Welcome back all you Riverdale fans! I gotta tell ya, I’m riding high after this episode but I’m also deeply disappointed that they clearly had settled on a resolution and changed it up starting with this season, most likely to make sure things were able to transition more smoothly into a season arc. But before we get to that: VINDICATION!
Oh, and as always, spoilers ahead. Duh.
1. Season Well With Finale & A Bit of Dash
It’s very clear from the pacing of “The Preppy Murders” that it is the final two episodes of last season merged with the start of season 5. SO. MUCH. HAPPENS. It’s breakneck, with, like, no less than 5 plots going on at once. It was honestly difficult to take notes for. I’m on the record for saying I miss season 1’s tighter, faster pacing but this is way too much. Gimme a chance to catch my breath, Riverdale.
The downside to all these plots is that anytime they’d cut away from one I was invested in — Archie in pain, Betty & Jug finally, finally figuring out what was up with Charles — they’d cut to one I couldn’t care less about — Cheryl’s family, Veronica’s family. Even the plots I was invested in had scenes that felt like they were there cause they were either already filmed or to wrap up some small bit of last season. You can really see this from the “Previously On” segment and just how many scenes they used. It was like watching that TV wall from The Matrix II: More Matrix, More Gun Fu. Or was it III: Revulsion?
I’m glad we got it all settled so the show can start to build it’s new season long plots, and finally move the gang onto college & beyond. Despite all the grousing you will read in the next four thoughts, I am glad they decided not to string this stuff out another episode. I was afraid they’d drag the VHS’s out but baruch hashem, we were mercifully saved from that. Instead, we just get a high, high single episode body count and two, TWO underwhelming confrontation scenes.
I guess I’ll take the good with the bad.
2. Archie-Kins and the No Good, Very Bad Year
I am very happy that Archie had an episode where everything just got to crumble around him. Well, not happy per say, but Archie having to deal with the lingering resentment and fear from the events of last season is good. He’s still smarting from not being able to graduate, he’s lost his father, he lost his uncle Frank (kinda,) and he realized that he wasn’t as happy with Veronica as he’d thought. This is, to borrow a phrase from every TV show about high school, supposed to be the happiest part of his four years in the “best years of his life.”
Now, we know that’s bullshit but it doesn’t mean the cultural metanarrative isn’t strong and influential. Archie is feeling alone and isolated and seeing that fake tape of himself back when the Black Hood shot Fred, in addition to having to consider whether or not to offer forgiveness to the kid who hit his father in and, in a panic, fled, only exacerbates it all. Did I like the “I gotta solve things by beating up my Uncle Frank?” Eh, it’s fitting and sometimes you have to be confronted with that force to break you out of the spiral. Archie needed this.
He also needs his friends, and to remember what his father (and Luke Perry) stood for, and I think next episode will begin to re-knit those bonds. Veronica may no longer be there for him but the maturity she’s got about the situation is refreshing and gives me hope that their friendship is not irreparable. I do hope we get more of Veronica processing than just the cry session from last week. It’d be a disservice to the character not to explore it more.
3. It’s Real Housewives of New York, not Real Housewives of Nu Yoark
Hermione only gets a short part this week, and I think she and Hiram are going to be much smaller parts this season, but oh what a part it is. I have been waiting for her to do something for anything for nigh on three seasons now re: Hiram. I questioned why she took him back and then never tried anything that was in line with her character previously. This retcon about wanting to protect Veronica and only feeling confident now that Hermosa is in the picture and Veronica is heading off to college AND Hiram has been sufficiently humbled is fine. I think it was a waste of her character for three seasons but what’s done is done and the moment was delicious.
Continued belowWhile I would have preferred her to take over the business in some meaningful way, she’s better off being a Real Housewife of New York if Hermosa is in the picture, since, well, she’s Hiram 2.0.
Did anyone else almost choke on their drink when she said that this was what she was going to do, in addition to FINALLY FUCKING DIVORCING HIRAM? Because I did. Oh Riverdale. Never change.
4. Little Town. It’s a Murderous Village
So. ‘Bout them bodies. There are three sets of bodies this week. Let’s take them in order.
Veronica and Hermosa: Unexpected but a decent cap on the Malloy/Hiram feud and just another scene jobbing for Hermosa, who is almost certainly gonna be worse than Hiram. Not as a character but as a mobster. I hate her, like deep, gut, cannot trust, hate, and though I am loathe to admit it, this makes her a fantastic character for the show to keep in its back pocket and the perfect replacement for Hiram.
Cheryl’s Vampyric Brood: OK, they’re not real vampires but with the utterly extra way they act, what with all that red, you can see it for sure. This is another moment where the fast pace and understated nature of the scenes make for an (un)intentionally hilarious plot. It’s peak Riverdale and anyone who says this show isn’t great doesn’t appreciate how bat-shit ridiculous it is.
I wasn’t enthused to cut back to 15 seconds of Cheryl being mad at a family she should have expected exactly nothing more from but damn if that final moment, with Nana Blossom, Penelope, and Cheryl “mourning” did get me giggling. Sure 5 or more people are dead but can we even count soulless husks as people? Riverdale doesn’t think so.
FBI: Serial Killer Division: So…yeah. Brett “Blackmail Using Barely (Il)Legal Sex Tapes is Fun” Weston Wallace is dead, David “How Do You Get Creepier Than Brett” The Video Store Guy is dead, Joan “The other Expendible One” No-Last-Name is dead, and Donna “What isn’t her deal” Sweet is on the run. They’ve all been hunted down by the second serial killer from the Cooper family: Charles! I basically called this from the second he showed up so, once more, let me bask in my vindication.
HA!
I WAS RIGHT! HAHA!
*Ahem*
Thank you. Turns out, he’s kinda like Hal in that he’s only killing “sinners” but without the fucked up upbringing. Also turns out, he’s not behind the tapes…Fuck, I have to take back my vindication don’t I? Dammit.
Side note, I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Donna, though if so, good riddance and may you take a long walk off a short pier.
Yeah, so he’s behind the deaths in this episode and NO OTHERS. That…strikes me as odd. Like, I was expecting a great big cathartic confrontation scene but instead we got a middling at best “yeah I did it but also not” and just a lump of questions as to the point of his presence. Y’all, was I the only one who’s suss levels of Charles were to the degree that his “I bugged your place and continued dating he-who-shall-not-be-named through it all” explanation felt like a complete deflation of the character? Like, what was his point if a bigger goal wasn’t the endgame?
What was Charles after?? Was it really just to be with the family, and his “serial killer genes” — which had to be from Alice’s side since, you know, FP is Charles’ dad — and weirdo view of life made it manifest in this way? I do not buy it and while I know the series loves to plant red herrings which even the writers aren’t sure are real or fake, this is one I refuse to accept. Also, were these really his first kills in town? Shocking.
5. Jelly Belly
As I alluded to at the start, I think the writers had decided that Charles, or David, was going to be the Auteur and had set up all the clues for the final three episodes of Season 4. Then, when they had to end the season early to keep everyone safe — you know, the right thing to do — they needed a way to have the finale integrate more seamlessly into the new season. They decided to split the VHS’s and Charles’ whole deal so that Charles could be shuffled off and there’d be something new to explore.
Continued belowEnter, Jelly Bean.
She’s literally the only other character with a possible connection to the videos and who would have access to all the information necessary AND would have a motive to do it. Is the motive stupid? Yes, but I think this is a situation similar to the introduction of Charles, wherein it was a way to fix mistakes made over the course of a season but was decided on very late in the game and so there was no time to properly set it up (Alice, FBI and the farm.)
Jelly Bean was mostly in the background of season 4, having been reduced to a minor character who’s just there to ask after Jughead, yet, suddenly at the onset of s5, she’s in a very key location in “Climax” and has that guilty look at the start of this episode? Sure, yeah, she was always the Auteur sending the VHS’s to keep Jughead in town. Hell, we didn’t see her once at the Blue Velvet last season and yes, I did check the Wiki for that.
Why else do I think this is the case? Well, because what else would Charles have been doing sticking around? Why bug the place? We never got any better explanations and, like I said above, it strikes me as odd. Moreover, the tapes were way too fucked up and targeted to be a game. Like, the tapes felt vindictive, and the timing was impeccable. She had to know what sending that video would do to Betty & Jughead or to Archie. That was one of the worst days of his life. Sure, Jelly Bean has shown a penchant for this kind of thing back when she was with Jug’s Mob Boss mother but not doing it on purpose? That makes it seem like a last minute change rather than a writing choice.
That said, I hope this brings Jelly Bean into more prominence this season. I wanna know how she ticks, what she’s all about. Give us something so that if you pull this again, Riverdale writers, at least we have the basis for a character to go off of.
Maybe that was the point. They purposefully tie this to G&G and Ricky’s taking the whole thing way too far. The analogy was always a fraught one, sure, but bits of it remain useful. “The Preppy Murders” seems to be playing on the ways moral lines can get blurred when something is “just a game,” and how some (like Ricky) use that as a defense when they know full well the pain they’re bringing. Jelly Bean didn’t think through the consequences of her actions, and the season will have to reckon with that, but we now have to contend with her crew.
“It’s just a joke. Chill.” I fear these words will be the driving force of this season. Tread lightly Riverdale. Tread lightly, for one misstep and it’s all up in smoke.
That about does it for now. What did you think of the reworking of the s4 finale? Do you agree with my wild speculations or am I totally off base? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you all again in a week for “Graduation.” I’m sure nothing bad will happen then. Nothing at all. Until then, stay away from the curtains at the back of your town’s final VHS store. You never know if you’ll wind up in Riverdale.
Best Line of the Night:
Cheryl: Fix this, or perish.
