What’s up river-bitches?! All you hep cats are in for a treat. We’re taking a trip to fat city, courtesy of the hipsters and their honest to gosh hot rods. All you gotta do is say the secret password: Always Bet on Baldwin.
As always, spoilers ahead.
1. A Very Goofy Episode
Readers of these reviews might remember I was expecting horror from this week’s episode. Well, I got suckered in by those previews again. That’s OK because what we got was way more fun than anything I could’ve hoped for.
This episode had everything. Soapy romance. Unreal dialog. Plots that hinge on the most asinine things. And literary criticism? Yup. Literary criticism. Not a lot of it but just enough. We also got a cat lady!
I think Riverdale was saving up all its ridiculousness so that it could go full-on wacky in “American Graffiti,” to which I say: thank you, show. May I have another?
2. Chevy in the Centerfold
Folks, I want you to turn your attention to this week’s A-plot: Reggie and Archie nearly having a falling out because of Archie’s hotrod, which he finally got access to again. That’s right. I’m designating Archie & Reggie’s catfight over car privileges the A-plot, even though technically Jughead & Tabitha’s investigation into Rayberry’s Milkman-related death came first structurally.
Why? I mean, did you see this episode? I could not stop laughing during every minute these two were on screen.
You all saw the scene where Archie had a bucket of shaving cream on his face and then, with a completely straight face, did that “best friend handshake” with Reggie while saying “mi casa es tu casa?” You saw how they fawned over that car magazine like Betty & Veronica did over the Brando/Newman profiles? You saw Uncle Frank in that sweater doing his best “aw shucks TV dad” impression with his goofy-ass mustache?
And you all witnessed the glory that was Archie sitting in the dark and pulling a “DO YOU KNOW HOW LATE IT IS?” on Reggie after being antsy his entire date with Betty because he needed to know his baby, his hotrod, was safe and that he could drive it again? Of course you did.
It’s a glorious distillation of Riverdale commitment to taking the silliest things, treating them dead serious, and then transposing them into incongruous scenarios. I also liked how the heart of the conflict is not actually the car but what it represents: Archie’s dad and freedom, or the lack thereof. It’s very ham-handed but that’s what you want from the Reggie & Archie goofball show.
3. We Wear Pink on Wednesdays
I don’t have a lot to say about the return of Fangs & Midge other than every second they’re on screen are the soapiest seconds in the entire season. Absolutely dripping with suds. Yet we never get to actually see any of the drama? We’re entirely at the periphery, confined to music room trysts and beside the staircase heart-to-hearts.
It feels like we’re in “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” dropping in and out of their story to play our parts before going back to having philosophical discussions or playing badminton. Or wrestling in the street at night over a car, as the case may be. I don’t have more to say other than I love getting these little check-ins to their romance, Fangs’ rock career where he seems to only play 1 song refrain, and Midge’s jackets. It’s pink this time!
4. I Am Invisible, Understand, Simply Because People Refuse To See Me
Even though I want more scenes of Toni’s Black Athena Literary Club, I don’t know if the writers of Riverdale could sustain it. You could feel them struggling to include just enough easy to find, accessible literary criticisms that could be in conversation with each other. Anything more and the veneer would crack and they’d have to reveal they’ve never actually read “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
That’s OK because the meat of this plot was really about Toni’s conflicted feelings about dating Cheryl because she’s white and a Blossom. It’s fun drama and while it is far more serious than the rest of the episode, it didn’t feel too incongruous. They have conversations and the grounded nature of it, even with the soapy touches, helped keep it from being overwrought too. Again, sad Cheryl is something that Madelaine Pietsch does SUPER well.
Continued belowI was afraid the episode would also bungle the race aspects when Kevin talked about being included in the group by Clay. That they’d end up making some lesson about it “being wrong to exclude others.” That’s not what we got. Instead, we got it through the lens of Cheryl & Toni’s relationship as well as ending with an affirmation of the necessity of safe places for members of a non-dominant group to congregate just for themselves.
That’s a really important place to leave it, I think. Like, it’s great to hang out with my non-Jewish friends but sometimes I just need to kvetch with a bunch of my mishpocha on Shabbos and sing a song about resting to the tune of Bumblebee Tuna.
5. The Money Went Down to South Carolina
Here we go. The big plot. The investigation that kicked the episode off. What new revelations are there? Is Jughead going to square off against the Milkman? Is Rayberry’s novel gonna be published? None of these questions are important! Instead, let’s take a detour into the horrors of American attitudes towards interracial marriages and a good old round of red-bating and mental health stigma.
Yeah, this was another surprisingly serious plotline. We see how power aka Sheriff Keller uses truths about a person to discredit them after death via insinuations that play on misconceptions and fear. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least, especially when I have to see the same shit but worse in the NY fucking Post every day. FUCK that rag. (Sorry. Had to vent.)
We also learn that Brad had a wife down in South Carolina and that he left to earn enough money to get her whole family out of there and into a more tolerant (on paper at least) state. This is used to give Tabitha a reason to duck out of the show again but also to further emphasize the injustices that the primarily white main cast gets to avoid by just…not thinking about it.
I like that the show isn’t letting this go. That it keeps centering the bad because then isn’t too different from now, much as we wish it were.
It is weird that they have to explain away Rayberry’s communist ties though. Like…somehow having the character actually be a communist or socialist, but not a Stalinist, is a bridge too far. GASP. A communist writer? In the 50s? Who EVER could have guessed.
That about does it for now! Be honest with me. You all had a lot of fun. Did I miss any truly bonkers moments? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you all in a week for more antics of the Milkman variety. Until then, keep up the midnight road wrestling Riverdale.
Best Line of the Night:
Kevin: “He’s like a magician, but with words.”
