers and extremely pro-Jughead analysis ahead.
We open the episode with Archie coming home from a run wearing a black beanie. I’ve never seen him wear something like this before. I’m exceptionally excited by this sartorial choice for no very good reason. Percival Pickens and Uncle Frank are chuckling together in the dining room over cups of tea/coffee. Since I wished for Percival to orally service Alice to get her buy in, I shall be feminist and hope the same was done for Frank. Percival is going to do a census, asking people what they care about, which is a good idea actually, but of course, Archie hates ideas that are not built for his glory by Jughead Jones, so he kicks Percival out of his house. Frank is all in on Team Percival which of course he would be.
Abigail and Britta are in the Riverdale cemetery holding up an umbrella against a sunny thunderstorm. This bit looks entirely like Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, a sort of Victorian picaresque, given the highly unnatural outdoors-but-inside mood and the matching black fur collars on both Abigail and Britta’s coats. Abigail tells Brittania that she has lots of plans for murder as a way to be reunited with Tomasina. Abigail like many villains both fictional and actual, loves talking about her plans, so she tells Britta everything - when, what and with which tools.
Reggie wants to let his dad feel like a big deal, so he asks for Veronica’s help to achieve this using the casino. The amount of care and understanding that Reggie gives his father enraged me at this point in the episode, but the worm does turn later. The idea that you have to embrace an aging abusive parent is gross to me. Reggie talks like he is now parenting his dad- trying to find what would give him a sense of purpose in a wasted life: “feeling like a big shot.” Veronica says she’s happy to participate in this project in the spirit of Good Girlfriendship.
At the Town Hall, the new leader that is Percival Pickens says that his census is complete, so now turns on Toni Topaz, telling everyone present that the Ghoulies v Serpents war is now the most pressing concern. Toni says that she’s been in contact with Twyla Twyst to de-escalate the tensions. Pickens asks if the Serpents shouldn’t be disbanded, so Tabitha speaks up and says it’s not Toni that’s on trial.
Fangs doesn’t understand quite what’s happened but Toni is on it right away - that Pickens has targeted the gangs. Kevin walks in with Baby Anthony and carrying a very big baby bag. He returns the baby to his parents. Kevin says he’s worried about the baby being raised around gang culture. So there seems to be some sort of hierarchy among Serpents - you can be BORN a Serpent, RAISED as a Serpent or JOIN them. Fangs and Toni are the Raised kind, and Toni has said she was BORN one too. Jughead should’ve been technically a BORN Serpent since both his parents and his grandfather was a Serpent, but he still had to JOIN. In any case, Kevin fires his warning shot across the bows saying it’s a “safety “ issue.
Production Note: Covid restrictions have all been released apparently, because I forgot to note this in the last episode but they now have crowd scenes where people can sit close together and have a speaker of lines sit among them.
While Veronica is getting Reggie’s father situated at the casino, the Other Three are speaking in the backroom office of the boxing gym/ former(?) firehouse and current town hall meeting space. The entire moment where each of them learned that the other two have mutant abilities has been achieved off stage and we’re moving along. Archie finds Percival very suspicious - well done! Jughead says that Percival inspired him to look up psychic abilities. Betty wants to know “What does Percival want with Riverdale?” This very important question is left hanging. Betty refuses Jughead’s very sensible suggestion that she abuse her FBI powers (which she does at will constantly) to throw Pickens in jail. So Jughead then asks Archie to do violence unto Pickens. Very surprisingly, Archie decides at this moment to grow both ethics and principles and says he can’t do that either because it would be “bad.” Archie says the better idea is to talk to their friends (they have friends??) as some sort of partisan bulwark against Pickens. Archie posits they now have ‘powers’ so they can protect Riverdale from Percival. Jughead teases him with an X-Man reference which amuses Betty but Archie has never heard of Professor Xavier. They start with Cheryl Blossom. This is AMAZING - that any of them think of her as a friend.
Abigail/Cheryl is wearing Trinity’s black latex outfit from The Matrix in her Gothic House, with Britta standing at attention behind her like a bodyguard. She claims to have not participated in the census because she was taking a “buttermilk bath.” Like Wilbur? Abigail openly mocks all three of them for the very dire way they discuss Percival. Right behind her is her self portrait as a red fox head connected to a miniskirted young woman’s body. Why do these people never ask the right questions? Abigail says that she’s still very upset about what happened to Abigail (Because she’s Abigail). The thing is, the three of them don’t have friends because they have no idea how to make friends and appease people. None of them can set aside the irritation they feel to get CherylAbigail to give them real information.
Archie says “We’re the Good Guys” to which Abigail/Cheryl retorts, “Spoken like a true villain.” This is very interesting that suddenly there’s a We. As soon as they’re gone, Abigail tells Britta to bake arsenic scones.
There’s a drive-by shooting at the Diner. Tabitha, at her now once-firebombed once-shot up Diner, calls Toni to tell her that the white people are about to betray her and not even do her the courtesy of a farewell phone call. But she overplays it- when Toni wonders aloud what Percival’s issue with her might be, Tabitha calls Toni “a pillar of the community and a threat.” Ermm okay? But is she? Toni isn’t even a pillar of the Serpents (WHERE IS SWEET PEA, TONI?). Toni is on her way.
Meanwhile! The three are sitting across a big desk from Veronica - Barchie are seated, with Jughead standing between them. Veronica, as has always been her role ever since she moved to Riverdale that first time all those years ago, is the only one with any sort of useful information. She shares with the other three what she’s found out about Percival. (Betty is still the worst law enforcement ever, because isn’t this information SHE could’ve also found out??) Veronica shares the suspicion she has that Percival caused that client to commit suicide in the casino.
“Not that that makes sense. None of this makes sense.”
It makes me nervous when characters make comments like this in their own stories. Archie never questioned why there was a bear that attacked him and how come he survived it and all the other outre things that happened to him, but I suppose invulnerability is a different deck of cards. In any case, he really wants to know how Percival’s mind control works. Jughead is still the only one who feels any sort of urgency about Pickens - beat him up! lock him up! something! - and Barchie don’t share it. Their continual third-wheeling of Jughead grates on me throughout this episode.
At the Town hall, Toni is fighting for her spot on the City Council by saying what an exceptional person she is - long term resident, earned a college degree elsewhere, kept the high school open and is a counselor there, is a social worker, and a parents raising her kid in Riverdale. Which is entirely beside the point - the attack she received was about being a Serpent, yet she doesn’t say a single thing about what the Serpents are, what good they do (if any) etc. Toni just says she herself is a special person and doesn’t answer the question asked. I don’t know if Percival necessarily had to do anything to get Toni voted off, mind-control-wise. It’s the Serpents he’s attacking, and the Serpent Queen literally had nothing to say in defense of the Serpents.
Back at the casino, Marty Mantle has lost $7K and Veronica has to go deal with it.
The three arrive late to the Town Meeting, only to be told by a very proud and pleased Alice that Toni was unanimously voted off the council, except for Tabitha’s vote. How exactly does voting work here? It’s an open vote, and you can’t do it confidentially? And um, this is what happens when you shove Alice and Frank on the council, you three, so really, whose fault is it?
At the casino, Marty Mantle asks Veronica Lodge to ‘float him’ $5K because his luck is about to turn, which Veronica refuses.
To the tune of Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing, Cheryl/Abigail, in a red mini dress with a big red floofy heart on the torso and knee high red boots is bringing a basket of poison treats, a Little Red Riding Hood metaphor turned inside out, and in slow motion to boot. I adore these slow mo entries of Cheryl’s (which are also now given to Abigail so this must be a Blossom thing). Abigail/Cheryl seems very pleased by all the high school boys turning to look at her as she passes. I suppose this is meant to indicate that she looks hot to them, but her dress is so very strange, so I wonder if that’s why they’re staring. Archie has not read the internet treatise about being wary of women who bring treats for everyone else at the workplace but don’t partake, so he accepts the very poisonous-mushroom looking scones without question. (Kudos to the hawk eyed in the fandom who alerted us all that Archie misspelled distinction as destinction).
Next victim - Abigail calls Jughead Jones Jug-Jug which she has never, ever done. He’s looking particularly soft eating his home-made white-bread sandwich (What, no Tabitha- approved take out from Pop’s?) . Jughead wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. This Jughead-is-a-messy-eater thing is a post- time-jump development. I am trying very hard not to think dirty thoughts about Jabitha.
Betty can see the red homicidal intent radiating from Abigail, then runs to the rescue. The show is very aware of the fandom battles, I’m sure, because of the choices they make. Betty says, Jug! Archie! in that order, and then runs to Archie first. This is a little bait for everyone to get into it, should they so choose. Archie’s mild irritation at the thought of being poisoned is hilarious. He acts like Cheryl/ Abigail slashed his tires or something. But in the very mild panic, both Betty and Archie take a really long time to remember that he is invulnerable (This technically means he’s immortal, then, surely?). Betty yells at Jughead to stop eating, and the three convene in the (gender neutral?) bathroom so Jughead can ingest saltwater and vomit.
Fangs and Toni are talking over Serpent business in their apartment. Toni wants to take the gang into being a political activist group. “Like the Black Panthers.” I suspect that in the same way none of the people who ran the Serpents knew what a gang was, Toni doesn’t know what a political activist group is either. Does she know what happened to the Black Panthers? Fangs doesn’t like it, says the Serpents won’t go for it, and is silent when Toni asks if they’re united on this.
That’s when Kevin, his dad, Percival and assorted deputies break down the door. Fangs has been keeping weapons in the apartment, a grave error which he compounds by shoving Kevin against the wall, leading to his arrest. In answer to the question “Kevin why are you doing this?” Kevin looks directly at Percival, then silently leaves. To a weeping Toni, Fangs reveals to Toni the extent of her absolute failure as a leader of the Serpents, and his own incompetence as King - the Serpents want to fight, Fangs was with them on this stance but she had absolutely no idea what was going on. I mean so that’s not new - this role used to be held by FP Jones, then Jughead Jones and Betty Cooper. The Serpents cannot catch a break in terms of getting effective leadership.
Reggie comes home to Veronica, and Marty Mantle has lied. He said he had a “blast” and didn’t mention the part where he begged for money from Veronica, so now she has to be the one to tell him. Reggie is very defensive about Veronica’s concern. I do not recall at this point why exactly Marty Mantle was in debt to Hiram Lodge - Sorry, I forgot that this debt existed at all - but I am assuming that it had to do with gambling, so Reggie is lying on behalf of an addict relative to his girlfriend.
Abigail tells Britta that her murder attempts failed this time, but she is trying to think of other ways.
Barchie and Jughead are in the Jabitha apartment discussing the poisoning incident. The two are standing, and Jughead looks squashed and small. Barchie suggest that Jughead go visit the person who tried to kill him that afternoon, and he agrees.
Abigail brings Toni roses, so she can gather a bit of her blood and a lot of information. Toni gives Abigail a very important hint about the Ghoulies wanting revenge on Archie.
For these scenes with Abigail throughout this episode, we get a comic-book split screen effect to show us in close up the scones, then later, roses. This is a curious choice, because Abigail is someone who just spells out her plans step by step in spoken dialogue, so these visual flourishes are merely stylistic indulgences.
Mantle father and son discuss Marty’s gambling addiction. He’s lost the car lot altogether to the “Wise Guys” because he participated in even worse gambling than what he was doing at the casino. Marty asks for Reggie’s help.
Meanwhile, the social worker pays Toni a visit, saying exactly what she said to Toni-Vale in the Rivervale AU. Toni has a flashback/ deja-vu to that exact scene, and in a replay, Baby Anthony is gone. Toni keeps calling her own son Baby Anthony.
THANK GOD FOR ABIGAIL. She’s dressed up like a Ghoulie (in red) and molotov cocktails Archie.
Tabitha and Betty have set up a citizen’s search group for Baby Anthony. Tabitha is wearing a blue leather (Pleather?) jacket that sort of echoes the Serpent Jacket. Toni’s hair is loose, Tabitha’s hair is tied in a super neat bun. While both Toni and Betty take a backseat, Tabitha starts to speak for the group, saying very Archie-esque things that are nonsense like “In Riverdale, we take care of our own.” The only thing Betty knows how to do is canvass a grid - she used the exact same system to find TBK as she’s proposing to find a kidnapped baby. Even though the Serpent Queen has a declared enemy, nobody, not a single soul, thinks to bring in the Ghoulies to ask some questions.
Jughead listens on other people’s useless thoughts, but fortunately, Archie the Invulnerable is there to tell him and Betty about his adventure last night. “It’s hard to mistake Cheryl, no matter what she’s wearing.” TRUER WORDS WERE NEVER SPOKEN and look at Archie being extremely accurate! Betty orders Jughead to go talk to Cheryl/ Abigail, with a very put-upon sounding ‘WILL YOU PLEASE NOW GO.”
Jughead is trying so hard with Barchie, with his little jokes, but the other two don’t even bother giving him a polite chuckle of acknowledgment. Back at the apartment, he talked about waiting to get his ‘sea legs’ because he’d chugged a glass of seawater. Nobody laughed. Now, when he says, “I hope I don’t get killed” they just stare at him. Poor thing.
Reggie and Veronica fight about Marty Mantle’s problem, with a very unproductive Your Dad is Shittier Than My Dad approach.
Twyla Twyst, in the most studded jacket ever, is still giving off Bossy Mom of the PTA energy. She calls Toni to tell her the most obvious thing - that she is the one with the baby. Toni finally, finally just calls her son Anthony and not Baby Anthony. Twyst invites Toni to a fight on the docks, while Toni cries a single tear down the cheek that’s getting the lighting in the shot. Even though Tabitha tells Toni that this sounds like a bad idea (“I’m not comfortable with this”), Toni decides that she has to do exactly what the kidnapper says. “This is how it works, and this is how it has to be.”
Does the title of Serpent King/ Queen damage your reasoning capacity? How else should I understand Toni’s inability to suspect an untrustworthy person and maybe imagine that some part of what is happening to her might be a trap?
Reggie meanwhile visits the mobsters at the Italian restaurant, who are framed with the burning embers of hell in their fireplace. Marty’s entire car lot was handed over to the mob for $100K. These gangsters do not have an ongoing identity crisis (unlike the Serpents) so they refuse to talk business with Reggie until he proves that he knows (from his long association with Hiram Lodge, I suppose) how things are supposed to work.
Jughead visits Britta. Jughead can recognize a distressed child in peril, which I very much admire him for. Britta has already been through so much weird shit that she absolutely accepts Jughead’s very bizarre claim to being able to ‘read’ her thoughts. She tells him the entire murder-and-reincarnation plot, and BLESS Jughead again, because his immediate question after all this is to ask the distressed child in peril about her well being. Britta nods affirmation that she should be OK, which is a very Jughead thing to do, and Jughead leaves into the night.
Tabitha overhears a deputy (Walker) talk about decimating the Serpents to Kevin at the Diner, and goes to confront him. This is either extremely brave or foolhardy of her, I can’t tell. Visually, we get an explanation for why she’s suddenly wearing this new blue (p)leather biker jacket - it’s biker /outlaw outfit like the Serpents, but blue, like the Sheriff’s uniform. They fess up, so Tabitha calls Toni just in time to warn her of the impending massacre. Toni having a smartphone and some sort of social media channel saves everyone’s lives (for now) but her stupidity in not suspecting Twyla, not asking Betty to look into the Ghoulies, and walking right into this trap is a decimation of her original character trait, which was to be The Smart One, and this makes me sad.
Reggie and Veronica have a very chilly conversation wherein Reggie lies to Veronica about what’s going on with Marty.
Jughead gets Barchie to help him deal with Cheryl. He’s so completely out of the Serpents that it’s not even funny.
Percival comes to gloat at Toni, who has been arrested. Percival says all the Ghoulies are all dead, but for Twyla, and also that Anthony is safe and sound with his father. (Meaning Kevin). So this is why Cheryl as mouthpiece for the show told us all not to ask who the sperm donor was - she said it was ‘gauche’ - so that Riverdale the show could fuck around like this.
The Three, Britta and Nana Rose are burning Abigail once again. Betty calls a woman she’s about to set on fire a bitch, which.. why do they keep making Betty do this? She doesn’t like men, much, but she also doesn’t like women. While they’re doing this, Percival gets himself elected to the council. Alice Cooper is just having the time of her life, running things. Abigail’s soul leaves Cheryl’s body (and goes into a doll) and Cheryl is back.
I’m getting a little obsessed with Tabitha’s outfits. I have rarely seen her outside her Pop’s waitress uniform, so everything she wears appears ripe with meaning. So the next day, Kevin brings Anthony to see Toni, which I don’t care about, but Tabitha is in some sort of military/navy captain’s long coat type deal. It makes her look very tall, very powerful, in command. Please? Can she do that please? Toni still has her too-much-hair-for-her-tiny-frame giant mophead going on (understandable perhaps since she spent the night in jail) which puts the neat side-bun that Tabitha has going on in high relief. Is that what they’re going for with these choices for hairdos? Kevin wants to take Anthony away from Toni, saying that he’s doing this in the best interests of the child. He’s not wrong, is the thing. Percival gloats at Toni.
We get an explanation for why Reggie is behaving in this strange way with his dad. Marty Mantle has a year to live - I suppose he has a heart issue? - and the doctor says that he should try to make sure his father “enjoys what little time he’s got left.” So that’s what Reggie is doing - letting Marty do whatever he wants, because Reggie is very dumb, and he took those words literally. This is why people should read difficult novels even if it’s daunting. That’s where you learn about nuance, about human nature, and about dying men’s obsession with legacy. Marty Mantle is actually getting a severe, nasty form of punishment from his unknowingly passive-aggressive son that he raised to be a dumb, disconnected person - he only has a year left, and he’s being enabled to be the worst side of himself, frittering away all dignity, because he’s indulging in his addiction. Reggie hates his dad in equal measure as he loves him, and so he’s committing a sin by doing this.
Dr Curdle Jr calls Betty to tell her that twenty two Ghoulies all suicided. I love Dr. Curdle Junior - he looks so much more freaked out by a mass suicide than he did by anything else he’s had to look at or do, including doing an acting gig pretending the not-dead Jughead Jones on his table was a corpse. He, Cheryl, Britta and Nana Rose are the only ones bringing some joy into this episode.
Cheryl keeps wearing these extremely top-heavy mini dresses that I don’t understand. She lights a candle next to the cabinet they’re keeping the doll that now houses Abigail’s spirit (it’s been feminized out of respect for Abigail’s obsession with feminine beauty, which is kind of them). Cheryl says that it is their (hers, Nana Roses’ and also, for some reason, Britta’s) duty to keep the magic fire burning as a ward against Abigail’s resurgence.
Now at the Andrews’ residence, Jughead is getting indirectly yelled at/ blamed by Archie for allowing Percival’s election to the council. Jughead’s pointing out that they saves Cheryl gets a dismissive “Yeah, well” from Archie. Archibald! That’s very mean! Jughead asks if Percival wants to ‘take over’ Riverdale “like Hiram” to which Archie, who just doesn’t agree with anything Jughead says these days, says that Percival, unlike Hiram, wants to destroy it. Except (a) they’re both wrong about Hiram - Hiram wanted very much to destroy Riverdale and (b) there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to destroy.
Hyper detailed episode recap! Many spoilers ahead. An episode in which we learn that Tabitha Tate literally stabilizes Jughead Jones’ world.
Jughead is finally emotionally safe enough to express anger at what has happened to him, in his life. Jughead as a kid had a heartrending inability to be angry when he was wronged - he was never angry with FP for his failures as a parent, nor Gladys for hers, or Jellybean for terrorizing him and Betty and all of Northside. He should’ve been angry with Betty and Archie, but he decided not to be that either. I like that as an adult he’s able to actually feel and express anger.
It’s very cute that Jughead’s priorities in life are 1. reading 2. eating burgers and 3. kissing Tabitha. Those are the things that have been salvaged. Mind, body, soul, I suppose. It gave me a nice Jabitha fandom tingle, but I found this moving for what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say things like - I dunno - pay rent, support Archie, and save Riverdale. And clearly, the true no. 1 used to be Writing.
When Jughead asks himself how he can ‘rebuild’ his life, we transition to Archie telling a ragtag crew that he and Frank have reinforced the infrastructure of the house, and I found myself doing a double take. Are either of them qualified to do this? What absolute hubris.
If I was in that crew, having Archie tell me that he (a very young war veteran and non unionized part time construction worker) and Fred Andrews’ bad seed younger brother (who had a punch out fight with Keller once) had ‘inspected the house,’ would lead me to find the nearest exit asap. I wonder if it’s a statement on the importance of unions that this house rebuilding crew has patently untrained amateurs like BETTY on it.
Later, Betty and Archie are trying to see if she can crush the bones in his hand using some sort of construction implement. Betty’s untrammeled joy at being with a man who cannot be hurt and therefore she literally cannot hurt hit me like a ton of bricks. And I like to see them happy, the core four, so I liked this scene. Archie, after triumphantly confirming that he’s developed superpowers, does a little twirl of glee that made me laugh. You can see why Jughead likes him so very much - Archie, despite all of the immense difficulties life has thrown at him, remains pretty lighthearted.
Speaking of - Betty wonders if Jughead was also affected by the explosion (“he was the third closest”) to which Archie says a thing that makes me immediately take back what I just said about how likable he is - “Fourth closest.” As in AFTER THE DOG that he has owned less than a year. Neither of them wise up to the thing I pointed out last week - that the three of them were in the house, and Jughead was in the garage. Did that have anything to do with it??
The way that both Archie and Betty talk about Jughead hurts my feelings. I can’t quite put my finger on why it bugs me so much. They sound like the way I do when I talk to my siblings about cousins we don’t like very much. That is, we share a sense of unbreakable connection without any affection or genuine interest. Betty and Archie discuss Jughead as someone they are obliged to care about, but none of that obligation is leavened with genuine interest or care. Betty ‘did her duty’ by leaving him (voice?) messages (if voice messages, then he can’t hear them) but see how bare minimum that is? She knows he works. One of his jobs is at the diner where everyone in Riverdale is obligated to eat, and his girlfriend owns the diner, plus she’s friends with Jughead’s girlfriend. But after doing the barest minimum Betty hands over “checking up on Jughead” duties to Archie, who accepts with an equally unenthusiastic - “A little later.” The two of them smile and joke and are much warmer when they talk about the dog.
Mistress Cheryl’s grandma is “Grandmistress Rose” to Britta. I find this absolutely adorable, in addition to the elaborate braid styling that she keeps doing with her hair. Grandmistress Rose is a stone cold terrifying villain. I adore this actress. The extreme satisfaction with which this old woman informs a kid that Cheryl’s soul “dissipated into the ether, into nothingness” was so perfect. And the worshipful way she greets Abigail, bird-beaky face flirty and happy? Masterful.
Abigail looks amazing in Cheryl’s clothes. Britta looks very scared of all of the proceedings. Abigail and Roseanne plan to pay the Council of Four a visit, in order to begin to “take back Riverdale” for the Blossoms. With Hiram out of the picture, is this the emergence of Nana Rose as the prime villain?
In any case, we leave this bubble of camp delight to go back to the grimmer ‘real’ world outside of Thornhill.
Archie genuinely wanted to find Jughead so he’s visiting him in residence at Tabitha’s. That is - when he couldn’t get Jughead to answer a phone call, let’s posit, he went ahead and text messaged him or sought out Tabitha - all the stuff that Betty couldn’t be bothered to do.
I kind of want to know what Archie’s reaction was to first finding out that Jughead is deaf. I bet it was “Dude That Sucks” written out on a notepad. Whatever it was, it’s so awful that Jughead doesn’t even want to tell us what it was and moves right along to the next thing that Archie wants to know about, which is whether something weird has happened to him (other than hearing loss, as Jughead points out) after which Archie lies about why he’s asking.
The degree to which their friendship has been broken is a little hard to get over, for me. Archie lies to Jughead, Jughead knows he is lying, and neither of them say anything. If Archie hadn’t developed special powers as a result of the explosion, he might not ever have asked Jughead if he was doing all right.
We cut to Veronica, pearl-less, staring at herself sadly in the mirror. She’s gearing up to tell Reggie how Hiram died. Shot four times in the head and then set on fire. This seems like a strangely sad way for Hiram to go. Reggie has the dubious honor of being told by two generations of Lodges of their sin of patricide.
The Reggie actor does the most with very little. The delivery on the lines “In what universe am I not supposed to judge you?” and “Should I say I’m sorry for your loss or congratulations?” has shades of sarcasm, suppressed anger, shocked betrayal and yet, at the same time, it’s a little bit funny. Well done sir.
Abuelita Lodge is very powerful. Hiram was afraid of her, and so is Veronica, in further parallels. In another parallel, Veronica finds the act of burdening Hermione with knowledge of her criminal and homicidal leanings is something she can become comfortable with, the way it was for HIram. This is an interesting callback to Veronica’s childhood, of course, where she competed with her father directly to see who could get Abuelita Lodge to side with them by strategically deploying the truth. Veronica won that round, and I guess she technically won this one too.
Kevin is going to be deputy sheriff for his dad. Nepotism win! I’m moved that Kevin is having to do the single mom thing of hauling the baby absolutely everywhere. The show resolutely refuses to discuss with me what Sheriff Keller’s nomenclature vis-a-vis this baby would’ve been had the Kefoni (it’s my own portmanteau, do you like it?) threesome relationship been stable. I suppose I should be grateful.
Archie is doing the Doritos product placement today (the way they do this is so very Truman Show it’s kind of getting scary, and thereby undermining the advertisement effect. By which I mean to say - every time I see a Doritos bag anywhere, I experience visceral discomfort. I don’t want to touch the thing). Betty is worried about Jug’s deafness, but Archie absolutely does not want to be burdened with this new problem.
What is it, exactly, that Archie feels about Jughead, I wonder? When Betty looks like she wants to say more things about Jughead beyond “Poor Jug,” he cuts across her with “At least he’s got Tabitha” is the most callous way. The thousand yard stare off to the right that Betty does in response seems like it’s supposed to illustrate something but I can’t put my finger on what it is.
Is Jughead just a burden to Archie?
In the Life Is a Battle Fought On A Football Field opener for Season 5 (the proper one), Archie’s dream gave Jughead a singular role, as the one and only wounded, whiny, vulnerable fail-soldier comrade that Archie was obligated to hoist on his already overburdened shoulders. Perhaps, from Archie’s perspective, objectively, Jughead is a burden, has always been a burden, and even as an adult is a burdensome spoilsport. He physically and emotionally can’t do things with Archie that he wants to do (sports, gangster, fireman). Further, Jughead gets very invested in things and people that Archie finds either puzzling (the Stonies) or distasteful (the Serpents). And Jughead is always and forevermore needing material support from Archie - needs Archie’s Dad, needs Archie’s house. Archie might kinda be sick of it now. It’s so typical of Jughead, in some ways, to come out of an explosion that gave Archie and Betty superpowers with a physical injury. Archie might, as a good boyfriend, want to rescue Betty from this burden too.
I can’t believe I just said all that with my own two hands.
Barchie are saved from having to further discuss Jughead thanks to the phone call from Agent Lin, who is an exposition person of color who exists to only talk to one of the central white characters. (This is the third Asian woman that’s been utilized in this way on this show after Minerva and Jess.) Glen is missing but his car is not.
Cut to the funeral at the casino where the fearsome Abuelita Lodge introduces Veronica to Geraldo, her godson. Veronica’s slight hesitation before questioningly introducing Reggie as her boyfriend was very sweet, and may I say how much I really love Reggie for not being weird or wavering during this pivotal moment? Reggie understands about dignity, about saving face in front of the elders of the family, and simply takes his cue to dial up his capacity to charm the panties off of post-menopausal ladies to 1000. I love him so much. Reggie is so good at being a boyfriend.
The rules for the Lodge mafia seem very arcane and odd. Abuelita Lodge is a top, and apparently, Veronica is the one with status, so Abuelita’s assistant, the Godson, treats Reggie as also the assistant to Veronica and hands him the guest list, but not Veronica, who doesn’t even reach for it. By the same token, the initial request that Veronica delivery the eulogy for her father is made by the Godson, and upon Veronica’s clearly anticipated refusal, Abuelita Lodge steps in to make the demand final and non-negotiable. Curious arrangement.
OK so here are my Jabitha feelings so if you don’t want Jabitha flalings skip until you see this: ********************
OH MY HEART. Jughead is learning what it is to be cared for by a person with emotional resources to spare, who is invested in seeing the relationship through to the end. He is so unused to this. He finds the amount of care that Tabitha is giving him distancing, unfamiliar, uncomfortable. He keeps seeing her as ‘far’ away from him, as he tries to hug closer to his own solitary self. The camera angle choices are interesting - Tabitha is blurry in the distance across the dining room table, but as she doesn’t give up or get turned off by Jughead having problems, the perspective, even if shaky, even if slightly dutch angle, gets closer and closer to her as she keeps asking.
Tabitha insists on hearing what the ENT says, which then leads to her making a helpful suggestion (if no implants possible until six months, then learn ASL) then asks him whether he’s written by which she means, Is he feeling centered? Because she knows that his identity as someone who produces written work is what keeps Jughead Jones going. He’s aggressive, angry, and defensive, but she never looks anything other than kind and saddened. “There is nothing that she can do” is how Jughead starts the conclusion of this conversation, but then says “somehow WE just have to get through this.” This is another huge step in actual development for this character- more momentous than his “embrace the weird” approach after being the most insistent weird weirdo for the ages.
************
Back at the FBI office, Agent Lin unknowingly delivers Glen’s foot in a box to Betty, who has migraines for the first time in her life. (Possibly because of her superpower?) Does the FBI not actually scan the deliveries they get? I am a wussy screamer, who howls at literally any small surprise, so I did feel a bit of hero worship at Betty Cooper, FBI, clocking that she’d been sent a foot in a box and quietly closing it right back up, no histrionics.
Tabitha is running the city council meeting. Archie wants dumpster grant extension and is given it by Tabitha and Alice who giggle about it for reasons that I didn’t immediately grasp. Is this supposed to be a concession he’s begging from Alice? Maybe. Alice Cooper is enough of an asshole that she would give a neighbor whose house was blown up by a bomb a hard time for piling debris in the yard while he rebuilds.
Immediately after this, Veronica gets up to announce that Hiram Lodge is dead. In a defensively desultory fashion, she answers “I’m fine” to a question she seems sure nobody is going to ask, and then sarcastically urges all present to “Rejoice.” The only person who looks concerned is Reggie. The appalling way that Veronica has announced this information leaves even the usually unflappable Tabitha Tate at a loss as to what to do, and so Tabitha moves on to the next item. Literally nobody tells Veronica they are sorry for her loss. Cold.
And Percival Pickens introduces himself, affirms that he is related to the Pickens of the statue decapitation, and then says that he thinks Riverdale can become one of the most prosperous communities in America. In an English accent. Everything about him sounds like an absolute conman.
Toni bursts in late to announce very confidently that she was trying to stop a gang war in the streets. …. I just don’t believe you, Toni, when you say things like this. I don’t think you’re capable of stopping street warfare between stoned squirrels.
Oh, and while all this is going on, the possessed Cheryl -as- Abigail is running commentary about everyone and everything - she recognizes the name Pickens, she recognizes Toni, etc.
Jughead is sitting alone at home because he doesn’t want people’s pity. The thing is, nobody actually gave him any pity so far. Nobody offered Veronica any condolences, and you’re not bereaved, just deaf, Jughead. Nobody would give you sympathy. It’s doubtful if anyone other than Tabitha even noticed Jughead wasn’t there. Jughead decides he’s gonna do something wild.
Privately, Archie does ask Veronica whether she’s all right, which he didn’t do for Jughead. But Archie always did care very much about older, brawny men, and Hiram and Archie had a thing. Veronica reminds Archie that the two of them also fully planned to kill Hiram in the recent past, to which Archie says they wouldn’t have gone through with it. Veronica would have, though, apparently, because she says they “will never know.” I’ve said it before and will say it again. Archie is extremely scary and a dark influence on everyone,
“You little lamb, will be my Trojan horse.” What a terrible thing to say to a child. So is Britta this generation’s Jughead, kinda? (Sorry to be so Catholic). In earlier seasons, Jughead was Moses. Abigail has arrived into a time where women now have suffrage, man has landed on the moon, slavery is over, but the only thing she cares about is that she can be out with her girlfriend in the open. I guess I have to respect that kind of singlemindedness.
FBI agent Betty Cooper is talking with her boyfriend, the Man Indestructible, about the fact that a serial killer is in their blighted town. She’s going to involve HER MOM (an unstable woman who lost two children to serial killer-dom in one way or the other) to canvass the neighborhoods to find a serial killer that has actually eluded a full on FBI manhunt in the past.
Jughead wiped out during his motorcycle ride. Motorcycles (well, more the jackets, but still) were his tie to the Serpents, so does his wiping out after a few minutes (and acquiring more injuries in addition to the cochlear one) mean to indicate that Jughead is never going to get involved again with the Serpents? This is a pity. Serpents need something other than Mickey and Minnie Mouse. However, it could also mean that his hearing loss is not the full extent of the damage he’s suffered - is there an undiagnosed inner ear injury that’s affecting his balance? Because all the shots with Jughead in this episode have been at a sort of dutch-angle with a pronounced curvature. I assumed that this was to indicate “Jughead Cannot Hear” but now I’m wondering if we’re supposed to know that Jughead’s inner-ear has been wounded and he is shading over into the nausea that can result if you’re injured in that way.
In any case, Tabitha being exasperated with Jughead to erupt into frustration, giving a deaf man a stern talking to and his accepting her telling off as a form of caring is another good development for Jughead.
At the FBI office, Betty and Agent Lin are handing out flyers with a sketch of TBK - literally the trash bag mask he wears - to other FBI agents to hand out to the community. This was a great bit of comedy that made me fall about laughing like, either TBK is weird enough that he never actually takes this thing off (so he rode the greyhound to Riverdale in a plastic trashbag baklava and nobody called it in). They’re supposed to tell the residents of the roughest parts of Riverdale (which is SUCH a rough town, even the nice parts - which is where Serial Killers Hal and Penelope came from) that they should not approach the man wearing a big ole’ trashbag mask.
Veronica opens the door to a tall young man wearing a black cardigan over an interesting pattern shirt, who tells her that she has to sign a release so she can be featured on her mom’s tv show. He then tells her to ‘find her light’ which I think is a film actor technical language but of course because she’s Veronica Lodge she knows exactly what that is and is perfect. Hermione being a histrionic reality tv personality, with Veronica making what the fuck faces behind her back was a breath of fresh air in terms of digestible humor. This is how Riverdale gets you - they show that scene at the FBI office, and then immediately cut to something like this. Keeps you off balance and watching.
Meanwhile at the Andrews house, a nice enough looking man who calls Archie “boss” hands him a chunk of palladium that he ‘found’ and refuses to ‘split the cost.” Then they head over to Alice’s house for coffee (because Alice is trying to get into Uncle Frank’s pants with this domesticity cosplay - ok that’s not fair. Alice made nice meals that Jughead loved eating the two times she ever invited him to a meal). He can drink boiling coffee because he’s invulnerable.
Cheryl wants to adopt Britta, and tells Toni in her office. Cheryl invites Toni to discuss the finer points of adopting a foster child in the way that Christian Grey wanted to negotiate NDAs and sex contracts (50 Shades of Grey was actually about how much EL James wanted to sit in conference rooms doing contract negotiation while young women served her drinks): “walk me through those steps, slowly and methodically” is what she purrs, but ma’am there’s a minor present, can you maybe keep it in your pants? They set up a strange semidate to meet at the Wyrm because Toni is bartending. I briefly wondered how Toni could mention things like bartending while being a school counselor but remembered that this school is private and off charter.
Mob Abuelita Lodge, her henchman godson and patricidal casino owner Veronica all agree to be filmed for Hermione’s reality tv show, and I guess to make things less weird they invited Kevin, who is extremely pleased to be there. None of the Lodge Mob members can bear to look at him directly. Hermione deadass say she felt zero amounts of mourning for Hiram Lodge which um, seems like an extraordinarily brutal thing to say in front of the daughter and mother of said man, AND in front of a television crew.
Perhaps this was intentional? Her heartlessness forces a murderer’s confession from Veronica, which then leads to an admission on Hermione’s part, that she’d been lowkey jealous of the bond between Veronica and Hiram all this time. Except. This is definitely not the first time Hermione has broached this topic. She definitely told Veronica that while Hiram wouldn’t kill his daughter, he would definitely kill her, the wife, when Veronica was in high school. But now she admits to feeling possessive over Veronica’s attention and competing (and losing) against Hiram to have some of it. The Lodge women reconcile. Abuelita Lodge has to be SEETHING.
Back to the Andrews house. Archie is on the landing leading to the second floor, and he hears a crackle. Then he FALLS THROUGH THE FLOOR. Because I told you!! If you have a bombed out residence you really do need professional inspection and they never got it! The fall actually does hurt Archie and he’s alarmed.
Tabitha find Jughead someone who experienced late-life deafness to help Jughead. Jughead hates this idea, because he hates this new reality he lives in, but Tabitha looking so concerned, so hopeful, and so wanting to help him leads him to make a concession, to receive care that is offered. This is hard for Jughead, whose entire identity is built around being fine on his own, never admitting to the stress his difficult life.
TBK is a white man. Did I have a visceral DO NOT TOUCH HER reaction to him stroking Betty’s perfect skin on her beautiful face? YES I DID. But then came the … he’s just not scary moment. I don’t know why. TBK is gross, yes, but his outfit is so dumb. Like, does he have the thing like a spidey suit hanging up and he puts the trashbag-and-duct tape shirt and pants on before he shoves the baklava on himself or does he build the outfit around him like some sort of bachelorette party toilet paper wedding dress? He brought Glen’s arm with him as a present, and threatens Archie just like Hal used to.
Cheryl and Toni are talking at the White Wyrm. Also why does everyone hate the word SPINSTER in this show? Didn’t it get reclaimed at some point, like queer? But when Toni says “spinster school marm” she says it in an unkind sneering way. Look, Gangster Minnie Mouse, you’re a bureaucrat bartender. You have no standing to talk down to spinster school marms. So the Rivervale History Fogarty is now officially a Warlock Pirate (which is the same thing as a Mickey Mouse Gangster). But then this begs the question - is Abigail some sort of dimension buster porter over from Rivervale?? Cheryl is as devastated as I am about Fangs x Toni but not for the same reasons. Also Fangs calls Baby Anthony “our son” so I’m going to assume the sperm was Fang’s (Which then makes me wonder WHY Kevin was even in the throuple??)
Betty and Archie are a couple but every time they act like one it takes me by surprise. They are in the Andrews kitchen discussing TBK. TBK apparently means Betty no harm because she did not see the danger aura. Her powers may be waning - she gets headaches. And it turns out that palladium is literally Archie’s kryptonite. They actually say kryptonite out loud, twice. When this scene ends with Betty telling Archie to be careful until his powers come back, the camera zooms into the empty background behind her and I’m not sure what that was for. OH wait. That’s her blind spot. Oh! OK. (Very activist camera decisions this episode).
Jughead has gone to the specialist who tells him to sit FOR FIVE HOURS and try to write with a writing instrument that is not and has never been his tools of choice - pencil and paper. Hermione wants to recreate the mother daughter heart to heart, because she specifically wants the world to see Veronica promising her that she will try to be a better daughter, and Veronica agrees.
Rule Brittania - her delivery of the line “Ms Topaz is dating Fangs Fogarty??” was a balm to my soul. Little child, same. Unfortunately, Abigail-in-Cheryl is inconsolable. But then Nana Rose insults Toni by calling her Serpent Trash. Abigail in response suddenly demonstrates psychokinesis powers (she can make the wind blow and slam shut external shutters). She imprisons Nana Rose in the dungeon.
Jughead at the specialist’s office is immensely frustrated, yet it turns out the specialist is truly a kind person. ‘Without a trace of judgment’ is a major trait Jughead notices about him. Another novel experience because really, the core other three are compulsively judgmental people. The specialist gives Jughead a graphic novel about their shared experience of late in life deafness.
Anatole is visiting Veronica, at the office at the casino, for bad reasons, but since there are many blue crosses (three in the frame with Anatole) I am sure she’ll be fine. “Right before my father’s funeral, seriously?” is what Veronica asks him in a very deflating echo of the Godfather (“you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married” etc). Anatole is sneery about “American women” but you know what, I have met and worked with several Russian ladies, and I daresay, Anatole is not wrong to think this. In any case, Veronica is extremely merely curious about who sent him and isn’t at all afraid, which I found admirable. Anatole is shot right in the middle of the forehead at a completely impossible angle from downstairs and far away by Abuelita Lodge’s Godson. We’re supposed to wonder if it’s Hermosa or Hermione that sent the Russian to kill Veronica, but because they expressly rule it out, I’m going to bet that it’s Abuelita Lodge.
Oh and, Veronica asks the new actor who’s joined the cast as the Godson whether he’s “just a really good actor” and he says “Yes.” I found this very amusing. Abuelita’s Godson says he is not a moral absolutist, while standing over the corpse of a man he shot through the head, while talking to a woman he knows ordered a hit on her own father.
After reading most of Daniel’s book, Jughead tries to create more writing. He’s still tilted at an angel and the camera has a weird up down sea sickness motion thing going on. Then! When he has written some of his graphic novel style new work, the camera settles. It’s no longer the camera-operator-is-on-sea-legs situation. Some of the pages for his graphic novel look like storyboards for what we’ve already seen in the show. One of the pages shows him getting on his motorcycle, where the narration says: “Denial is a powerful impulse. Perhaps the most unique to humanity. When a dog loses its leg it’s able to walk on three almost immediately.” And so on. We also get a glimpse into Tabitha’s bedroom. She has a pink velvet seashell headboard. Jughead kisses Tabitha, “For not- for never” giving up on him. Jughead-cam is stable and balanced now. (#jabitha)
Dennis hands Archie a hunk of kryptonite (sorry, palladium) in order to wallop him on the head. Oh - is this TBK? And someone calls Betty to say they saw TBK. Some dude in a TBK mask who is not TBK delivers a message. Betty starts to find many pieces of Glen.
Now we’re at the Hiram Lodge funeral. The candle set up is IMMENSE at this funeral. Why Veronica can’t be normal and just refer to Archie as HER BOYFRIEND is very curious. I mean, I suppose it might be because not everyone has sex with their high school boyfriends so she wants crystal clarity for everyone that she did it hit? They also brought in two 3 ft tall St Joseph statuary into the casino to make it look more like a church. Um, ok. Hermione and Veronica’s continuing brutality to Abuelita Lodge, who is burying her son, is still kind of shocking. Veronica straight up listed all his crimes at his funeral in front of his mother. Veronica is wearing pearls to eulogize his father.
So Archie is with Dennis or at least, who I assume is Dennis, in the TBK outfit, and Archie is just not bright. He asks ‘WHO ARE YOU??” when literally the last person he was with was Dennis. Alice bursts in with the dog, being ridiculous about shoes, then leaves. Bingo completely obeys kill commands, and successfully tosses TBK through a wall.
Veronica thanks Reggie for showing up to her father’s funeral. Because NONE OF THE OTHERS did. That’s brutal. Veronica is often the female equivalent to Jughead and she says what Pops said to Jug when he got ditched by all his friends - “I’m sure everyone else was busy.” In what feels like a scarily misplaced empathy / sympathy overload, Reggie says that what she did “doesn’t matter, because I love you.” Um. Actually, ordering a hit on your old man would matter to me no matter how much I love you, but I guess I am not a good person according to Riverdale. Abuelita’s Godson delivers a cassette tape of Hiram’s last will and testament.
Betty and Archie discuss the fact that Dennis is TBK (despite falling out the window from a height that’s killed at least two teachers at Stonewall Prep) alive and at large. Glen is absolutely dead. Betty will be leaving town for a bit. And Veronica listens to the tape where we get to hear Hiram say Mija one last time. Veronica weeps but she’s inherited the rum business. Cheryl Blossom is trapped in the mirror or something and Abigail smashes her back - but Brittania has seen!! And we end with Jughead, his world on even keel and stable, FINALLY able to manifest the superpower he was gifted - He can read minds. And with this realization the dutch angle comes right back!
Hello people I am back. Spoilers and gratuitous longing for Sweet Pea follow.
A bomb blew up the Andrews house to smithereens but the Cooper house is completely unscathed. I don’t know why that strikes me as less creepy than the fact that Alice Cooper is wearing her hair exactly like her surviving daughter’s.
We open with Betty, Archie and Jughead sitting in the Cooper home, trying to explain what happened at the end of S5 to Alice and Frank. Then Alice asks each of them a question, followed by a suggestion that all of them need to go to the hospital. This is one of the very few instances in SIX SEASONS that Alice Cooper actually had a direct exchange of dialogue with Jughead Jones and it feels a bit momentous. Archie doesn’t want to go get medical care, Betty doesn’t want to either, but tellingly, Jughead Jones can’t afford to go. That he wants to might be inferred, because he doesn’t say he doesn’t want to, or that he doesn’t think he needs to. And the entire table of people - his childhood best friend, his childhood girlfriend that he hallucinates as a ministering angel when he’s in a literal pit, his dad’s ex girlfriend and mother to his half brother - all just STARE AT HIM and say nothing. Nobody offers help - not even Veronica Lodge’s financial resources (which are considerable, as we shall see later).
Along with gentrification and small town blight, the insurmountable terror of hospital bills in a for-profit medical system is a theme that Riverdale consistently brings up and I feel very sorry for you all. (I live in a universal healthcare country and actually, people who immigrated to America repatriate when they run into health problems and exploit the health system they didn’t pay into and local politics issues of no interest to anyone reading this sorry).
Alice being very insistent about getting medical care for Betty makes me feel very much for the fact that both Archie and Jughead are motherless, with living mothers. Because Uncle Fucking Frank doesn’t do what Fred would’ve wanted and also insist that Archie get a check up after a bomb literally exploded under his actual bed. He just wants facts. I hate him so much.
The Andrews house looks absolutely unsalvageable.
Jughead, upon very clear confirmation that nobody from his pre-time jump life cares about him, directly goes to the Diner, where the only two people who give a shit what happens to him (that would be Tabitha and Pop Tate) are trying to run a business in a similarly bombed out Chock’Lit Shoppe. Riverdale pulling at my Jughead heartstrings here, because Tabitha has a concerned reaction (“What???”) but Jughead reverts to thinking up the only way (he has been led by his so-called friends to think) he adds value to anyone else’s life: He’s going to write an article about what happened to him in a way that makes it relevant for people who are not him. What a long winding way to get attention and care.
The shoulder-grab move he does to beg Tabitha for a place to stay (because they haven’t moved in together yet because that happened in Rivervale and this is already too taxing for my brain) was also extremely sad. He doesn’t seem entirely sure that he’s going to get a yes answer. And because Jughead summarily says that everyone is fine, Tabitha looks worried but doesn’t come at him with You Have to Go To the Hospital the way Alice, who has seen the actual aftermath of the explosion felt compelled to do.
As he leaves the diner, the actual physical damage the explosion wreaked on Jughead manifests in the form of tinnitus. Because he has done the most important things: Gotten affirmation that someone cares about him, figured out a place to stay, given himself a project. The show makes it seem like he gets tinnitus from the bell on the door of the diner but I really think this was needing the basics cared for first.
Toni and Fangs tell Kevin they are now romantic, but very much bisexual and Riverdale is a funny funny show because literally a second after they drop this ‘bombshell,’ Sheriff Keller calls Kevin with news of the explosion at the Andrews House, and he must’ve said, “A bomb went off” since Kevin says exactly those words in the form of a question. Yes Kevin, a bomb did just go off in your life, in more ways than one.
I like the idea of Choni, I really do, but those two have never had any sexual chemistry. And now we have Fangs and Toni - Tangs? Foni? - and they have repellent energy and I don’t know what to do anymore. All three people are TV beautiful so why is this such a lacunae, a VOID, of sexual tension?
The phone tag the Riverdale community plays in the aftermath of the explosion is very funny. Betty and Archie have no friends in the community and so tell nobody. Jughead has a friend, and that’s Tabitha so he goes to tell her himself. Kevin is told by his dad and his first instinct is to call Veronica. Somehow Britta hears about this from somewhere else and is the one to tell Cheryl.
Britta has the same elaborate braids they used to give Jellybean when she lived in the Cooper house. Does this mean something?
I’m just going to leave this note for myself here. I have absolutely no recall of whatever Abigail’s curse was or whatever it was that happened with that. This must’ve been sometime in s5, pre Rivervale and I’m so sorry but I just don’t recall. Cheryl is freaking out about the curse being real and Nana Rose claiming she burned the piece of paper with the magic recipe on it or whatever, and I just have no idea what she’s talking about. I apologize.
One of the major events of this episode was the absolute demolition of Mary Andrews. I’ve always thought she was a total failure as a mother - more so than Alice Cooper (Yes that’s what I said - she of the Giving Yale Money To the Cult) and Penelope Blossom (Son Worshipping Serial Killer Brothel Madam) and Gladys Jones (who definitely beat up Jughead as a small kid and all the rest of it). Mary Andrews just does not care about her son. Absolutely indifferent. Everything she does in the rest of the episode is absolute villainy. Unforgivable.
And Uncle Frank seems to know this. The stone cold clarity of this exchange had me in stitches.
Frank: Have you called your Mom?
Archie: No not yet. I don’t wanna worry her.
Frank: It’s her house, Archie.
Mary Andrews will want to know that her property in Riverdale has in demolished by a bomb, is what Frank is saying. Mary Andrews the homeowner will care about the house. Mary Andrews will want to know the state of her real estate investment in Riverdale. She does not and will not worry about Archie. Frank knows this and says it straight.
Then the second funniest bit of this episode happens. The Vet who is looking after Bingo, who somehow didn’t die after being crushed under a wall or something in the explosion, comes out and asks the Bear and the Redhead if they are “Bingo’s Dads.” Archie is Gay joke goes here.
Tinnitus is getting bad for Jughead while typing in Tabitha’s apartment (where he doesn’t live). The interior is exactly the same as it is in Rivervale. She and Jughead are wearing the same shade of brown in their outerwear - hers is leather, his is suede. This made me happy. She also brought him food because she thought he would be in the zone. Jughead is still lying to Tabitha by omission about his hearing problem, and instead says that he’s going to write the article about Hiram Lodge rather than about the ‘cherished’ Andrews home.
Riverdale writing room really coming for the Jughead stans in this episode. Who exactly cherished this home? It isn’t really Archie, per se. It’s Jughead, for sure. But anyway, he’s still trying to ‘buy’ standing and legitimacy through writing, and in the short term he achieves this goal because Tabitha has a bone to pick with Lodge as well. The searching look Jughead gives her retreating back is him trying to figure out if he can admit to having an actual problem and not get rejected out of hand or treated with cruelty. He’s not sure.
Tangs/Foni doesn’t really work as a couple for me but what they really truly don’t work as is gang leaders. Fangs was the also ran sidekick to Sweet Pea who used to be the main muscle. Toni was kind of a mafia princess type, who was given a certain amount of standing by dint of birth. Neither have any sort of the air of recklessness or danger about them. I don’t believe you, at all. Physically small, pretty people CAN be scary, but these two are not it.
“We can’t be as reckless as we once were” is what Toni says, which ignores the fact that the Serpents under Jughead were a daycare center that things happened to, and when she and Fangs took off for college, it was entirely dormant and existed physically only in the form of Sweet Pea. Now there are about 11 Serpents hanging around in what seems to be the Whyte Wyrm, though the basement space under the diner is magic and can expand or shrink depending on the story’s needs, and right this moment it looks very tiny.
Pandemic regulations are starting to ease up, and the way the group shots are presented in this episode made me wonder if they are going to do discussions about 2020-2022 television tropes thirty or fifty years from now. This is how it apparently works in Canada: Only two people can sit in any close proximity to each other, others can stand in groups but must face in the same direction AND NOT TALK.
There’s nothing about this ragtag cluster of people staring silently at Fangs and Toni that would scare even me, a super-femme-y, short, soft-bellied, bespectacled desk jockey. (If we meet in the wilds of the real world this is how you can recognize me.) This looks like a gang run by Mickey and Minnie Mouse. When Minnie Mouse (um, Toni Serpent Queen) mentions Twyla Twist, the new Ghoulie leader, they play a rattlesnake sound effect over her name. Even though she’s a Ghoulie. Is this Toni’s inner Serpent coiling at her?
Since the show stupidly wrote off Sweet Pea (#justiceforsweetpea) can we at least get Peaches back? The only reason the Ghoulie leader has to be this new Twyla lady is because there is no way that Toni would in any way be a force to reckon with for a criminally minded male villain. Everyone loses. I hate it here.
Cheryl is doing candle magic. Riverdale the show tells us through Britta’s worried eyes and scared line delivery that we “now believe in magic and curses.” This is a statement of purposes stated in the form of a question. Cheryl answers by saying “a new age of wonderment is upon us.” This completes the statement of where the show is going to go now. Strap in everybody.
Chicago is the source of all badness this episode (Mary Andrews lives there, Twyla Twist comes from there).
Archie has visited Betty at the hospital. “Everyone keeps texting and calling to check in” says Betty. Me too, says Archie. But Jughead (without Tabitha) is all alone. (Tabitha is real right? She’s exchanged dialogue with Veronica, so she’s absolutely real. I’m suddenly worried Tabitha may be a Jughead hallucination and he’s really as alone as I fear.) This ‘peek’ into their being close and intimate together is beautiful looking, the hospital lights glowing yellow, haloing Betty. Archie saved Betty but neither of them understand what’s happened. Both are disturbed.
Someone has blown out Cheryl’s magic candles so she’s very annoyed, but the important part of the exchange she has with Nana Rose is that Cheryl calls her an old maid. Is this not her grandmother? (Even if not biological?) Didn’t Nana Rose mention being married to a husband who stepped out on her and um, fathered those feral Blossoms who lived in the woods?? Does old maid mean something different to Cheryl?
When Betty checks out of the hospital is when Alice mentions INTERNAL BLEEDING. So there’s still no ambulance or law enforcement in Riverdale, and once again, everything Alice says is quite sensible as well as applicable to Jughead and Archie. Why does Frank never suggest this basic check up to Archie??
I am four pages into this word document but the show just showed me the Producer’s name.
So Jughead and Tabitha are having breakfast. Jughead is suffering from the disorienting effects of his steadily worsening ear problem while Tabitha is exulting over his article. So we never hear it. The Show’s commitment to never showing us Jug’s writing after Bughead ended is absolute. I am curious as to why Jughead feels like he has to entirely give up fiction altogether when people he’s not really friends with (the Serpents) didn’t like it, and, yeah, his agent fired him for attempted plagiarism but to become an untrained gonzo journalist seems like a drastic turn.
Veronica and Betty have a short discussion - the FBI is going to go after Hiram, and the Lodge sisters will do the same. Archie is getting very heavy in his gym. The orderly that Betty saw glow red killed someone. Hermosa is a disembodied voice on the phone. I want more Hermosa.
The FBI office in Riverdale is hopping (there are at least 8 other agents in addition to Glen and Betty). The shot set up is the same as with the Wyrm - Glen and Betty in one shot, or Betty and another agent in another shot, but group shots are held far away from people who have dialogue and are silent.
You know how the evil orderly glowed red? Veronica is now sitting in a very red lit room as she looks over Hiram’s evil doings, apparently dug up by Hermosa, when Reggie bounces in to say that he told his dad he needed time off from the car dealership.
Veronica treats the documentation she has on Hiram as confidential to Reggie but not her plans to kill Hiram, which is an interesting choice. Veronica also will not give any of this information to Betty, nor does Betty FBI agent ask her for any. Veronica also says that her father will never “stop gunning for us” so I have to ask - Who is US? Does blowing up Archie’s house count as US? What is the significance of this house to Veronica? Her attempt to live in that house and be wifey in it is what blew up her relationship with Archie.
Meanwhile Betty is working late, so she’s super annoyed when Glenn comes in and tries to hit on her while drunk. The way Betty says the name “Archie” when asked who she’s seeing, and then says he satisfied her more than Glenn. This is an exact echo of Veronica telling the husband she eventually shoots dead that all she needed was Archie. The thing is, even though Betty sees the red glow, what Glenn does is just look annoyed. Betty punches him straight in the face, breaking his nose, because he takes a single step towards her. Um. Yay? I guess?
Archie never fights other men for women (he didn’t have to fight Sweet Pea for Josie, for example) but the women around him do violence.
Mary is such a problem. “How did you not die?” she cries, while weeping, but then she says a crazy thing (”It was your dad”) but doubles down to say this is the only thing that makes sense.
Ownership of this house is an interesting issue. Jughead ‘cherished’ this house. Frank says the house is Mary’s (This is legally correct). Mary says the house is Fred’s (“It’s his house”) and that’s probably emotionally correct. Archie wants to live there for the rest of his life. Veronica could not find a berth there. Hiram blew it up.
Veronica calls in a dude who is coded Russian (He answers the phone with “Da”) for the assassination job on Hiram. There are Italian gangsters, Quebecois gangsters, the Lodges speak Spanish and were Catholic and seemed to be coded Cuban. But the assassin is Anatol and speaks with a Eastern European accent. This seems unnecessary.
Hiram’s death costs $2M. How much money does Veronica have?
Reggie’s dad had a heart attack the day after Reggie says he doesn’t want to focus on the business anymore. Marty Mantle’s shittiness as a father knows no bounds, because he absolutely refuses to release Reggie to live his own life, follow his own path. (Yes I am yelling at a man for having the wrong kind of heart attack. Abuse your children -> I hope you die.)
Twyla Twyst is surprisingly maternal-seeming and is closer to the Fred/Mary generation. She has the same assessment of the current era Serpents as I do. And really, Toni’s absolute inability to be scary is what limits how bad Twyla can be. This is a huge pity. Twyla doesn’t have the unpredictable grit of Gladys Jones nor the smart-person-stuck-with-idiots irritability of Penny Peabody. She looks a lot like Ashley Judd, so I keep expecting her to sing a rockabilly song. I’m so annoyed.
Hiram had time to make a deal with the Ghoulies before leaving town. OK - so the Ghoulies had Malachai, then Malachai and Penny, and then just Penny, then there’s this weird dormant period (Sweet Pea did say it was a long time since they rumbled with the Ghoulies and he was excited about it). They had to bring in someone from Chicago, so she must’ve been some sort of Regional HQ. The geography is weird- the Serpents have an Ohio branch and the Ghoulies have a big branch with this serious minded woman in Illinois. Hiram had all this time to keep up contact with the straggler Ghoulies in Riverdale who managed to get a message to others in Chicago? Is there where Malachai is?
Serpent Mickey and Minnie Mouse are just not scary. They just aren’t. Sweet Pea is sorely missed.
Archie meanwhile is doing a second, even larger clean up of his/ his dad’s/ his mom’s house since moving back to Riverdale and having it destroyed in some way. The way Archie tests his power, which he thinks he has now, is to punch an entire doorframe to pieces in the middle of clean up. This is the guy that is better than Glenn and better than Chad. The only thing he does better is that he’s not a rapist and not a woman killer. The standard is below the floor and I’m so depressed.
Mickey and Minnie not being scary is part of a giant problem (oh is this intentional?). When Fangs says Twyla is stone cold crazy, it doesn’t land. Not with me because I saw Twyla and she doesn’t seem even a little bit crazy (Betty is much crazier) and not with Archie. Instead of saying she’s crazy, Fangs may have been better off saying something like - Twyla knows how to be an actual criminal and she’s twice our age and is professional about this including having direct contact information with Hiram and knowing how to get direct deposit links from offshore bank accounts… may have worked better. But Fangs says someone’s crazy and Archie just looks at him. They are waiting to hear back from FP.
So FP talks to Fangs but not Jughead.
Archie being the prize boy is kind of a problem. He goes to where the Ghoulies are - doesn’t tell his FBI agent girlfriend, his sheriff’s son childhood friend, nothing to no one - and just goes to inflict violence.
Reggie’s dad sickened and died in Rivervale, and he sickened and collapsed in Riverdale . Rivervale’s Reggie didn’t get to really reconcile but Riverdale Reggie says it “kills him the most” that his dad and he had reached peace at last. The hospital room of reconciliation is orange but Veronica when she has to hear from the hyper-efficient Anatole that Hiram is dead is in a red-lit space. She weeps.
Archie has beaten up so many people so badly he is COVERED with blood. It’s kind of gruesome. Betty has no reaction to people being so wounded as to bleed on him as long as Archie is not hurt. Is this a commentary on the FBI or on Betty?
Jughead the neglected child who comes up with something self incriminating to say because everyone was willing to believe him this whole time - “I was in my head” when he’s directly asked, “Couldn’t you hear him?” and then Tabitha refusing to take that first defensive answer because she’s observed him (closely and lovingly!) and knows what his tells are. OH THIS IS SO GOOD.
Betty goes to interrogate (off books?) of the killer Trevor, hospital orderly. They have the Virgin Mary behind Betty’s left, fully visible and lit in the orange light of reconciliation in her alcove, as she’s confronting the woman killing hospital orderly. The Virgin Mary looking over Betty Cooper’s shoulder might be the only time in my life when I do not feel positive about the Virgin Mary. The Virgin is still visible when Betty smiles so pretty at her boyfriend threatening the orderly with broken arms (“He’ll do it too”).
Betty and Archie tell each other their weird secret superpowers in the red glow of a different alcove at the Whyte Wyrm. There’s an interesting array of posters right behind Archie but I don’t know how to get screen grabs. One of them just says Southside Serpents with the snake design that’s all their tattoos (oh is Archie still a Serpent?) (But Jughead isn’t?) Is this leftover or is this a recruitment poster?
In any case Archie, after doing whatever it is he’s done to the however-many Ghoulies he wounded (we haven’t seen yet), is now worried about his potential for ‘hurting people.’ But he doesn’t think Ghoulies are people. Betty doesn’t think Ghoulies are people either. Still bathed in the red glow of danger and death, Betty tells Archie about Glen getting ‘handsy’ and tells him not to do anything. She is very confident that Archie can’t mean ill, because she can see the red aura, except they’re both sitting in THE REDDEST place on earth and it’s not clear to me how she would see Archie’s aura if it’s red, given HOW RED the booth is.
Britta is possessed by Abigail. When did this curse invocation happen? Was that Rivervale? I just don’t remember.
The clean up of the Andrews house continues. And now comes Percival. When asked by Percival, Mary says she’s the owner. She doesn’t feel the need to consult with Archie at all whatsoever about what to do about this house. Mary Andrews treats her son with the exact indifference that her son treated Jughead when it was clear Jughead wasn’t doing OK. This is something he gets from Mary then? In any case, she never asks, Do you have to find a new place to live?
When Glen comes to work, Betty is seated (didn’t she JUST MAKE FBI agent?) and the three women are standing around her denoting status plus she’s the one running the meeting. And she reassigned ALL the men inclusive of Glen. Subject of a sexual harassment investigation (?). Um. OK. I don’t think Betty knows how sexual harassment investigations work, because Glenn could totally fight this and win.
Going with someone to the blighted hospital in Riverdale is an act of love. Betty is the only person on the planet that Alice says she loves, so she went with her. Then we have Tabitha who went with Jughead. Jughead can now just be very honest about not being able to hear. Oh Jughead is so defeated when he says the percentages for the hearing damage he’s sustained, but he does get to hear, “We’re going to get through this together”
Mary Andrew’s villain arc is complete with the revelation that she insists on Archie BUYING the cursed house from her. She judges him for his decision, but she makes sure she doesn’t lose any money, because seriously, Archie acquires a mortgage, to buy a completely busted up house, from his mother, the lawyer who lives in Chicago. I think she’s actually really pleased that the money she’d been ‘forced’ to put into a college fund for Archie (probably at Fred’s urging) can now come right back into her pocket. I hate her so much. (Is the availability and unaffordability of real estate a huge problem where I live? Why yes! How could you tell?)
Veronica lies to Reggie about killing her dad. There was an unexpected echo between Veronica and Tabitha - Tabitha has her sad reaction over Jughead’s hearing problems over his shoulder, and Veronica has her guilty one over Reggie’s.
Nana Rose stood up for this one and she’s weirdly following like, Catholic rules - Latin works better than English for magic and prayer.
The call from Twyla declaring war on the serpents happens when Toni and Fangs are in red light at the Wyrm.
Archie assaults Glen. I’m now sure that Archie DID glow red when he was telling Betty that he’s invulnerable and she in her hubris did not imagine that the red neon that they were sitting in drowned out the light of his aura.
Kevin takes custody of Baby Anthony. So that baby definitely isn’t Kevin’s then? I know Cheryl said that the question as to paternity of this infant was “gauche” and therefore none of us is supposed to ask, but I am gauche and common and vulgar and I want to know whose sperm created that child, all right?
The real estate agent that Mary hired (and probably forced Archie to pay for) to close on the sale, wherein Mary forced Archie to hand over his meager life savings to her, cannot in good conscience bring herself to call the building A HOUSE. She calls it a structure. And like the abused, not very bright man he is, Archie thanks his mom for ‘trusting’ him. Oh god dude you are so dumb.
Hermosa calls Veronica to say blood will have blood. I’m not sure what Hermosa’s end game was, actually. Can she only come to town when Hiram is in custody, and is that what she was hoping for?
Betty and Archie are in Betty’s childhood and current bedroom. She now wears the Betty pink and she says ‘we should face it together’- meaning their strange powers- and the camera angles back and forth are very like the Ep. 4.17 confession of the Barchie kiss to Jughead. And there’s some sort of musical theme that plays over them while they’re being nice to each other.
The dog has superpowers (healing?) - so literally…. literally… the DOG made out better than Jughead. Did you need to be IN THIS HOUSE for this superpower manifestation? Does the garage not get St Fred’s protection? Oh but that used to be Archie’s music room - is that why he’s deaf? Is this some sort of cosmic joke?
TBK is in the back of Glen’s car and does something to him in the red light. How does TBK know what Glenn did? Does TBK work for the FBI? Plus, Glenn must really suck as a law enforcement person if he doesn’t check the back of his car before getting in. His reaction time is also extremely slow. Good bye Glenn??
So I know most people are really invested in the relationships of the core 4, which is cool and I totally get it, is anyone else interested in watching Jughead’s relationship with Tabitha Tate unfold??
I hope they explore that. I think it has a lot of potential, either friendly or romantic and I want to see more of it.
