What’s up river-bitches?! I think we may have gotten our first legit good episode of season 6. Not just Riverdale good – indulgent, tenuously attached to reality, explosive – but good good. I teared up y’all! Can’t fucking believe that a season with a Flex Mentalloed killer milkman cliffhanger got me like that.
As always, spoilers ahead.
1. Cheerleading. The Least Sexy Sport
Betty continues to be put into the weirdest fucking positions by the adults in her life. I’d say they mean well but they most assuredly do not. In this week’s “repressed adults anxiously pretend teens wanting sex isn’t a thing” installment, Dr. Werthers convinces Hal that the best way to get Betty to not want to get hot and heavy with ~~boys~~ is to get her to be hot and heavy in a NON-sexual way. And their brilliant idea is to put her on the cheer team because GASP sports????? for women??????? Unheard of. Impossible! They might hurt their esophagus or something.
Do….do they not realize that the cheer team will be seeing the basketball team all the time? Dr. Werthers and Hal are really 3 different flavors of dense aren’t they?
2. Doomed Team. Desperate Players. Last Hope. Kindly Archie.
Reggie’s back y’all! Oh how I missed his smolder each and every week. Much like the rest of the cast, he’s gotten a bit of a revised origin to better fit the 50s romanticized aesthetic as well as to bring him more in line with the character became by the previous season’s end. This explains why we had Jullian taking the traditional asshole spot Reg usually occupies. What’s our playboy Archie rival like now, then? He’s a taciturn farm-boy who’s here to play basketball!
At first, I wasn’t sure what was going on or if there’d be a nasty twist. Can you blame me? This is Riverdale after all. It wasn’t until the first basketball scene that this new interpretation really sunk in. Old Reggie was a ball hog and a bully. New Reggie uses his skills to support his teammates while making everyone feel included without drawing attention to it. That’s certainly a huge departure from the Reggie of the comics and of the show previously, taking the kernels of who he became and reimagining them.
Charles Melton’s ability to bring it to life with just the right level of tenderness and distance, only letting Archie, and the audience, in a little at a time is also so wonderful. Throughout the episode, you feel his feeling of alienation and out-of-placeness, tinged with a more innate nervousness, and humility, that’s born of a soft-heart.
I could go on and on. I cannot express to you how much I love this choice. I was wondering why Reggie was being held back and so glad this is the reason. Tender Reggie here we come!
3. A Tale of Two Romances
The B & C plots this week focus on two relationships, one that’s constantly being torn apart by the whims of a writers room that just can’t figure out how to properly give them drama, and another that had plot happen to it and is now being allowed to recover. That’s right! We’ve got ANOTHER Toni & Cheryl break up for the most ridiculous reasons plot-line.
I nearly lost it when Toni started hemming and hawing about being with Cheryl and being a cheerleader. Didn’t she JUST join the team? The breakup was stupid and the weakest part of an otherwise great episode, especially because they just get back together at the end. I know. I know. The whole point is for Toni to realize she made a mistake being too hasty and letting her friend/rival get to her. It’s still frustrating.
Still, I actually really liked how they handled the post-breakup scenes. I said it last time and I’ll say it again: when you let Madelaine Petsch’s Cheryl show genuine vulnerability, when she can let the mask drop, she can make any dramatic scene that much better. The facial and vocal control puts everyone else to shame and really underscores how much of Cheryl’s over-the-top nature is a protective put on in this time.
Oh and Tabitha & Jughead have a nice day of dates. It’s sweet and definitely won’t end poorly when Jug discovers Bray Radbury’s milkman destroyed body.
Continued below4. Cosmopolitan Kev
Kevin’s still in this weird place where he should be given more to do but is relegated to only being defined in relation to his sexuality. Despite being the subject of this subplot, he’s barely a player in it. Rather, he’s just kind of there until the end and it feels like nothing got accomplished.
Let me explain.
His plot in “Hoop Dreams” involves getting a job at the Babylonium and being recruited to essentially spy on Clay and report to Veronica on his interest in her. It makes him increasingly uncomfortable until he finally confronts Ronnie and tells her they’re both gay so stop it, side-stepping the whole “she’s now Clay’s boss” thing. Ronnie accepts it all, apparently having set it up as a test or something, and we get an allusion to LA and the movie business being a refuge for gay people.
If we got more of Kevin’s struggles beyond a couple furtive glances, if this was actually about Kevin feeling comfortable telling Veronica about him and Clay and being more open about his sexuality, if this was in any way related to his experiences in “Dirty Dancing”, then maybe I’d be fine with it. Instead we saw this through Veronica’s eyes and her actions. It was more about her than Kevin. I can only hope that changes in the coming episodes.
5. Belonging
I was pretty harsh on the season premiere for its tonal mismatch and attempts to tackle serious, heavy subjects. You’d think I would feel the same about this episode but I actually think “Hoop Dreams” handles its discussion of race and racism with way more tact and tonal consistency. For one, this one dials back the hyper-real, pulpy schlock the show is known for, allowing for the quiet drama to hit more heavily. Others may disagree but this was the right move.
For another, they layer in the theme throughout every plotline in overt ways and in subtler ways, creating a symphony of motifs and overlapping phrases, all touching on different aspects and experiences of what it means to not be white in a white-dominated society. We see the concerns characters have, the hopes they keep, and the realities they come up against. Yet never does it feel like the message is taking away from the characters. Rather, they are enhancing them and working in tandem to make the stories feel more full, more real, while still making its point.
It’s not one note hit over and over again, only louder each time until all you can hear is the ringing in your ears.
And, maybe most importantly, the characters don’t say every damn thought/lesson aloud! What a novel concept, letting the audience infer changes and thoughts within a character’s head. The CW really could learn a thing or two from the way Evan Kyle structured this episode.
That about does it for now! Thank you for indulging me this week and I hope you all enjoyed Reggie’s return as much as I did. Think he and Veronica will actually get together in a healthy relationship this time around? Maybe if Ronnie grows up a little more. Anyway, next week we’re back to plumbing the depths of Betty’s imaginary sex life. Ahhh, there’s the Riverdale we know and love. Until then, keep punching Julian Blossom in the face Riverdale.
Best Line of the Night:
Betty: “This is my sentence to curb my ‘unhealthy physical urges.’”
