Welcome back all you Riverdale fans! It’s the spookiest time of year and what better way to spend the night before than by watching a particularly horror-tastic episode of our favorite Pulp Crime but-should-be-horror show. What new delights await us this time? Probably more of Cheryl and her rotting corpse brother. *Shudders*
As always, spoilers ahead.
1. The Haunting of Thorne Hill
I called it! Haha! I don’t get to be right very often so I’ll take it where I can. Jullian, the dear triplet of Cheryl and Jason, has been name dropped by the always fantastic and suitably eerie Nana Rose. I thought maybe she’d say Julian was sent away or disappeared and Penelope was too heartbroken to talk about it but nope, Cheryl absorbed him and then was raised alongside a doll stand-in which was eventually locked in an attic! And now the only reason the spirit is back is because Cheryl is unhealthily attatched to a dead fucking corpse and wanted to gaslight her girlfriend.
Toni, I don’t want to tell you how to live your life but those are some red-fucking-flags right there. Love her or not, she’s got some issues she’s gotta deal with. What’s best about this too is that we might actually be getting our first true, blue supernatural moment in Riverdale. People thought zombies might be coming after the Season One finale. The “Tales from the Darkside” episode skirted the line between supernatural horror and creepy drug running. Now we’ve got a ghost in the house? Sign me up!
I have no idea what’s actually gonna come from this. In true Riverdale fashion, it’ll probably be explained away with something silly or Julian being real having been secretly given up, hiding in the house, and Nana Rose is letting it happen. Who knows? Either way, it’s gonna be fun and spooky and they better keep this tone going forwards because it suits the show far better than the gang war stuff.
Also, never fuck with Oujia. That shit’s haunted.
2. John Carpenter’s Riverdale
I’ll probably end up missing some of the threads this week because there are a lot of them — Cheryl’s, the Gym, Betty’s, Jug’s, Reggie, Veronica’s — but I had to talk about the directing this week because they did a damn good job of it. I’m sure most of the shots were cribbed from Halloween and other horror movies but they doubled down on the more idiosyncratic shots, which in turn raised the tension and got me to actually notice the direction. It felt experimental and while it was still clearly a TV episode, the feel was different from what came before.
The opening shots of the episode were great! Everyone centered on a static camera that cut between the TV and them. No angle change. Then we get the same shots, maybe a pan up and forwards, or pointing down, but always keeping them centered, again and again for everyone in town. It’s eerie and joins them all together. Another great shot was when the camera just held on Jughead after his conversation with Witwer’s character as the dialog of Cheryl ran over it. It held for so much longer than it should’ve and, I dunno, the delay of the cut made the tension tighter and I started to worry that something bad was gonna happen. I mean, it does but, you know, that’s kinda the point of the episode.
Again, last time we had an episode like this,“Tales from the Darkside,” the show felt just a little rougher but that roughness gave it life. Sterile, standard shots only go so far and while it can avoid the truly terrible, it can hurt a work. Well done Erin Feeley.
3. Black Hood Christmas
Riverdale, why do you hate Betty so much? Seriously. Her mom is back to being the absolute worst and not caring about Betty at all; fuck you and your it brought the family back together bullshit, it cost Betty nearly everything and probably caused lasting psychological damage. On top of that, everyone in Riverdale seems to want to dress up as the two latest serial killers. It’s a sick reflection of reality but damn, you’d think parents of younger kids wouldn’t approve of those costumes, especially when knocking on the door to the old Black Hood house?
Continued belowOh, OH! And she keeps getting these horror prank calls which, while not scary for us, put us on just the right amount of edge to see how Betty would be pushed pretty far because of it. Jellybean is no help either. It’s 10 o’clock, do you know why your step-sister-in-law(?) is pretending to have been killed? Actually, quick question, why haven’t we gotten any resolution to Jellybean literally being in on her mother’s gang? Is it ever gonna come up again? Probably not.
Finally, we have Charles, who shows up out of nowhere with pizza, (is that all he eats,) just so happens to have a wire-tap, and figures out it was Polly making the prank calls because she’s still super into Edgar and didn’t know he was dead. Whew. Did I miss something? Oh, yeah.
Charles is almost 100% the person sending the tapes. Why? Who the fuck knows. He’s the only one with the equipment and training to do it and he has that weird phone tap listening in thing at the end. I don’t trust him but the fact that the show is showing this scene makes me wary. They only do that before a red herring. Hmmmmm. Nope, sticking with it. Charles is hiding something big and it’s no good.
4. Riverdale from the Crypt
Quick thoughts on Veronica, Arch & Mad Dog, and Reggie’s plots this week. Veronica’s was a nice bit of traditional spook. It’s telegraphed really early on that something’s wrong and in an episode like this, how could it not be, but the waiting for the other shoe to drop was handled with care and, like the urban legends that spawn stories such as these, it was a simple but effective tale.
Arch and Mad Dog’s is silly and sees them dress up as Archie comics superheroes which is totally against the tone of the episode but you just can’t help but love it. This was by far the weakest story and a bit of a rehash of the previous episode but hey, they gotta advance it somehow and this was the best opportunity to show how far they have to go in making a place that’s actually safe rather than kinda safe.
Reggie and Kevin’s would have been a haha, look at the mess made, zing! Gotcha Mr. Honey. High five! plot but shit dude, Mr. Honey was terrifying and conniving. Back in episode 2 of the season, I was bored by Mr. Honey, though I speculated he might end up being a part of the nefarious deeds and I think I might be onto something. Not only does he totally fuck up Reggie’s car, which is the kind of extreme escalation of punishment vs action he’s becoming known for, but he also has two of the most unsettling conversations with Kevin and Reggie. I dunno what it was that got me but a chill ran down my spine when he was talking. Maybe it was just the episode but. . .he’s up to something and it’s gonna be a weird one.
5. The Casket of Jughead Jones
Welp, here’s the hazing we’ve been waiting for. I expected it to be entirely from Brett but everyone being in on it somehow makes it even more insidious. Y’all, they roofie Jughead, seal him in a casket, and leave him to sweat the entire night thinking he’s been buried alive. That’s super fucked. Witwer’s reaction to Jug being locked up is telling. He doesn’t actually have much power here, he’s run ragged, and there’s more to this place than he’s letting on. Hopefully it doesn’t turn out that he’s secretly in charge of the occult or more fucked up parts of the school but you never know.
Donna being in on it breaks my heart. Why? Well, one, I was hoping there was at least one not shitty person at Stonewall (other than Moose.) But also, she’s showing where her solidarity lies and it ain’t with people who care about others, I can tell you that.
Speaking of not caring about other, poor Moose. We’re gonna miss you dude. I know you left the show because of filming commitments but I kept holding out hope we’d get more into your character. I’m also kinda worried now. Brett is escalating his torture and while I think Moose is, in fact, OK, there’s that niggling doubt at the back of my mind that maybe he’s not and considering everything we keep seeing with Jughead, well, let’s just say that there’s a non-zero change I’m right.
Continued belowOh, and while I don’t trust these cliffhangers, they’re doing a damn good job of teasing Jug’s (possible) demise and it’s got me hooked with speculations.
That about does it for now! What did you all think? Love the spooky atmosphere? Wish it could stay? Notice anything I didn’t? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you all in a week for the most idiotic thing to enter the world and murder fiction seriously fuck this thing I hate it. Until then, stay spooky Riverdale.
Best Line of the Night:
Betty: “No bitch, it’s your sister.”
