Category Archives: television

pop culture, Review, television, Thinkpiece

“PARIS”—KEEPING UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS

On March 19, Keeping Up with the Kardashians aired the episode centered around the Oct. 3 Paris robbery and assault of Kim Kardashian. The episode, titled “Paris,” was cut together clips of the Wests’ personal videographer, KUWTK film crew and camerawork done by Kim’s assistant Stephanie Sheppard. The result was 42 minutes (no commercials) of the most powerful reality television I have ever seen.

The episode was so effective because it was drastically different from how the Kardashians usually portray themselves. The blurry, ‘80s-style videography from Kanye’s personal archives is not typically (or ever) utilized in a KUWTK episode. Everyone holding a camera is a friend, rather than a crew member, meaning that Kim is much more open. That closeness between friends, Kim interacting with the camera, translates to the episode feeling much more dynamic and intimate.

The show also made the smart decision of not beginning the season with the Paris incident. In the episode-and-a-half period before the robbery, the show intentionally showcased more of Kim’s personality. She has often remarked that the show portrays her as dumber than she actually is, so this portrayal feels more authentic. We see her smiling, nosing around Khloe’s new relationship, thumbing through racks of clothing, laughing about her bodyguard tackling the butt-grabbing prankster to the ground. So when Kim finally gets robbed, and as the story gets retold through Kim and the people around her, we have become so attached to the bright, funny, sharp side of Kim that the robbery burns even brighter in comparison.

The Kardashians have built their careers on documenting their lives, but as they’ve gotten bigger, they’ve gotten better at hiding their true feelings. They say less, and everything they show is very edited. “Paris” is so raw and real and sad, that it’s antithetical to everything else they’ve ever shown.

Some people will criticize her for showing the robbery aftermath in the same way that people criticized her for documenting her life, claiming that she was the reason she got robbed. The common critique of “She flaunted her wealth” permeated every news title, the beginning of every argument. But in the same way that “she flaunted her body” is not a valid excuse for rape, flaunting anything should not be reason for inviting assault.

The gut reaction to victim-blame stems from this hatred of Kim Kardashian for being confident in her womanhood, particularly in her sexuality. Ask anyone who dislikes Kim, and it all begins with, “She’s famous for a sex tape!” As if she released it herself; as if she promoted it; as if Ray J is the most famous man in the world even though, through that logic, it should’ve promoted his career as well. A sex tape in 2007 does account for being arguably one of the most famous people in the world in 2017.

It’s the fact that Kim refused to be shamed or cowed by her sex tape. She didn’t let it define her. We as a society have such a visceral reaction to the notion of a woman not being shamed into the restrictive box set aside for female sexuality. And I truly believe that Kim refusing to be adhere to social norms led to resentment, and that resentment led to hate, and that hate led to victim-blaming.

Even though the sex tape wasn’t mentioned, it hung over the entire retelling. Because Kim is both a celebrity and a woman, the seriousness of the robbery becomes intersected with the threat of sexual assault. When the robbers came into her room, she was naked but for a robe. She detailed one robber pulling her down to the edge of the bed towards him by her legs.

“He pulled me toward him at the front of the bed and I thought, ‘OK, this is the moment they’re going to rape me,’” she said. “I fully mentally prepped myself—and then he didn’t.”

If this had been a male celebrity, I doubt that we would say that he was responsible for his assault. The notion of “asking for it” is so deeply associated with the feminine—blaming victims of rape for their assault by asking what they were wearing, how much they were drinking, who they were talking to—that anything done to a woman, especially a woman so closely linked with her sexuality, leads to victim-blaming. Because we see her “asking for it” in one sphere, and we transpose that onto another.

The Paris robbery has always turned into blaming Kim; blaming her robbery on her flaunting her wealth and life on Snapchat. But it needs to turn into a conversation on how we view women. How we shame and condemn women for owning their womanness; how we get angry about it. How we think, maybe in the darkest recesses of our inhumanity, that she had this coming.

Kim Kardashian did not have this coming. No amount of flaunting ever necessitates robbery or assault. She did nothing to deserve this. And as painful as I’m sure this reliving was for Kim, it was valuable. This is a woman who has an unparalleled platform and access. And instead of shying away from it, she used it for the broader good. She’s (hopefully) changing the way we talk about survivors of assault. Not with victim-blaming but with empathy and understanding.

“I took a tragic, horrific experience and did not let it diminish me,” said Kim on Twitter after the episode had aired. “Rather grew and evolved and allowed the experience to teach me.”

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Humor, pop culture, television

PRUSTEN (N. A NON-THREATENING VOCALIZATION) AND VANDERPUMP RULES

There’s a product on Amazon called the Baby Shusher. It’s roughly the shape of a bowling pin, bright orange and white, and—when twisting the top half—emits a loud shushing noise that’s supposed to calm down a crying baby. The loud rush of white noise counteracts their own crying and comforts them. The shushing is supposed to mimic the sound in-utero—the rushing blood of the mother’s body makes a sound louder than a vacuum cleaner—which babies have grown accustomed to in the womb.

 

Beyond the baby, various noises go so far back into the psyche that they provide instant comfort. Content tigers make the vocalization Prusten, otherwise known as chuffing, a staccato expulsion of hot air. The noise is used by mothers to calm their young, by two cats greeting each other, or in courting rituals. Trainers have found that mimicking Prusten keeps the tigers relaxed, and tigers often respond with chuffs when they see their human keepers.

For me, reality television is my Baby Shusher. It’s what I entertained myself with this past snow day. I can put on the sounds of relatively wealthy white women fighting and my anxiety goes from a boil to a simmer, my dopamine levels spike, and I become as docile as the doped-up kid from that YouTube video going, “Is this real life?”

You might think that someone with anxiety and depression would respond poorly to the sounds of people fighting. And largely, that’s true—in real life. But there’s something so deeply ingrained in my soul that reacts to people fighting that when I hear it through the computer screen, it sinks into the core of my bones like a warm bath. Likes call to likes, and external anxiety only serves to relax my internal anxiety.

 

I’ve started watching Vanderpump Rules this season. I’m a Real Housewives devotee, but Pump seemed too messy—too much drama and not even wealth—for me to engage in. And that’s true: two of the cast members live in an apartment where you can’t have the air conditioning on at the same time as the microwave because the power will go out. One person regularly has his credit card declined—though he had enough money to pay for plastic surgery to get rid of the lumps in his over-pumped pecs from “taking too many supplements” (wink, wink).

But strangely, once you get past the fact that none of them are likeable—even remotely likeable—which I previously thought was a must for watching reality television, I was irrevocably hooked. And now, I would go so far as to even say that Vanderpump Rules is possibly the greatest reality TV show…ever.

It’s six-to-eight servers (SURvers) at a popular West Hollywood bar who are all aspiring “models” or “actors” or “singers” but they’re in their mid-thirties. They get drunk and fight; get coked out and fight; fuck each other’s sig-others and fight; get engaged and fight; go to charity events and fight. And yet, they’re tied together in a Rat King-like tangle of limbs. Extricate one and they all die.

 

The editing, the tacit conversation between the producers and the audience, as we both watch these dicks drown in their own incompetence, proves more comedic than any Comedy Central special and more masterful than any Oscar nominee.

Usually there’s a Point of No Return for reality television where it gets so dark that it’s not even funny anymore. One example might be Teresa Giudice going to jail for her husband’s tax evasion. Or Kim Richards getting arrested for shoplifting at Target. These are moments so dark that they pull at the internal meat of our hearts—going beyond pathos or empathy and turning into complete, heart-rending disgust and sorrow.

But for some reason, because you start out hating every single character on Vanderpump Rules, there is no moment too dark to take pleasure in. It’s Schadenfreude at its finest. Not when Scheana is talking about how she and her husband went to couples’ therapy once and didn’t need it ever again—knowing that months later, he would clear out her bank account and go Zero Dark Thirty on her, ending in a nasty divorce. Not when Toms Sandoval and Schwartz are literally sobbing—in full drag—at Schwartz’s New Orleans bachelor party because he hates his fiancée so vehemently. Not when Stassi gets turned off by a guy because while he’s not “murder-y,” he’s not “manslaughter-y” enough for her.

I watch these people go from bad to worse—furthering down the path of irredeemable-ness—and instead of being turned off, it soothes me in such a deep way it’s scary. It’s the reflection and fulfillment of your own oilslick soul playing out in (relative) real time, while you can nestle into your comforter and just watch the trainwreck smolder. The sounds of their fighting—over boys and money and liquor bottles at clubs—unlocks my rigid spine and ungirds my muscles until I’m a dazed, big-eyed mess.

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Source: Giphy//Note, this is the MOST normal cast member.

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pop culture, Rambles, television

THE KARDASHIAN AQUARIUM

Written late. I’m going to blame this going up late on the time-change, which is not at all true but you’ll never prove that. I mean, I just admitted to it, but will that hold up in court? Unclear.

This morning (my morning, your mid-afternoon), while I bustled around getting ready (doing dishes in my towel because I’m using this weird in-shower tanning moisturizer because clearly I don’t know when to quit while I’m ahead re God’s choices for my body; making my bed; choosing what plain t-shirt to overwear today) I watched the season 13 premiere of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It’s been, like, so long since it’s been on—and so much has happened since then, even though the premiere was probably filmed in late September—that I almost forgot what it was like to watch KUWTK.

For instance, I don’t even need to be paying attention. I was doing dishes while it played, because by now, I understand that what happens in the “Coming Up” segment is essentially all you need to know for the next portion of the episode until the following commercial break. Also, they speak so quietly that I had to put on subtitles, and when I wasn’t looking at it, I knew that they would be lying on their sides lithely, picking at their acrylics, wearing hoop earrings, that I wasn’t missing anything.

Watching the Kardashians is like going to the aquarium. The main reason you go to the aquarium is because the fish are pretty, and it’s a glimpse into a world that you would know nothing about otherwise. To live amongst the fishes, you must forgo oxygen. To live amongst the Kardashians, it’s kind of the same thing. I don’t have elaborate parties at Prime One Twelve in Miami for my personal assistant. I don’t occasionally drop into my New York brick-and-mortar shop.

By the by, the Kardashians should sell DASH to Nordstrom. To not to that would be so fucking dumb. Make like Topshop and put that shit in a department store. Pls.

I don’t arrange for four extra rooms in a luxury hotel for my NBA player boyfriend and his crew. I don’t have a crew.

For these reasons, amongst a thousand others, I watch the Kardashians. Kylie and Kendall weren’t in the episode at all (apparently Kylie is gunning for a Kyga reality show—because that worked so well with Khlomar) and Kris only popped up at the end to wear power blazers and talk about baking cinnamon rolls. My family is boring and not even we have conversations this boring.

But I watch, and in the moments where I’m not fluffing my duvet (not a euphemism) or picking a cologne (out of two options) I’m glued to the screen. There’s something so alluring about these people—like watching Galatea come to life and talk about beanies. They’re hyper-human; they’re hyper-beautiful; they’re hyper-rich. And the fact that they have the most mundane conversations is part of the appeal; that people with this much beauty, influence, wealth and power could actually be so boring. STUN.

I think what I’m most excited for (besides the Paris saga) is Blonde Kylie. I was a huge stan for Blylie, and every day I miss that blonde bombshell moment she went through. Best few months OF MY LIFE. Also, I just realized that months ago, I tweeted that if Kylie did not release a line of highlighters called “KyLighters” that everything she’d done would be for naught. And guess what!!! It’s not for naught because she released Kylighters!!!! I can’t believe I’m psychic.

Side bar—there was a point sophomore year that I was legitimately convinced that I was psychic and I truly believed I could predict the future. So maybe this is my second wind!

I like how all I thought to write about was the Kardashians and even with that, it’s taken me, like, an hour to get this far. Not all heroes wear capes though, because I’m managing to finish this 4 my fans. Actually, though, I totally would wear a cape—very chic. Although very fall.

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Source: Danny McCarthy// My current background

Is there anything left to say? I switched out my phone cases because “if I had to look at my clear phone case for another second, I would’ve flipped out” and that’s too extreme of a reaction to have about anything. My new one is silicone-y and says “Chill pills” which isn’t basic of me because, technically, I am on chill pills. It’s ironic and subversive. Fuck off.

I love my life. I love the Kardashians. I love cauliflower.

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Source: Twitter//Peep the time-stamp; who’s gonna tell my Twitter about Daylights Savings?

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Review, television

REVIEW of RIVERDALE EP. 7, “In a Lonely Place”

Grade: C+/B- (Because it’s getting better)

This episode was titled, “In a Lonely Place”, but it could’ve easily been an homage to The Searchers. Everyone is drifting restlessly—the Cooper & Co search brigade looking for Polly, Jughead going from the drive-in to the high school to his home to Archie’s, Veronica torn between dueling familial loyalties, and Polly, hiding in the Cooper attic because no one thought to look right under their noses. Even The Blossom family, who show up to the Find Preggo Polly Forest Walk with Ramsay Bolton’s hunting hounds (chic), are somersaulting between cartoonishly evil and mournful.

For the past few episodes, I’ve been sorely disappointed in Riverdale. All the drama and progressiveness that they promised (and delivered) in the beginning have dusted over and I’ve been lagging in enthusiasm for the last few weeks. But this episode I realized the overall structure. The first episodes were the first foot dropping—the loud clang of Jason Blossom’s murder, the salacious affair of Archie and Ms. Grundy. But these last few weeks have been dredging up an undeniable dread as we wait for the other foot to drop. If that first foot jolts you out of hazy slumber, then this is the heavy pause as we wait to find out if it’s just the creaking of the wooden floorboards, or if someone unwanted is just on the other side of the door.

And judging from the person watching from the bushes, there is.

In a welcome change of pace, we’re shifting our focus this week from tyrannical moms—your Mayor McCoys, your Alice Coopers—to hot, deadbeat dads. We were introduced to Fred Andrews a while back—“you gotta choose between music and football!”—and now we’re getting acquainted with Juggie’s adorable, alcoholic father, FP Jones.

As Jughead intones in his voiceover about the concept of home—he’s currently sleeping Harry Potter-style in a Riverdale High closet, we are treated to a 1950s dark-thriller version of Riverdale. The characters are in their classic comic couture, except Archie has a massive steak-knife in his back. And given what’s later revealed, that knife might’ve landed in the wrong person. Jughead’s secret was apparently well-hidden until Archie, sweaty but NOT shirtless, found Jughead brushing his teeth in the boys’ locker room. That catapults the main drama of the episode—getting FP a second chance at Andrews Construction and letting us know the scraggly, sexy Southside Serpent a little better.

I feel like we’re losing touch with Archie, and that makes me sad. The writers have a hard time balancing characters, because the people I was most interested in, Archie and Kevin, have faded to the background (Kevin completely) when other characters are brought forward and fleshed out. Archie is stagnant in character development—he’s largely reactionary—while we’re getting deeper into Veronica’s vulnerabilities and loyalty to her father, and Jughead’s family life, and Betty’s steel core about her sister. Kevin has disappeared completely—possibly he has been stabbed to death by the Southside Serpent he made out with—when it’s easily possible for him to be tagging along with the gang solving this murder. Has he been busy with Calculus?

But the Prodigal Gay returns in the only way Riverdale seems aware of how to deal with him—as a prop. In retaliation for Hermione forging Veronica’s signature on the paperwork to give the drive-in lot to Andrews Construction, Veronica goes full Cady Heron-house party. She gets her best black friend, the TRAGICALLY UNDERUTILIZED Josie McCoy, and a hot meathead, Reggie Butler, and the town gay, Kevin, to go out with her to—I’m assuming—a teen club to make her mom jealous. Using minorities for plot progression obviously works, because in the end, the Lodge household is hunky-dory.

But that’s (maybe?) the B-plot. Honestly, there are so many different threads it’s impossible to keep track. But in dueling lowercase a-plots, the boyz are trying to get their fathers back together, while Betty and Cheryl figure out what to do with Preggo Polly and J.J.’s baby. Just kid stuff. After Preggo Polly Hulk-Smashed her way out of a two-story asylum room, her family was understandably concerned. Did she land on her feet, the ground beneath her cracked at the impact? Did she rise up, flipping her gossamer blonde hair out of her face, readjust her headband, and waddle away like the Marvel superhero she is? Because that’s the only way Polly wouldn’t have had her legs shattered from the impact of being a heavily-pregnant teenager dropping twenty feet in the air.

Cheryl is down to help with the baby because she’s Cersei-obsessed with Jason, but realizes too late that her parents have more sinister machinations at hand with the Coopers. So the girls decide that Polly can’t be out in the open, so they ship her to the Pembrooke with the Lodges.

Archie and Jughead get their fathers together where it comes to light that Andrews Construction was co-founded by both men until Fred bought FP out of the business while the latter was in jail. The action was taken to protect the business and the Andrews family but, as Archie points out, unhooking yourself from a drowning man doesn’t mean that all the innocent (i.e. Jughead) get saved.

And as The Tragedy of Jughead continues, Chief Keller unfairly and stereotypically attempts to pin the murder on Jughead. He and Betty both had prints at the car, but since Jughead is a latchkey kid, Keller pulled his file to find out that, AS A TEN-YEAR-OLD, Juggie was playing with matches and almost burned the school down. That, alongside Jughead’s bad grades, record of being bullied and unfortunate first name, means that he is the only one to be able to commit Jason’s murder. Because when in doubt, blame a victim.

This is ludicrous, of course, but this is coming from a man who had a laissez-faire attitude towards his son cruising for dick in the woods and let himself be bullied around by Penelope Blossom. It goes without saying that Chief Keller, like all the adults in Riverdale, is incompetent and just plain bad at his job. Without siding too much with a child rapist, it almost makes sense why Ms. Grundy dated a kid—all the adults are committing fraud, or adultery, or just plain bad decisions.

And in the last few scenes, we’re treated to concrete reasons as to why the dads on this show are as bad as the moms. While Chief Keller is busy victim-blaming innocent teenagers, Fred Andrews is manipulating timecards to provide Jughead with a false alibi and FP, that sexy serpent, is drunkenly lumbering around his (I’m assuming) trailer.

He stumbles, beer in hand, across a room littered with old bottles and unwashed plates piled high in the sink. The camera slowly pans over broken sofas and clothes strewn across the floor to an open wardrobe. And there, nestled between old Ed Hardy t-shirts and ragged flannel, is a pristine, royal-blue letterman jacket. It smells faintly of gasoline, smoke and sweat. And embroidered cleanly on the breast in golden-yellow thread is a name.

Jason.

So we might’ve found the person watching from the bushes. And with one question answered, a host of new ones crop up. How? When? And Why?

*****

Next week: “The Outsiders”

 

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

  • Did anyone else notice the weirdly-inappropriate background music?
  • #ShagginWagon
  • “My mom sat me down on the edge of my canopy bed…”
  • ARCHIE: “Hey Mr. Southside Serpent, what did you mean when you said my dad owed you? You have a rage problem and got fired for stealing, but can I ask you this inflammatory question?”
  • Fred Andrews looks like a sad, sexy turtle
  • This interaction:                                                                                                                                                                       CHIEF KELLER: You’ve been bullied a lot.                                                                                                    JUGHEAD: Yeah, my name is Jughead.
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Review, television

REVIEW of RIVERDALE EP. 6, “Faster, Pussycats! Kill! Kill!”

Veronica Ex Machina

Grade: D

Finding Polly has been the buildup of the last few episodes. First we learn that she went “crazy.” Then we learn that she’s been locked away. Then we learn that she and Jason were engaged. She seems, at least to the Sleuthsters, to be the key to this puzzle surrounding Jason’s murder.

Yeah, no.

Everything about this episode felt just a little bit wonky. The acting was wrong, the buildups were wrong, the climaxes were anti. And I understand, this is a new show and this was a major moment, but I left this episode feeling more disappointed than satisfied, and that’s even with someone burning up a crime-scene car. How lit.

Jughead’s voiceover plays with “fear.” The fear from your past, the fear in your head, the fear coiling itself tightly around your “guts.” Archie’s fear is performing his music. Other people’s fear is that there is a murderer on the loose, but Archie is afraid his voice will crack.

It’s Variety Show time at Riverdale High and guess who’s the emcee! Everyone’s favorite gay plaything—Kevin Keller! For someone who seemed like a big character in the first episode, Kevin has been shoved quickly into the far reaches of the broom closet.

Archie is struggling because he’s just so good at football but music, music means more to him. So he decides to Yoko Ono Josie and the Pussycats and steal Val away to form a duo. Val does it because she has no agency and because this is Archie’s world and we’re all just living in it.

In her role as simultaneously awesome and a pushover, Veronica had offered to sing with Archie because she’s a good person and can sing. He accepted but as soon as Val quit the Pussycats, he Tonya Harding-ed him and Veronica and stuck with Val. Nice, you asshole. In “retribution,” Veronica fills Val’s spot in the Pussycats, fulfilling the guidelines Mayor McCoy laid out for her daughter: “skinny, pretty—but not as skinny or pretty as you. And a woman of color.” So, yay (?) for female empowerment?

Speaking of which—I’M TIRED OF THE MOTHERS OF RIVERDALE GIVING THEIR DAUGHTERS COMPLEXES. Hermione is doing shady dealings with the Southside Serpents and making out with Fred Andrews (oh yeah, that happens this episode). Archie’s mom bailed. Mayor McCoy is doing backdoor deals. And ALICE COOPER LOCKED HER DAUGHTER AWAY. Please, you guys need to watch Bravo’s There Goes the Motherhood. It’ll be very educational for you.

So while everyone in Riverdale is being terrible, Juggie and Betty head to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy—basically that lobotomy asylum from Sucker Punch—to visit Polly. She’s in the garden.

SPOILER ALERT. SPOILER AHEAD.

…

Polly is pregnant. I mean, if you didn’t guess that that’s what was happening, you’re not paying attention. She’s pregnant with Jason’s baby, doesn’t realize he’s dead, and is just a lil bit crazy. But, hunny, aren’t we all?

(No).

Polly thinks that she and Jason—two sixteen-year-olds—could run away from their parents, have a baby and start a new life together. She is literally bonkers. Hun. Hang with the nuns, hun.

Of course, Alice Cooper finds her daughters together and (albeit crying) lets them drag Polly away back to the loony bin. Back at the Coop, Betty accuses her dad of murdering Jason (#maplemurdermotive) and Alice startS. CACKLING. She says that her husband doesn’t have the guts to kill anyone (which, in any other world, would be a compliment) and she wishes that they had killed Jason. So scratch those freaks off the list.

Archie and Val decide that Val needs to go back to the Pussycats—Archie sings alone, it’s a passable 8/10 but he’s hot so it’s a 9/10.

And now for the real thing that grinds my gears. Back in the pre-season, Cole Sprouse said that he wanted Jughead to be asexual, which I was like, “Wow, how woke.” I don’t know if there’s been an asexual main character on TV before. This was also before I realized that Kevin Keller/Casey Cott was problematic and I was so on board with the queerness of Riverdale. EXCEPT JUGGIE AND BETTY MAKE OUT. So much for asexuality, you asshole.

Following a tip from Preggo Polly (sister of Petty Betty), the Sleuthsters travel deep into the woods to find Jason’s getaway car—packed with drugs. What was she planning, amiright? They leave to get Chief Keller, but not before the camera pans to someone watching them from the bushes. THE ONLY GOOD PART. And when they return with the chief, the car is engulfed in flames. Kind of a great metaphor for this episode.

In the beginning of the episode, Veronica calls herself “Veronica Ex Machina.” The phrase comes from deus ex machina, a plot device used in plays that neatly resolves seemingly unresolvable conflicts right at the end. Veronica indeed operated as such: she was the connection between all the various plots going on this episode, and she “saved” the day with the Pussycats. But ironically this episode was completely deus ex machina-ed. Nothing felt resolved and yet, superficially, it was. And at the last, literally last, moments, you get drama to hook you into the next episode.

Someone is watching. The burning car. And Preggo Polly hulk-smashed her way out of a two-story window somehow. What the fuck—this girl needs to be locked up.

Overall, I was left wanting more. The juicy, salacious thriller of the first few episode has dulled into bit of a plodding mess, but I love the show and I want the best for it. Hon! Give me what I need!

NEXT WEEK: “In A Lonely Place”

 

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

  • NO SHIRTLESS ARCHIE.
  • Kevin is the Variety Show Host, because let’s just give the gay any drama work, right?
    • GIVE KEVIN A ROLE
  • Wait, hold up—is the third pussycat named Mal
  • Archie is boring when he’s not fucking a teacher—is that so dark that I just said that?
  • The song that Archie and Val were singing when Veronica walked in on them was…bad
  • Ginger Judas is my new fragrance
  • Are we gonna gloss over the fact that Polly Cooper is maybe 17 at best?
  • Josie’s a little heavy on the autotune.
  • Can I just say? It was a little anticlimactic to meet Polly
  • WHAT DID YOU THINK JOSIE STOOD FOR, ARCHIE?
    • #JosephineBaker
  • Small note; if you locked your daughter in an asylum I feel like you wouldn’t call her “crazy.” You would use the actual terms, hunny.
  • OH so now Fred Andrews is chill about Archie’s music? Cuz the first few episodes you wanted to lock Archie Polly-style in a locker room
  • Veronica’s eyebrows are slightly wonky and it bugs me out
  • “I was born alone, I’ll die alone, I’ll sing alone” I need you to take a step back
  • Josie sad-voguing is me always
  • I CAN’T with Reggie and the football players catcalling Archie
    • A) The wolf masks
    • B) Hunny, you’re at the variety show auditions and the variety show—maybe you should stick to football, or go watch some VH1
  • So weird that Archie, played by a Kiwi, sang his song The SAME DAY that another Kiwi, Lorde, released hers.
  • So the football players stop heckling Archie because his song was beautiful? How gay is that?
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television

REVIEW of RIVERDALE EP. 5, “Heart of Darkness”

Grade: B

Out of all the horrors incurred upon Jason Blossom—shot in the face, forced to wear white, having creepy-as-fuck parents, bound and tortured for a week—perhaps the greatest one is the sickly-sweet nickname that Cheryl has for him: “JJ.”

Jason Blossom, whose previous acting credits include being a beautiful mannequin and “playing” “football,” is most definitely not a “JJ.”

This episode was all about the Blossoms—Penelope, Clifford and Cheryl (and also Grandmama Blossom)—living on the creepy Thornhill estate, the “house that all the kids avoid” (according to Jughead). The Thornhill estate includes: one massive mansion, an enjoined cemetery, and creepy-beautiful flowers that have flourished from soil nutrient-rich from decaying Blossom carcasses. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Blossom to blossom—haven’t we all heard that before? And even though the body of Jason is being laid to rest in the ground this episode, the questions surrounding his death are scraping their way to the surface.

After waking from a nightmare where—I swear to God—I thought Cheryl was going to climb into Jason’s coffin, Cheryl finds her mother staring at her. Cheryl has taken to sleeping on Jason’s bed to get inspiration for her memorial speech. Well, not too fast, because Cheryl won’t be speaking at Jason’s memorial, according to Penelope.

However, with the help of Veronica—who we’re calling “Ronnie” now? Unclear—“Hermes” Lodge, Cheryl gets her groove back. She invites Veronica over for a “sleepover” the night before the memorial—a sleepover that Veronica soon finds involves no one else but a dinner with the Blossoms where Mr. Blossom makes cruel digs over Hiram Lodge’s imprisonment. Sounds like a dinner at my house. But when Veronica finds out that Cheryl has been banned from speaking at the memorial, she resolves to help Cheryl. Any way she can.

“Heart of Darkness” saw the return of Shirtless Archie. He’s beating up a punching bag (is it redundant to say “punching a punching bag”?) in his room. He wants to get football captain, because getting captain gets him a scholarship, which gets him into college, which gets him into studying music. Has he thought of YouTube tutorials? One taught me how to knit, so I’m sure one could teach him about song-writing. Archie and Reggie square off to see who will be the captain. Spoiler alert: Archie gets it because despite being wildly sleep-deprived and under-qualified and young, the hot white guy always gets it. He’ll turn it down for music so that Reggie can have it—but Archie gets it first.

But because Riverdale is cruel, while we do have Shirtless Archie, we also have “Brooding Weirdly” Archie, and “Archie Together with Val of the Pussycats” Archie. Val gives Archie the connection to a new music tutor—Richie from HBO’s Looking—who, like everyone else, treats Archie so mean about his music. Archie is a gorgeous, strong-jawed musical athlete—HOLLYWOOD WILL SNATCH HIM UP. WHY IS NO ONE REALIZING THIS? DID NONE OF YOU WATCH GLEE?

Archie’s main task of the week is to write music, you know, while Veronica helps Cheryl get over the death of her brother, and Jughead and Betty try to solve Jason’s murder. Because you don’t always get the same as your friends.

Remember last week when I said that the tacit connections between Jason and Archie are becoming obvious to me? Well I was sort of right all along. Archie reveals—to Music Teacher Richie—that he began writing songs over the summer, and the first one was about Jason.

Side bar—wouldn’t it be amazing if Archie turned out to be bisexual and previously dated Jason?

But because we live in a gross world, I doubt that’ll happen, so Archie is just a murder-obsessed freakazoid. It’s like how Hayden Christensen played Anakin Skywalker and you forgive the fact that he’s an egomaniacal killer because he’s gorgeous. Hot people get an unnecessary amount of passes—and I know this because if I didn’t look the way I do, I would’ve been citizen-arrested by now.

The second instance is at the memorial. Archie has been wearing Jason’s number (oh that too) but retires it into the care of Mrs. Blossom. Penelope, who has been literally a monster, falters at the sight of Archie in his letterman jacket and red hair. She reaches up and caresses his face.

“You’re so much like him.”

That one small moment humanizes Penelope as more than a heartless bitch. She’s a woman who lost her son horribly, whose daughter lied to her, whose husband has an unfortunate haircut. There’s only so much one woman can take.

In the Adventures of Betty and Jughead (and I guess Kevin), they’re working on replicating Chief Keller’s “murder board.” Betty is going on a “date” with Trav, who was friends with Jason. Kevin wants to know if it’s more than a date—because gay people just exist to ask their straight friends about dating!!

Petty B and Juggie decide that during the memorial, they’ll sneak into Jason’s room for clues. Because the dead may tell no tales, but their browser histories do. Mine doesn’t, because I use Incognito, but the main search engine in this town is something called “Sleuthster” so all bets are off. They learn from Trav that Jason was selling off his possessions before he disappeared, and he was also selling drugs. The plot thickens.

MEMORIAL. Cheryl shows up in a STUNNING WHITE DRESS—the same one she was in when she last saw Jason. Archie is wearing a letterman’s jacket because he has no respect for fashion rules. Betty and Juggie sneak upstairs where they loudly open drawers until the Blossom Grandmama reveals herself from the shadow.

She mistakes Betty for Polly and drops the major bomb that Jason and Polly were engaged. But Jason and Polly got into a fight, Polly tried to kill herself and was carted off to an asylum. It’s revealed that Hal Cooper—Betty’s dad and someone who I have NEVER seen before—knew all this. Hal’s anger over the Blossom family turns out to be incredibly deep-rooted. Generations ago, Great-Grandfather Blossom and Great-Grandfather Cooper were in the maple business together. Blossom didn’t want to share his profits so he murdered Cooper—duh. Murdered over maple. It’s a blood (maple) feud that tried to keep Jason and Polly apart.

In not even a B-plot (maybe a lowercase “c”) Fred Andrews flirts with Hermione Lodge, who shuts it down until the South Side Serpents threaten her with a live snake and Fred comes to her rescue.

Overall, the Sleuthsters determine that Hal Cooper is the one who stole the murder board from the Keller’s house. And now Hal is a suspect in Jason’s murder, with motives old and new.

Maybe this call is coming from inside the house.

And in the last moments, the Sleuthsters realize that they need to talk to Polly. YES. FINALLY.

NEXT WEEK: Faster, Pussycats! Kill! Kill!

 

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

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Source: CW//RICHIE

  • The characters pronounce Music Teacher’s name—Mr. Castillo—with such a forced foreignness, it’s bizarre.
  • This dialogue: VAL: “I heard Ms. Grundy used to tutor you.” VERONICA: “Understatement of the year.”
  • How many different-colored veils does Cheryl own?
  • Why are we not surprised that Archie has a punching bag in his room?
  • “She’s sick, and Jason made her sick.”
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Review, television

REVIEW of RIVERDALE EP. 4, “The Last Picture Show”

Grade: B (good, but filler)

The town of Riverdale unfolds with every episode, the corners of the map stretching farther and farther, wider and wider. This is the first week where the drama took place almost entirely outside of the high school, and just that shifted the entire tone. In a lot of ways, the episode was just like the drive-in movie, the last one before the theater shuts down. You’re watching the drama, and even when the tension gets racheted up, you feel largely cossetted and safe. You know that what you’re watching won’t leave the screen, but you can’t shake the feeling of melancholy with the knowledge that as every second slips by, the movie is getting closer and closer to the end.

Side bar: The tone of each episode oscillates wildly. So while I enjoyed this episode, it was a total filler episode after last week’s LITERAL INSANITY. #StickyMaple

Rewatching last week’s promo for this episode, the CW definitely fucks with your head. They made it seem like Grundy was a psycho-killer, who killed the real Geraldine Grundy and took on her life like a snake slithering back into a dry, papery shedded husk. But tonight the drama was minimal—especially compared to episode three, the fourth episode was decidedly placid. The tension was eerie and achey. Within the span of hours, multiple main characters found out about the relationship between Archie and Ms. Grundy.

At the end of last episode, Dilton Doiley told Jughead and Betty that he had spotted Ms. Grundy’s car on the banks of Sweetwater River the day Jason Blossom was supposedly killed (we know now that Jason died almost a week later). Betty knows that Archie was also at the river’s edge that day, and quickly puts together the obvious. I mean, she didn’t witness the two idiots making out in band room like Jughead did, but she’s not dim.

But once Betty knows, the entire cast of characters glossed over the whole “statutory rape” aspect of Ms. Grundy and Archie’s relationship real quick, if you ask me. Like, I don’t mean to cause drama, but if it had been Mr. Grundy and Archina, I’m betting Grundy would be hogtied in someone’s car trunk by this point. But that’s just my opinion.

Because Archie is actually maybe an idiot, Betty takes it upon herself to dig into Ms. Grundy’s past. She finds that there is no trace of her from beyond a year ago—the only Geraldine Grundy she found was an elderly woman who had died previously. SpOoKy. And using journalism as a cover for a probing investigation—jorunalism is really given a bad rep in this show, no thanks to the fucking Cooper family—Betty discovers something quite…interesting.

Jason Blossom was a private student of Ms. Grundy’s last year. That Jason Blossom.

The episode strengthened the tacit parallels between Archie and Jason, something I no longer think is coincidence. It happens first when Grundy drops the knowledge that Jason was a past student of hers, the overarching question of, “What kind of relationship was it?” And later, Betty and Mrs. Cooper are at odds in Betty’s bubblegum-fantasy room when Betty makes her mother say her name.

“Elizabeth Cooper,” says Mrs. Cooper, in the only real emotion I’ve seen on her face.

“Not Polly Cooper. And Archie is not Jason.” But the parallelisms are already in place: the world sees these two redheaded boys (one decidedly brawnier and hotter than the other: spoiler, it’s not the one in white kid gloves) as mirrors of each other.

I always begin every episode thinking Betty is so cool and fun, and end every episode thinking she should be committed. This episode was the rare exception, but I’m not holding my breath. Whether she’s breaking into Ms. Grundy’s car and finding her real ID (Jennifer Gibson) AND A GUN or trying to get Archie to see that Grundy is, like, definitely a child predator, Betty was MVP this episode.

An example of this would be this small exchange when Betty is trying to convince Archie to open his eyes. She has found the gun and the real ID.

BETTY: You didn’t ask anything about her name? Where she had been before this? Why not?

ARCHIE (in his head): Um she’s a teacher sleeping with a student; kind of assumed it was obvious she’s a creep.

ARCHIE (out loud): She’s not doing anything wrong.

In the B-plot, essentially every parent in Riverdale is the absolute worst. Veronica, shoved to the backseat this episode, witnesses her mother do some shady dealings with Riverdale’s local gang—the South Side Serpents. Just a comment, but even the gangs in this town sound like something out of West Side Story.

Hermione Lodge tries to convince her daughter that everything is fine, but after a shady dealing with the mayor—Josie’s mom—we learn that from jail, Mr. Lodge has been paying the South Side Serpents to terrorize the drive-in theater, depreciate its value, and then snap it up for real estate development. Remember this—I can’t even do math without a calculator.

Side bar: When someone says “When have I ever lied to you” when assuring someone they’re telling the truth, you can almost be certain that they are lying to you right now, and probably every other moment of your life.

In fact, all the parents are the worst tonight. The Serpent who was threatening Hermione is Jughead’s dad. Josie’s mom is engaged in backdoor deals. Alice Cooper finds Grundy’s gun hidden in Betty’s room and characterizes it as “just for starters” as wrong. JUST FOR STARTERS. And my favorite (sarcasm) gay (only gay) on the show—Kevin Keller—finally gets a storyline (making out with a gang member). And guess what, it’s about dudes. Kevin asks for the truck and his dad, Chief Keller, is like “please no more cruising.” If my dad had found me cruising guys in the woods and later I asked for the truck, he would be like, “What truck” because we don’t own a truck. But then he would break my legs. Who are these parents?!

Finally, Alice Cooper tells Archie’s dad that Grundy is sleeping with his son. They go to the school—WHERE ARCHIE HAS JUST GIVEN GRUNDY A GIFT—and confront her. Alice says the magic words, “Child predator”—the ones that no one has thought to say before this—and is just about to ruin both Grundy and Archie when Betty steps in.

Side bar: What is with the victim-blaming on Riverdale? First Grundy says that if they come clean, Archie will get expelled? And now Mrs. Cooper is blaming Archie for sleeping with a predator? Guys, let’s have some chill.

Betty threatens that she’s pretend she made the whole thing up and confirm everyone’s worst fears—that Betty is crazy like Polly, and Alice drove her to it. thankfully, the small part of Alice Cooper that is still human recognizes her daughter’s resolve, and settles for just driving Grundy out of town.

BETTY ROCKS.

This episode was largely a stand-alone—it hardly dealt with the murder. But to keep the thread strong, the last scenes of the episode are the Kellers’ arriving back home from the movie to a door slightly ajar. Papa Keller’s murder collage for Jason Blossom has been ripped down, and the mystery of Jason’s killer continues. Overall this episode was a yaas.

NEXT WEEK: The funeral of Jason Blossom, redhead at large.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

  • Archie wasn’t shirtless at all. And we had to see him crying. Double boner killer.
  • Presented without comment: Jellybean Jones.
  • Not thinking ahead is kind of what fucks over every statutory rapist in the end—when it comes down to the brass tacks. Also the whole “fucking an underage kid” thing. Who am I to judge? Love is love. Except when it’s, you know, not.
  • This time I’m on Betty’s side. “I’ll prove that crazy runs in the family.” UM HENNY U ALREADY DID THAT LAST WEEK.
  • Kevin makes eye contact with a gay snake, AND a homosexual South Side Serpent (self-five).
  • ARE. A. CHILD. PREDATOR. JENNIFER. And stop wearing those Lolita heart-sunglasses, dick.
  • Mrs Cooper says CHILD PREDATOR: but then she’s a freak about Archie. For one second I was on your side, Alice!!! Fuckk
  • I thought that either the SSS was stabbing Kevin or fucking him, and I can’t decide which I would rather see less. Of course, the serpent’s name is Joaquin, because why not.
  • Jughead is homeless!!!!
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LGBTQ, television

THE GAY-FOR-PAY PROBLEM ON CW’S RIVERDALE

Adapted from a column written for class. 

If you watch bad television enough, you begin to realize that hot people are all hot in the same way. And if you watch bad young-adult television enough, you begin to realize that all hot gay guys on television tend to look exactly the same. They just cloning the same beautiful people over and over again—Brave New World-style.

CW’s Riverdale is a dark, sultry teen-thriller interpretation of the Archie comics. The show mixes the idealistic setting of the comic, which began issue in 1942, with weird, neon sex appeal. The show carried onto screen Kevin Keller, the first openly gay character in the comic. It was a breakthrough in the comic and it was a breakthrough on screen—in pre-premiere interviews, the cast prized the character Kevin as “more than” a gay best friend, sassy sidekick or comic relief. He would have a storyline, nuance and depth. Great.

On screen, Kevin Keller is played by Casey Cott. When I first saw him, I thought Cott looked familiar: gorgeous in the Ken Doll, teen drama kind of way. Full lips, chiseled jaw, dark hair parted severely. But then I realized that he just looked like every hot twentysomething playing a fourteen-year-old on TV, and I assumed that the actor was gay. I assumed Cott was gay because…I just did. I had no reason to not to.

I followed him on Instagram because I’m a masochist and love to torture myself with photos of more attractive, more successful gays. I saw that he had posted a ton of photos with his cast members. That’s how they’re marketing themselves: best buddies—two straws, one milkshake kind of buddies.

Side bar: I’m not close enough with anyone to split a milkshake with them. And I’m not friends with anyone stupid enough to try.

One blonde girl kept popping up in every photo who wasn’t a cast member. It would be him in a close-fitting fedora (very LA), leading man KJ Apa (Archie Andrews), and Blonde Girl. Him, co-star Madelaine Petsch (Cheryl Blossom), and Blonde Girl. Blonde Girl everywhere. I thought she was a close friend, a far-distant E-list celebrity/YouTube star/model who was hitching her wagon to his. I accepted that explanation because I know when I become famous, I’m going to drag some of my friends into stardom with me. Everyone needs personal assistants, amiright?

Curious after seeing her multiple times, I clicked on her tag and went to her profile. Her curation of photos was much more deliberately of him and sans the Riverdale cast. Her and Casey Cott on set. Her and Casey getting coffee. Casey and her dog, playing together. The pieces began to fall together and the truth was confirmed with her caption under the photo of Casey and the dog.

“PSA: Your dog will steal your man.”

They were dating; this groundbreaking historic gay character was being played by another straight guy.

It shouldn’t matter—but it does.

On the show, Casey toed the line of playing to the stereotype and then subverting it when playing Kevin. I mean, they ended the first episode with Kevin going to hook up with a closeted football player on the riverbank and finding Jason Blossom’s dead body. So when Kevin was overplaying the flamboyance and I thought the actor was gay, I accepted it.

Part of Riverdale’s charm is indulging stereotypes only to discard them. The classic trope of Archie as a jock torn between music and sports is dragged up tiredly, only to be tossed aside when Veronica Lodge asked, “Can’t we, in this post-James Franco world, just be all things at once?” And so I assumed that’s what they were doing with Kevin—trying to by cheeky. They were saying, “Hey, you know we don’t actually think gay people act like this—we’re chiller than that.”

I took it as ironically challenging the stereotype; of toying with expectations until he was given a deeper storyline. But even if Kevin Keller gets a great storyline later on, a part of me will forever be salty.

It was revolutionary to have a gay character introduced into the canon of a comic series that began in 1942. It’s not revolutionary to have a straight guy playing gay on screen, no matter how much winking accompanies the bitchy rapport. It invokes the very damaging idea of “gay for pay” (an entire OTHER article that I need time to unpack), that the most attractive thing for a gay guy to aspire towards is actually heterosexuality. 

Riverdale marketed itself as sexy, bold and risk-taking. It made the conscious effort to be “woke.” The character of Josie—of the Pussycats—is played by Ashleigh Murray, a woman of color. Cole Sprouse made the comment that he hopes his character, Jughead Jones, is portrayed as asexual. (Thank you?)

But the fact that the only gay character, in a line-up of actors so bland you could bag them as Wonder Bread and sell them for sandwiches, is played by a straight person undercuts any progress they think they’ve made. Because the acting choices Cott made when I thought he was gay turn from satirical to patronizing.

There’s the argument that the actor was simply the best person for the role. And maybe that’s true, but there were definitely gay, bisexual and queer actors who auditioned for the part. Actors who were probably handsome in the exact same way as Casey Cott, with the same full lips and dark, severely parted hair. Actors who do not have the advantage, unlike Cott, of oftentimes playing the reverse. Straight actors can play gay roles, and are often congratulated for them, but the opposite is hardly ever the case.

The easiest question is “Why not?”

Why not go the extra mile and find someone who is actually representative of the progress you are so proudly claiming? If it was a priority to honor the character of Kevin by bringing him to the screen, why was it not a priority to honor the character by finding him a gay actor? Because it’s 2017 and if you’re going to be resting on the laurels of progressiveness, you should be progressive in every aspect.

It shouldn’t matter, and maybe it won’t eventually, but it does right now. We as a community have fought for too long for half as much. And it might be childish to invoke the struggles of the community when discussing a CW show. But it’s what that CW show stands for. Honor our stories and our identities by giving work to someone who can tell that story. The problem is not that Casey Cott isn’t a great actor, or that he portrays the character well. It’s that there was a queer actor who probably could’ve done the role just as well. We shouldn’t accept whatever portrayals we can get. We shouldn’t accept the minimum. That’s not fair. And that’s not right.

Will I still watch the show? Yes—I’m hooked. Will I still recap it? Yes. But this was also bugging me, and I needed to figure out why.

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Review, television

REVIEW of RIVERDALE EP. 3, “Body Double”

Grade: A

The second episode of any series typically has a dip. The first episode sets up all the drama, and the second episode catches people up and fills in background. So the third episode of Riverdale, with the background of episode two’s “A Touch of Evil,” is able to forage onto new ground.

Betty resurrects the school newspaper because, when in doubt and your idyllic town has recently had a horrific murder, high school journalism is the answer. But given the fact that Betty’s mother, Alice Cooper, runs the Riverdale Register and printed all the leaked details of Jason’s autopsy and a front-page story with the headline “Cheryl: Guilty as Sin,” maybe some new journalism is healthy.

Like I predicted last week—Cheryl didn’t kill Jason. She’s “guilty” of lying to the police—aren’t we all?—and says that Jason wanted to get out of Riverdale so the twins faked his death. They heard the gunshot together in their summer whites and it wasn’t until Kevin found Jason’s body a week later that Cheryl realized Jason was dead. She tells Chief Keller about the gunshot—a fact which Archie laters corroborates when he comes clean (minus the fact that he’s in a statutory rape situation with Ms. Grundy; so “kinda clean”).

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Source: The CW//Pointless, gratuitous shot of Archie, included because I am part of the problem.

The autopsy proved that Jason died July 11, and his body showed signs of freezer-burn, rope ties and—probably—torture. I mean, he ended up getting shot in the face, so I feel like it’s not out of line to assume that he was at least tortured before his untimely demise. So if Cheryl and Jason heard the gunshot together, then it was unconnected to them—at this point at least.

We are re-introduced to Dilton Doiley, the scout leader who found a soaked—chic—Cheryl on the side of the river. Through the magic of Jughead’s manipulation and sloppy stealing of a sundae, one of Dilton’s scouts reveals that Dilton shot the gun (and I guess he’ll lose his scout-ness if that came to light). So if Dilton shot the gun, and Jason escaped—we lose all sense of the timeline and any leads. Intrigue. Interestingly, the murder, and Archie, are kind of the B-plot this episode, with the juicy meat going to Betty and Veronica tackling slut-shaming. Essentially, Archie is grounded, Ms. Grundy calls off their lessons, and Archie turns to Josie for some music help.

Three episodes in, and Riverdale is slowly unveiling their people of color. The mayor is Josie’s mom; the all-star football guy is black; Dilton is played by an actor of Asian descent. And when Archie stops in on the Pussycats’ practice, Josie gives him a lesson in race relations. He can’t write in their voice because they are “divas of color.” And while things are changing in Riverdale, they’re not changing that fast.

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Source: The CW// Chuck Clayton, who is hot, but mean

“We have to claw our way into the same rooms that you can just waltz into,” says Josie to Archie, who—to his credit—seems willing to admit that. Yay for some semblance of Riverdale becoming more woke. That, combined with the slut-shaming, makes this the most political and issue-driven episode yet, and I’m here for it. I’m not here for Cheryl kind of slut-shaming the girls, but I think that’s less of Cheryl being a slut-shamer and more of her just being sort of a dick.

Veronica goes on a date with Chuck Clayton, the all-star son of the football coach. Later he spreads a vicious rumor around school about her, and labels her a “Sticky Maple.” What a Sticky Maple is, they never actually get around to. So Riverdale, tho.

After finding out that A) this has happened to multiple girls before and B) there’s some sort of tallying playbook that the football team has, Veronica goes full-scorched earth. This episode reinforces the tropes of the traditional Archie comics—something they’ve been subverting so far. Veronica is the bad-ass, dark-sided one, and Betty is just trying to seek justice for these women.

#JusticeForEthel

The gang—Kevin (who started out the season with a bang (almost literally) but has kind of faded into the background for me), Veronica (in the cape), Betty, Barb from Stranger Things, and Cheryl (in thigh-highs)—sneak into school with annoyingly bright flashlights and find the burn book. In a twist, Polly—the insane sister of Betty—is in the book with Jason Blossom. Betty, in an Una Thurman Pulp Fiction black wig, and Veronica lure Chuck the fuck to a second location with the promise of a hot tub, get him liquored up and handcuff him into the hot tub before starting to record. He admits that he made up the rumor, and it seems like “Okay, that’s it.”

But it’s not it for Betty. Ever since she saw Polly’s name in the book, the mad glint has been back in her eyes. She turns up the heat, uses a high-heeled pump on Chuck’s head to waterboard him, and demands justice for Polly. But the thing is—in that moment, she is Polly, and she’s talking to Jason. It is, as Veronica later worriedly points out, very “Dr. Jekyll, Mistress Hyde.” Betty was almost normal the entire episode but this opens up a whole new book of questions. Is she having dissociative breaks? Who is Polly?

I can’t shake the feeling that Betty and Polly are linked to Jason’s disappearance and murder. And even though Betty later brushed off her little incident, the black wig is stashed in her locker—Polly is there, somewhere.

In the end, Dilton begs Betty and Jughead not to reveal that he’s the one to shoot the gun and offers up something in exchange: he saw Ms. Grundy’s car on the banks of the river, the tidbit that Archie purposefully left out. And as the closing scene—Archie and Ms. Grundy making out IN THE BAND ROOM OF THE HIGH SCHOOL—and the promo for next week indicate, we’re soon going to learn a lot more about who Ms. Grundy is.

And more importantly, who Ms. Grundy isn’t.

 

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

  • Is this the town in fucking Footloose? This town has seen a murder and Archie’s dad is demonizing him for “writing songs”?
  • Veronica’s date characterizes her as a “former It-girl from New York”—is the only TV in this town “Gossip Girl?” Why are they all making the same references?
  • I love how Kevin Keller exists in a permanent state of surprise:
    • “You’re going on a date with the son of the football coach?!”
    • “Where did you get those thigh-high boots?!”
  • “I will cut the brakes on his souped-up phallic machine”—VERONICA IS GOING SCORCHED EARTH
  • CHUCK STOP LICKING YOUR LIPS
  • Theory: Cheryl is into Archie because he kinda looks like Jason
  • “Frida Shallow”
  • There’s the recurring motif of smudged, almost bloody red lipstick on Betty. Am I the only one noticing this?
  • MRS. COOPER GETS HIT IN THE FACE BY CHERYL’S MOM

#JusticeForEthel

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