Welcome back all you Riverdale fans! You will not believe the rumor I heard between last episode and this one. Apparently, and I have found exactly zero credible sources for this, this season will feature a regular 22 episode length as opposed to the truncated 13-15 episode seasons literally every other CW show has had in the 2021-2022 season. Are we sure it was Jughead, Betty, and Archie who were cursed?
I kid, I do genuinely love yapping about this show, but I’d be lying if I said staring down the barrel of another three months of uninterrupted Riverdale wasn’t a daunting prospect. Ah well. It just gives us plenty of opportunities for things to really go off the rails. Maybe that’s my superpower?
And as always, spoilers ahead.
1. Cheryl Machine
Britta taking on an active role in the Thornhill antics is a development that’s been a long time coming. Riverdale side characters have this unfortunate tendency to be tossed aside as soon as they’re no longer directly plot relevant. This has been less true since the time skip. However, when you’ve been burned as many times as I have, you develop a protective armor of skepticism and snark. Pour one out for poor Ethel, Moose and Midge.
Anyway, Britta acts as Cheryl’s savior this week as she does some dream walking to bring her back out and defeat Mind Penelope. Or, well, get her to change from being in old timey school girl clothes to what can only be described as “empowering undergarments” and then have her show up in Britta’s dream room so they can plot. It’s…well, it’s only about 80% as weird as reality in the Riverdale universe so I’m disappointed they didn’t crank things up to eleventy-thousand.
There’s still plenty of time though.
What most shocked me, actually, was that Nana Rose was willing and helpful. I guess being locked in her barn/chapel/Jason-corpse room will do that to a person. Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, she still is there. Just chilling. As you do.
2. Millennium Alice
Alice. Smith. GOD what a character. What an infuriating, insufferable character. I spent the whole episode pissed at her and you know what? For once it feels like that was the point! I commend the writing team for finding a way to make Alice’s heel turn feel earned and not an unbelievable backslide or reset to lazy status quo, especially after “Next to Normal.” I am angry at her but for once, I feel like the show understands that and is weaponizing it. Good on you.
Still, this clip perfectly summed up my feelings every time she talked to anyone after the 15 minutes mark of “The Town.”
3. Hedonistic Blue
Anyone else confused by Alice’s vitriol at the casino in the first council meeting? I thought for sure the casino was “legit” or at the very least had a legit front for the town once it reformed. I guess I was wrong. Most of this C-plot isn’t particularly interesting as it really is subordinate to the A-plot, but clarifying Babylonia’s position within the town, as well as reminding me of its absolutely stupid but perfectly Riverdale name, was useful. And so was the info on Percival – think he’s related to Mr. Cypher?
Moreover, we now know where it’s going from here on out and how it’s probably going to be pretty central to whatever big battles are brewing. I hope we get some 21 style antics, complete with washed-out, overly-saturated shots and lots of quick cuts. Really sell that early 2000s casino vibe.
Oh and we also got a name for Abueltia’s Iceman, as Veronica helpfully quips: Heraldo. Hello Heraldo. Welcome to Riverdale. Hope you survive the EVERYTHING.
4. Machismo
I don’t know what’s up with Archie. He’s way more toxic this season, when not being tempered by Betty & Jug, than previous ones and I still can’t tell if it’s meant to be related to his new powers or if they just needed him to be more of a hothead in order to keep the plot flowing. I commented on this at the start of this season, or is it mid-season? Post-hiatus return? Whatever. I commented when we came back and it’s not gotten much better. I’ll keep my eye on it going forward but I really hope it’s not Archie’s new default mood.
Continued below5. Riverdale Godfathers
I’m going to breeze over a few things, which I usually do but I wanted to point it out, because I wanted to marvel at how much I love the big bad of this season if they stick with it. Percival Pickins is a good villain on his own from what was established last week, and it seems I was wrong about him getting dunked on the whole episode, but this season’s swerve into the supernatural makes it even better.
What am I talking about? Well, the A-plot is all about the residents of Sketch Alley and what “to do about them.” Percival proposes busing them out “at his expense” as the only sensible way to solve “the homeless problem.” It is, to put it mildly, pretty shitty and the equivalent of “why don’t we take the alley and PUSH it somewhere else?” It solves nothing and helps no one but makes people THINK they’ve solved something and helped people.
Archie, of course, opposes this and eventually puts together a plan to build micro-homes. As one part of a greater housing plan, that’s great! Riverdale isn’t nuanced enough to broach that part but it’s not trying to as this is all window-dressing for Percival’s true plan, as set-back after set-back makes the town pliable to his machinations. By episode’s end, he’s gotten his way, sent everyone out with “$100 and a bus ticket to start a new life” – a ludicrous statement when you scratch even a micrometer beneath the surface – and Archie’s rep has been tarnished a bit in the process.
Now, that would be all fine and dandy for a regular plot but this is Riverdale so we find out, and is heavily implied early on, that Percival is telepathic and is literally brainwashing the residents of the town to support his way of thinking. A Telepathic Torry, if you will. His powers are more like suggestions, though, and depending on how open you are to the suggestions, the more they take root.
When Doc attacked Kevin, that took some real doing and wore off quickly. When Percy talked to Alice, all it took was one meeting and suddenly she was spouting Percy’s talking points and being unreasonably antagonistic to Archie’s plans, undermining them from minute one, and sticking to them. Archie, however, by virtue of his powers or his strong convictions, seems to be mostly immune. It also made me wonder if this is how they’ll walk back the identity of TBK.
All this seems like it fits into the usual brand of wacky but what makes the whole shebang absolutely, mind-blowingly perfect is how the villain of this season isn’t gangster fathers, serial killer fathers, cult leader fathers/mothers, or the like. No, the villain this season is conservatism’s grip on struggling small town America, done in only the most Riverdale of ways.
Fucking brilliant.
That about does it for now! What’d you think of the slow descent we saw this week? Was it hard to watch or were there enough scenes of Penelope Blossom freaking the fuck out to balance it all out? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you all in a week for some real juicy developments and more explosions! Until then, stay ~austere~ Riverdale
Best Line of the Night:
Archie: “Who wrote that article? Why don’t you just tell me?”
Jughead: “ Why? So you can punch them?”
