Riverdale s2 ep17 - Featured Television 

Five Thoughts on Riverdale‘s “The Noose Tightens”

By | March 29th, 2018
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome back all you Riverdale fans. We’ve got a doosy for you all this week. Tensions are high, plots are moving, questions are…well, there’s only one question I have left and it wasn’t answered. Oh! And we’ve got a lot of connections to previous events in the season so maybe, maybe my theory about the Black Hood not being dead isn’t so far-fetched anymore…it probably still is. Either way, let’s dig into the most Gotham-esque episode we’ve had in a while and see what madness Riverdale has to offer. As always, some spoilers are ahead.

1. Don Falcone Makes A Visit

Hiram Lodge this week is off his game; everyone around him seems to have the upper hand. He’s trying to go legit, something I don’t buy in the least, and his mob associates, Lenny and Carl, fans of rabbits and shotguns, are attempting to get in on the deal. Then his capo and poor Smithers replacement, Andre, gets his shit tossed by Agent Smith or whatever his name was. Then Archie has to come in and save Hiram’s bacon and basically kicks off a gang war that’s going to envelope the town. So, you know, your average day in Gotham.

I don’t make that comparison lightly as, well, Gotham is a hot mess most weeks but honest to god, while Lodge, Lenny, and Carl were having dinner, I kept thinking that the Penguin was going to burst in and start ranting at them or that someone was about to pull out a vintage tommy gun and recreate the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. From the shot direction, to the acting, to the things they were talking about, this felt less Sopranos or “Gotham Central” and more like our favorite DCTV punching bag. If only it went that far. Then maybe this plot thread would have kept my interest for more than a few seconds.

Also, side note, Lenny and Carl. Really? If you were going to homage Of Mice and Men at least do it well and not with these two sacks of hot air.

2. Dammit Archie

Can Archie be any more stupid? Yes, he’s been through a lot. Yes, he’s changed a lot since the Black Hood but come on, threatening the two people who he knows are mob bosses to their faces and then re-forming the Red, now Dark, Circle to fight them? Bonehead move for a guy who is still suffering from PTSD. I think this might just be Riverdale’s way of showing the ever-evolving stages of it, as it’s all tied to Archie’s obsession with being strong enough to preventing someone like the Black Hood from ever hurting the people he loves ever again, but I have to stretch really hard to see that in the text…on the screen…you know what I mean.

It’s only apparent that he’s doing all this to help Mr. Lodge to be a part of the family and because he’s in too deep and that his PTSD with the Black Hood is a separate issue but it’s not. Archie’s decisions all spread from the Black Hood and man do we need to see that more! Make it less about Mr. Lodge and more about Archie’s desire to make sure Riverdale never has to suffer from the Black Hood ever again. It’s obviously too late for me to influence the writers room (if I even had that power) but I hope they realized it by this point in filming.

It brings Archie’s motivations into relief and makes his inexplicable moral shifting more palatable and understandable. The pieces are mostly there for this; they’re just too scattered and small for it to be anything more than a sub-motivation that I wish was the primary motive.

3. Bad Mom, Good Mom, Red-Haired Evil Mom, Old Probably Dead Mom

This was the week of the moms. From Mrs. Cooper finally, finally kicking Chic out while also failing to show any form of concern for Betty – ruffles my feathers that does – to Mrs. Andrews being the only voice of reason left in Archie’s life to Mrs. (Ms.?) Blossom being just the cruelest, most manipulative mother in the world to Nana Blossom crawling on her stomach to save her granddaughter, this week had (most) of the best scenes with these women.

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Nana and Mrs. Blossom brought the tension and old-money, backstabbing drama back to the forefront, providing some of the most genuinely tense scenes in the episode. Mrs. Cooper, while I enjoyed half of her scenes, is just too wrapped up in the Chic plot thread and is too out-of-character towards him and Betty for me to enjoy her scenes. Finally, Mrs. Andrews is a light in a dark story, providing a voice and a visual for conscience that Archie continually ignores.

Also, we see Mrs. Cooper grow as a character! Isn’t that exciting?! It comes out of semi-nowhere but it’s nice to see nevertheless.

4. The Nun by James Wan

One episode is all we had to witness in terms of Cheryl’s imprisonment in the Sisters of Quiet Mercy’s home of hellfire and thankfully that was all. Hell, we didn’t even spend most of the episode on Cheryl’s time there. It was just the right amount for Riverdale; it established her conditions, made us empathize with her, provided for a grand escape set-piece but didn’t remain long enough for the writers to muck it up with too much overwrought dialogue and unsubtle attempts at dealing with social issues.

We got to see Madelaine Petsch’s Cheryl almost break and that was heartbreaking. Her portrayal throughout the episode grounded her scenes, especially when the nun’s dialogue got very over the top. You see the frustration, the anger, the resentment but also the tiredness, the desperation, the hopelessness and despair. Now that she’s free, I hope to god Riverdale doesn’t mess this up and pull a The 100 on us. We need more queer representation.

5. Tying it all together

This episode felt like the first time in a while that the season was actually starting to come to some form of culmination. With the first season and a half, there was always a buildup. A larger mystery. Here, we know almost all the mysteries from the start, save for Chic but I’ve stopped caring there, and the threads are building towards a giant battle instead. We know what’s coming so it’s just us biding our time, waiting for it to arrive instead of us trying to connect the dots week in and week out.

This is the first episode to have call-backs to earlier events and places and it feels like there is a larger story going on in the background. There probably aren’t but I’ve got a feeling that the show might be heading back to its pulpy, thriller-mystery roots soon and I’m all for it. Save the battle for the B-plots.

Lines of the Night

“We’re going down to Pop’s to get some Chocolate Phosphates.” – Oh Riverdale, will you ever stop having just the stupidest names for things.

Toni: “Her social media has been dead for days.”
Veronica: “That’s a sure sign of foul play.” – This makes me feel old and I’m only a few years older than these character.

Cheryl: “And this school’s gonna burn.” – You go Cheryl! Also, this line delivery and placement had me laughing my ass off.

Chic: “I’ll move out.”

Yes. YES! YESSSSSSSS!

Come back next week when it’s time for more craziness and Carrie: The Musical. It’s gonna be wild y’all.


//TAGS | Riverdale

Elias Rosner

Elias is a lover of stories who, when he isn't writing reviews for Mulitversity, is hiding in the stacks of his library. Co-host of Make Mine Multiversity, a Marvel podcast, after winning the no-prize from the former hosts, co-editor of The Webcomics Weekly, and writer of the Worthy column, he can be found on Twitter (for mostly comics stuff) here and has finally updated his profile photo again.

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