What’s up river-bitches?! You saw the title. You know the refrain. Say it with me. She’s ginchy. She’s hale. She’s Miss Riverdale.
As always, spoilers ahead.
1. The Future is Female
Season 7 just keeps turning out banger after banger y’all. The quality and variety of the season is a pleasant surprise and I’m just happy they’ve kept it up. Welcoming us back after a week off, I was certain Riverdale would be swinging for the fences, breaking out the most over-the-top, outlandish pageant episode ever. Instead what we get is a tight drama focused on the women of the town.
It feels monumental somehow, this choice to refuse to allow any of the male characters to have B or C plots. They’re all support and only marginally present. What a perfect way to handle a pageant episode! Not only does it support its themes and critiques of things like Miss USA, it also means they can drill deeper into these characters and add some real nuance without getting distracted by the rest of the cast.
I recognize how sad it is that I even have this feeling, that it’s so uncommon I have to comment on it. Yet it’s something to celebrate, especially since it was done so well.
2. The Snark is Strong With This One
Give a round of applause to Aaron Allen and Chrissy Maroon for their absolutely brilliant script this week. They somehow managed to write an episode that was chock full of grade-A snark that DIDN’T feel woefully forced or awkward inside a fairly nuanced character study and exploration of what it means to be empowered within a patriarchal system. It almost has the feel of a play. That’s tough enough when you’re not also having to make it feel like it fits with Riverdale’s ~oeuvre~. Yet they did it!
Like, Dilton Doiley being tapped as Alice’s new, way-too-competent assistant? Hilarious. Evelyn getting eviscerated every time she opened her mouth to say something horrible? Glorious. Ethel’s daydream about all the prizes she’d get by winning the pageant? I was DYING. The entire diner scene, complete with Reggie’s “butter carving competition” comment? A+ reaction shots that fell out of a completely different episode than this one yet perfectly fits the dream-like quality to the competition.
Is it perfect? I mean, no? I think Toni’s role was more reductive than it should’ve been, Midge getting shipped off midway through was a real bummer, and there wasn’t nearly enough Mary Andrews. But those criticisms are questions of priority rather than flaws. In keeping the episode squarely focused on the women in the Cooper household, with Midge as a C-plot, they created the opportunity to add to their stories and inject depth into some pretty one-dimensional characters and relationships.
Again, the strongest part of the episode was the way the writers actually allowed everyone to have unique perspectives that clashed and melded and expressed a true spectrum of opinions. I felt like they were all real people. That’s the highest compliment I can give in this show of surreal and larger-than-life caricatures.
3. Goi For It
The only other episode of Riverdale that Michael Goi directed was season four’s “In Treatment,” one of my absolute favorite episodes. I had a ton of praise for that one when it aired and I have a feeling he’s no small part as to why “Miss Teen Riverdale” is as good as it is. There’s a fair bit of variety to the shot composition as well as an employment of more cinematic camera tricks, like the dolly zoom when Midge is confronted by Alice in Pop’s or that (admittedly weird looking) semi-split screen shot of Betty and Alice at the end of the episode. I’m sure this has a lot to do with Goi’s background as a cinematographer rather than a director. He knows how to compose a scene and make it stand out.
The performances are similar across the two episodes too, making me think he’s more inclined to go naturalistic and subdued than the usual high energy wacky. It’s good stuff and I’m glad they brought him back. What a great way to kick off the final stretch.
Continued below4. Everything’s Coming Up Ethel
Just as “Archie: The Musical” was Kevin’s redemption episode, this is Ethel’s. After seven seasons of being misused and cast aside, she gets to take the full spotlight and have an actual arc that centers on her wants and desires. She’s given internality for the first time. Yes, she likes drawing comics but the show treats it as ancillary to its larger goals, a plot that is part of some other plot (Jughead’s writing, the Milkman, Werthers’ crusade.) It makes me so, so happy to see.
Did you see that gorgeous yellow dress they made? All the props to the costume department this week for each and every dress and Kevin’s blue tux.
You want to know how invested I was in Ethel’s journey to Miss Teen Riverdale? My heart rate actually increased in fear and anticipation during the letter reading scene. Ethel has gone through so much hardship, she deserves this win. She deserves to be seen and loved and to see herself as worthy of love. She deserves to have the same shot as everyone else and to dream unbelievable things, like Jughead as her boyfriend or her parents coming back to life.
Ah, RIverdale.
5. Another Crack in the Wall
I said earlier that the highest compliment I could give the writers is that everyone felt like real people. That’s not quite true. The real highest compliment is that they got me to empathize with Alice, zero caveats. I know. I’m as shocked as you all.
Alice Cooper is still a nasty piece of work, as evidenced by her treatment of Midge and Ethel and Betty. Yet for once Mädchen Amick was allowed to flex her skills and tinge her actions with true, misguided, dangerous concern. It felt deliberate! I could see the layers to Alice’s actions and the humanity within. Rather than be filled with apoplectic rage at the monstrous version we’ve seen before, and for Betty’s continued support, I was left with a deep well of sadness for this character chewed up by expectations of what a woman “should” be and an understanding of why.
This is the first time I can say that with confidence.
We’re invited to see all the damage she does in pursuit of this idea, how it’s a reflection of what was done to her, and how, little by little, that might be rectified. Ethel’s song moves Alice over all her protests because it breaks through her rationalizations. It reveals them as what they are in a way Betty’s arguments never could, even if only temporarily. There’s a glimmer of hope for her, one that’s also partly extended to Evelyn Evernever, though far less explored.
I nearly wept when Alice’s facade broke after Betty told her she loved her for side-stepping the judges, giving Ethel the win over Betty. It’s nuts that they were able to provide that kind of catharsis. It’s nuts that they earned it too. It can’t remain, and it certainly won’t, but for this brief, fleeting moment, I was happy to have an A-plot featuring Alice.
More than that, I was moved.
That about does it for now! Be honest, you were all as thrilled by this episode as I was. You were with the boys at Pop’s drinking shakes, weren’t you? Let me know in the comments what your favorite part was. Then get ready for the wheel to turn back to “sexy” as something happens with fishnet stockings. Until then, keep fighting the patriarchy Riverdale.
Best Lines of the Night:
1. Betty: “He was in his underwear too.”
Veronica: “What I wouldn’t give.”
2. Ethel: “I wish my parents were alive to see this.”
Alice: “Oh but they ARE.”
