Welcome to our coverage of Katy Keene! The CW’s newest series is a glitzy, warm, escapist spinoff of Riverdale and to be completely honest, it’s a mess. A fun mess! A mess with a great cast! But a mess nonetheless.
1. Please Please Stay in This Groove
Alexa, play “Don’t You Wanna Stay” by Jason Aldean (feat. Kelly Clarkson) because we finally got a generally good episode of Katy Keene again. It’s been a while since this show felt like it was really operating in the way that it needed to to be truly fun to watch. Sure, there were good moments and if you’re a specific type of person (read: me) you would probably be watching this anyway but from a critical standpoint, it was firing on at most two cylinders each week. With episode 10, things found their way back into “B” grade territory; this week isn’t perfect by any means but it finds the balance of fluffiness and strong character work that reminds you why the show exists in the first place. It also features Kevin Keller crossing over from Riverdale which made me audibly gasp and then feel embarrassed about gasping. Kevin slips into the glitzy world of Katy Keene perfectly and it was an absolute delight to see him in this episode. His appearance also alerted me to the fact that this show takes place five years after the current season of Riverdale, a fact that was apparently common knowledge before now.
2. Jorge Backslides
Hey Siri, play “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell because we just lost our good Jorge content. After a few weeks of solid or neutral Jorge storylines, we’re back to seeing him be absolutely ridiculous. His story revolves around drama with Buzz and Bernardo, who seem to be very into one another after the trio’s fling last week so Jorge decides to do about a million insane things. First, he tries to get Buzz to agree to be in a throuple, then gets upset when Buzz declines, citing his desire for his first relationship as an out gay man to be a bit more conventional. See, Jorge thinks that he and Buzz had a normal relationship even though he broke up with Buzz because they didn’t. Then, he goes out drinking with Bernardo but talks about needing to get over having his heart broken by Buzz and somehow feels surprised when Bernardo dumps him. After that, he goes to surprise Bernardo on a run as a gesture but sees that Bernardo and Buzz are running together already. It’s incredibly messy and not in a fun way; it’s genuinely hard to understand what exactly is supposed to be endearing about Jorge here- he seems jealous and irrational more than anything else and I just can’t root for a character like him. Things were working when the writers zeroed in on Jorge’s more grounded problems and I’m praying that they return to that version of Jorge for the last couple of episodes of the season.
3. The Ultimate New York Socialite Drama
Okay Google, play “Nobody” by Mitski because that’s surely a go-to song for everyone that Pepper’s storyline resonates with. Pepper is, in my mind, the most perfect character that has ever been on television. She and her arc are perfect representation of the type of story and person that capture New York media’s attention every couple of months; she’s charming and cool and lives an insane lifestyle filled with drama that’s of absolutely 0 importance to the world. Watching her is like getting a juicy gossip column in The Cut delivered every Thursday night and its a godsend. Her dealings with Hannah Melvey her ex(?)-wife that she owes $30,000 are an absolute blast- full of energy but devoid of stakes. She eventually extorts $70,000 out of a sleazy director who tries to take advantage of Kevin and pays Hannah back, but not before Hannah hires Deedee out from under Pepper. That’s it!
4. Insert Cat Pun Here
Josie’s story revolves around her learning that she has to share a spotlight with the new Pussycats and it’s fine! Ashleigh Murray is as strong as ever even though the development that she goes through in this episode is incredibly basic. The biggest problem here is that the new Pussycats just don’t feel like dynamic characters. We know that Trula is an activist based on the fact that she’s mentioned the patriarchy and says things like “I had to leave a climate protest for this” and Cricket is shy but good at singing which is cool, I guess. Both of them make for great cartoon characters and their actresses are doing decently well but the characters just need to be fleshed out significantly more. They complain about just being props for Josie in the band this week but the show treats them as pros for her on a character level. The Xandra material here is okay- she tries to join the Pussycats then forms Xandra and the Kitty Cats and steals Josie’s music after getting turned down. It definitely makes sense as a plot development but it honestly would’ve been fun to see her as a Pussycat. Clearly Xandra and Josie are going to become friends at some point in this series and seeing them be in a band together could’ve been an interesting way to move that forward while leaving plenty of room for tension.
Continued below5.Katy has A LOT Going On
I’ve started to take Lucy Hale’s performance for granted and I just want to name that. She delivers a pitch perfect performance in every episode as she hops between about 5 different plot lines and makes a character that could easily be a caricature feel grounded and real. That’s incredibly apparent this week, as she bounces back and forth between a story about Gloria is planted in a gossip magazine saying that she uses sexual favors from employees as a way to woo clients and a story about the weird sexual tension she and Guy Lamontagne have. The former story is genuinely interesting; Gloria actually does mistreat her workers as Amanda so smartly points out- she overworks them and pits girls against each other and that is absolutely awful. At the same time she cares about her employees and the way she sees it, she’s helping prepare them for a hard career. It’s not that Gloria is right- she’s certainly mostly wrong but her emotional investment seems to be genuine and seeing her get pushed out of Lacy’s isn’t fun to watch. The Guy storyline is good only because Katy says they can’t be together as long as she’s his employee and I hate him after he very clearly established himself as an abusive boss last week.
An Extra Point for the Best Part
Kevin stages a reading of his play “Creekdale” and it’s incredible. They make fun of what a ridiculous series Riverdale is and we get to see Pepper do her take on Cheryl Blossom which is awesome. The best part here is easily Katy though- she plays Betty and does a genuinely stellar impression of Lili Reinhart. Honestly I would love a crossover episode of this show in the future where the Riverdale characters just watch Katy Keene characters play them in a real production of the play.
