What’s up river-bitches?! It’s the final four and I’m not sure if I should be happy the end is nigh, sad that my weekly dose of WTF is almost gone, or frustrated that “A Different Kind of Cat” and “Stag” have snuck in some of the worst tendencies of Riverdale. Probably an unholy mixture of all three, just like the show itself!
As always, spoilers ahead.
1. What Relationships?
I cannot begin to tell you how pissed off I was at parts of this episode. Let me compliment sandwich that statement though. The best parts of the episode lived up to the best parts of season 7. The worst fell prey to the kinds of basic writing mistakes I really haven’t seen the show make in a long time. The vast majority of the episode was the former.
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way. Jughead and Veronica’s relationship at the expense of just ignoring Betty & Veronica’s? No thank you. They didn’t even do us the (dis)courtesy of providing a reason why all talk of their intimate kiss has vanished from the face of the earth. At least “Stag” and “Miss Teen Riverdale” had the excuse of being focused on other things.
And then there’s no real exploration of Reggie & Archie’s night together, instead attributing all his epiphanies to getting laid? What the fuck Riverdale? That’s messed up and completely contradictory to the other themes you’re laying out in the episode. It’s like the show can only acknowledge two queer relationships at a time. Fuck that noise and fuck this show’s selective-ass memory.
2. The Apple of My Nope
OK. Let’s get this out of the way. Archie’s attempt to get Mrs. Grundy to fuck him after Twila Twist tells him that he should find some other older lady to give him “experience” was so uncomfortable I had trouble watching it. That said, I’m glad it was that hard to watch and I’m extra glad the show shut him down hard. It’s a good arc for this innocent boy to have because it highlights his immaturity.
Archie thought it was a good idea because he didn’t know much better. His role models aren’t talking about sex and his peers are either Julian Blossom, that ass, or just as lost as he is. Did I think it needed to be here at all? NO! Not at all. I could have gone an entire season without Archie biting into an apple as a metaphor for thinking he wants to be fucked by his poetry teacher. But it could have been so much worse (hi season 1) so I’ll take the win.
3. Paint Me Like One of Your Pulp Covers
Betty’s journey this week on the other hand is quite welcomed. Her revelations and actions follow-on quite logically from last week’s, even if they don’t directly deal with her mother, and I like how unexpected her decision to write a book feels. What I liked even more was her chance encounter with Cheryl and the sweetness Cheryl was allowed to show.
Seriously, the two had great conversations, intertwining the two’s independent plots into something new rather than one subsuming the other. They bounce off each other; one towards another oil painting, this time in the safety of school; the other towards finding sexual pleasure without relying on others. I especially love the painting they have Cheryl make. That pink is eye popping and wonderful.
Betty’s journey to this revelation does, however, come off as superficial. It’s like the show wanted to make a bigger statement than it does and by drawing attention to this fact, specifically the double-standard in the way society treats different genders’ sexual desires, it lessens the impact instead. Moreover it ignores many of the events of prior episodes, as I railed about earlier, in order for her to be ABLE to learn from Cheryl. It’s minor but I thought the series was past this sloppiness.
4. She’s No Spellman But She’ll Do
Why is it that the most dystopian part of this show is the comics censorship? Seriously! For all its repression of actual people, the place the show demonstrates this the hardest with the most losses is in the Pep Comics story. “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” gets rejected for being too witchy. Wild! Of course that’s just because it’s a prop, a stand-in, to illustrate HOW bad things are getting. If the “Sabrina” we know from Archie Comics, inoffensive and unobjectionable by the standards of our code, gets rejected, what’s that say about the forces arrayed against Jughead & co.?
Continued belowOf course within the narrative there’s a personal vendetta baked in, which changes the commentary a bit. Still, it’s effective and it was fun seeing the “Veronica the Teenage Witch” mock-up. It’s a far cry from getting Kiernan Shipka back but I’ll take what I can get. Cowards!
5. Going Uptown
Josie McCoy is back folks. It’s been a couple years since she was last on the show and with this universal rest, she’s no longer the same Josie we once knew. Now a Broadway celebrity and positioned as much older than the rest of the crew, with little to no connection to the town, she’s come to Riverdale to debut her new movie and test it to see if it’s good enough to show.
This, by far, is the highlight of the episode. From the social commentary, to the tone and the plot itself, Josie’s time in Riverdale is well-spent and beautifully communicated. Everything with Ashleigh Murray is a gem, knocking it out of the park as this version of Josie. She is a totally different character and it feels like a true, blue redemption for the character’s sidelining, insofar as the show is able to do so.
The scene at the Dark Room would have been my favorite of hers – it’s just so wacky and yet perfectly suited for the era and the location – if it weren’t for the scene in Veronica’s office after she spent the time in the Black Athena meeting. Which, I must say, has filled out very nicely. There were, like, 20 people there this time instead of the four or five we last saw!
Back to that scene. Murray kills it, sneaking in that vulnerability Josie is trying to hide and bringing to bear her frustration with a country that will whitewash everything because it won’t imagine a world in which Black voices, faces, art, literature, and life have value beyond the basis for white stories and lives. It is this scene that powers the anxiety of the film nearly burning and the relief and overwhelming joy at the advanced review of the film calling it, in essence, nothing short of a masterpiece. It is this scene that made the whole episode worth the watch.
OK. That scene and Fangs’ “Great Balls of Fire” performance over top of Betty learning about “self pleasure” while Cheryl paints her lingerie pulp cover. The two modes of Riverdale.
That about does it for now! What did you all think of the episode? Was I way off base with some of my earlier comment? Let me know below. Next time, this wouldn’t be a 50s setting without black and white and a nuclear bomb scare. Do you think Frank will yell at it too because it’s disgracing the memory of Fred Andrews via poetry? My bet is yes. Until then, keep running that bathwater Riverdale.
Best Line of the Night:
1. Midge: “Killer diller.”
2. Veronica: “Because you don’t own a nice suit?”
Jughead: “I barely have any clothes without an S on them.”
3. Veronica (talking about studio execs): “They’re fear driven creatures.”
