What’s up river-bitches?! I’m happy to report my fears from two weeks ago about where we’d end up were unfounded. And yet so were my hopes. Riverdale giveth and Riverdale taketh away.
As always, spoilers ahead.
1. This Nearly Was Mine
I was holding my breath during Jughead’s opening monologue about the cliffhanger car. I was waiting for the reveal that Reggie was missing or worse. Folks, you have no idea how relieved I was to find out he was fine and, in fact, saved everyone else. I was so relieved I wasn’t even bothered by Julian Blossom’s continued episode presence. He can stick around, I guess. Just not as captain.
That’s right. Julian’s sudden injury has taken him out of the season and left only one candidate for captain: Archie Andrews. But Archie, being the good bean he is, is conflicted for a number of reasons, the main one being he knows Reggie is The GuyTM. So why’s he being passed over? Because Clifford Blossom is a colossal bag of monkey nuts and very, very racist.
Once again, I applaud Riverdale for threading the needle of serious topics in their very unserious world. The show’s track record is not great in that department yet season 7’s hit more than it’s missed. That said, I wanted to zero in less on the captain stuff, because that’s pretty standard for these kinds of stories even if it does highlight the great homosocial bond between Reg & Arch and the solidarity of the team, and more on Reggie’s comment about not being a hero because he had to save the other bulldogs.
It’s an acknowledgment of the reality of living in a country that’s so openly, or even not so openly, hostile to who you are. It’s an acknowledgment of the exhausting thought processes that have to happen to navigate daily life. If I do this, if I say this, if I fail to do X/Y/Z, will I suddenly be thrown into the box I’m constantly fighting to escape? Seen as lesser than and thus easily dismissed, tossed away, or worse?
I may not live in the same world that Reggie, as an Asian-American in the 50s, would have but I recognize those same fears.
2. Bloody Milkman
As is tradition in Riverdale, let’s move from the serious treated seriously to the deeply ridiculous treated with deadly earnesty. Ethel is back! And is actually sticking around, though she’s been forced to live with Alice again. Take one step forward, get stabbed four times in the back.
Ethel’s return is mostly a series of funny – or frustrating – scenes, half of which are just her and Jughead chatting, which I really liked! She’s been through a lot and we’re getting to see her process a lot of it through art. This is the kind of stuff I was hoping we’d get before she got shipped off to the nuns from hell earlier in the season. I wonder if she and Jughead will get any real answers for the Milkman because clearly Sheriff Keller doesn’t and neither does Dr. Werthers and his awful, awful, awful Grinch sweater.
Maybe that’s what’s poisoning the minds of the youth, FREDRICK.
3. There Is Nothing Like a Dame
Look. I’m rooting for Betty & Archie. But if we get Veronica and Betty as a couple – a true blue, solid, stable couple – then I will be a very happy reviewer. Their whole vibe was sweet and tender and fumbling and gah! I couldn’t stop smiling. I have little more to add. It’s a great move, nicely set-up, and I wish them all the best.
Don’t fuck this up with your usual bullshit Riverdale.
4. I’m Gonna Wash That Mom Right Out Of My Hair
What I DO have more to talk about is the reappearance of good old Molly Ringwald as Mary Andrews! So glad she hasn’t been forgotten about. Uncle Frank’s become a lot more mellow and, dare I say it, a quasi-positive role model? But Mary is the best and we can’t forget that, even if she does inadvertently bust up B&V’s almost kiss. Dick move, Mrs. Andrews.
Oh and she ships Ethel back over to Mrs. Cooper. Does NO ONE realize how awful that lady is? Apparently not until Betty runs away from home, convinces Veronica to break into the Pembrook, and then have a spontaneous Broadway musical number with Clay and Kevin which THEN turns to a drunken discussion of who has the biggest dick in the grade (Dilton, apparently.) Only then does Betty fully realize how awful her mom is (and absent her dad is, it seems.) I like how she and Veronica bond over bad, neglectful parents and how that allows her to open up to Mrs. Andrews.
Continued belowThat in turn allows her to go full Hurricane Mary on Mrs. Cooper’s ass and shame her (and Veronica’s parents) into changing her tune, though not without giving the most unrepentant “I would do it again” stare and roll of her eyes. Even when getting her comeuppance, she manages to exude the WORST energy.
5. Some Enchanted Evening
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk about Reggie’s big moment. I know there’s more I could focus on but it was just so satisfying to see him get to be Captain and kick Bret Weston Wallis’ smug butt in basketball. And then to get Archie’s father’s captain patch because the two had that heart to heart as we finally get to have the sensitive poet Archie we’ve been WAITING FOR since season one?? Manly misty eyes is the only way to describe the feelings I felt during the end there. Not quite tears but enough to get me to put aside my Riverdale-induced cynicism. The only thing that could’ve made those ending scenes better would’ve been for a cut-away shot to Bret sobbing and then for Jughead to not immediately undercut it with his ominous warning of a storm.
I mean, the Mailman does always knock twice, of course.
That about does it for now! What did you all think of the return? Are you ready for them to keep punting all these ominous messages into the distance and instead give us the sad parallel to the seemingly never-ending regressive tendencies and forces within American culture we’re seeing a resurgence in today? I’m not! I’ll just get angry. Give me my murder Milkman dammit! Until then, stay in your broken into apartment Riverdale and don’t forget to leave the empty bottle out for collection.
Best Line of the Night:
Mr. Fieldstone: “Bring me zombies. Vampires. Anything EXCEPT Milkmen. From now on, consider me…lactose intolerant.”
