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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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Review, television

REVIEW of RIVERDALE EP. 2, “A Touch of Evil”

Grade: B+ for questions answered but also questions left unanswered.

Did I mention that until I was eight years old, I lived in a town called “Riverdale?” So maybe that’s why this episode of Riverdale struck so true with me. Because when my best friend, who’s just confessed her love for me, won’t answer my texts about a mysterious town murder, I also run shirtless to the house of the teacher I’m having an affair with. So spooky how similar I am to Archie!

The revelation that Jason Blossom’s death was due to him being shot in the face rather than drowning shakes the foundation of misty Riverdale. Seriously, there is some serious dust in the air in Riverdale High and I can’t help but worry for the kids with asthma. Are provisions being made for them?

Archie is racked with guilt over the knowledge he possesses. He knows that whoever shot Jason did it early in the morning on the Fourth of July. But he can’t open up to anybody because he only knows this because he was entwined in the arms of music teacher Ms. Grundy. Let us remember that Archie—despite his oiled, muscled body and jawline that protrudes out of the screen—is supposedly a high school sophomore.

The “living mannequin” twins ask Cheryl during science class (Algebra? Chemistry? Physics?) the very question I was wondering myself: Is Cheryl lying? Cheryl told the police that Jason fell into the water to get the gossamer-cloth white glove she had dropped. Later we find out that Jason was shot.

But more comes out—with a proctologist’s snap of her rubber glove, Cheryl reveals that they both fell into the river. Cheryl made it to shore—alone. But can we believe her? Something seems off with this blossom.

The school organizes a pep rally to honor Jason because why not, and Betty uses Veronica’s “I’m sorry” mani-pedi with Cheryl as a mani-petty.

And more comes out of the falling-out between Jughead and Archie. They were meant to go on a road trip (do either of them possibly have licenses?) on the Fourth of July, but Archie canceled and the entire summer was weird after that. Later, Jughead witnesses Archie and Ms. Grundy canoodling BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT CAREFUL AT ALL and confronts Archie. It seems like Ms. Grundy might be this episode’s titular “touch of evil.”

Archie, torn with guilt and also just shredded, wants to tell the truth about the Fourth of July. Ms. Grundy holds Archie in the palm of her hand and says no, claiming that she has feelings for him and this would ruin what they “have.” What they “have,” Ms. Grundy, is a jailable offense, you freak. Ms. Grundy is officially on my shit list. She’s emotionally manipulating Archie into not telling that creepy Principal Weatherbee about them because she doesn’t want to go to prison for child molestation.

While Cheryl straddles Petty Betty to do her makeup, she asks a lot of questions about Polly, Betty’s sister who went insane and now lives in a group home. Yikes. Yikes. Things escalate (not sexually) and Cheryl accuses Polly of killing Jason. But in that moment, there’s something cracked in Betty. Something raw. You can see it in her face as she rises up against Cheryl, and something dark blacks out her eyes.

New Theory: Polly, the unseen sister, is the secret half-sibling of Cheryl and Jason. Think about it—without reason, Mrs. Cooper is so against Polly and Jason. And there’s something incestuous about Cheryl and Jason—sipping out of the same milkshake, wearing coordinated outfits. Could it that sibling love runs deep in the river of relatives? Cheryl and Jason, and Jason and Polly?

In a fun little aside, we see Betty’s mom (Mom Cooper) bribing the coroner to get the straight truth-tea of Jason’s autopsy. “Marbling of the veins, signs of scavenger activity, ligature marks on both wrists, and a hint of cryo-necrotic preservation.” I don’t know what any of that means but I’m pretty sure that—plus the whole “bullet to the face” thing—means that Jason didn’t die of natural causes.

At the pep rally, which was always a horrible idea, Cheryl is overcome with memories of Jason. She sprints away and Veronica comforts her, Petty hovering just beyond the doorway.

“Jason, he was supposed to come back,” said Cheryl, sobbing in the locker room. Veronica mouths the words. 

Come back.

And suddenly, Cheryl’s anger at Betty makes more sense. “I think your crazy, tweaked-out sister killed him.” Was Jason going to meet Polly? Was Cheryl covering for him?

And did Jason actually meet Polly in the woods? Or was someone else waiting for him there? Someone with a motive to kill him, maybe someone whose sister was driven insane by a relationship with Jason?

Did Betty kill Jason?

But before we can get an answer to that: we get an answer to last week’s burning question—Who gets arrested?

The answer, kind of surprisingly, is Cheryl. But also not that surprisingly because she was the last person to see him alive and she already fudged the details of what had happened. But her willingness to accept that she’s been arrested (but never came forward) proves that she believes herself to be responsible for Jason’s death. Whether she actually caused it, I don’t believe to be the case. But her twintuition means double the guilt.

OBSERVATIONS AND QUESTIONS FOR NEXT EPISODE:

  • If both Betty and Archie have iPhones, then WHY ARE THEY USING SOME WEIRD SMS SYSTEM? THIS INFURIATES ME.
  • Archie’s sweaty, shirtless body flipping around in bed=peak.
  • What alternate universe is this where a sophomore in high school can leave the house in the dead of night and all his parental guardian says is, “Where’d you sneak off to last night?” If I did that as a sophomore in high school, or NOW, I wouldn’t have legs the next day.
  • Btw, the fact that he calls her “Ms. Grundy” instead of her first name (“Pamela” I’m presuming, or something else terrible) proves that HE SHOULD NOT BE WITH HER.
  • “Watch it, Wednesday Addams,” is my favorite new diss.
  • Only Cheryl Blossom could end her threat that her brother’s killer will end up in the electric chair with a hashtag. #RiverdaleStrong
  • “I am devastatingly handsome in that classic pre-accident Montgomery Clift kind of way,” says Kevin Keller, and so say we all.
  • What is that “Max Where the Wild Things Are” beanie that Jughead is wearing?!
  • “Let’s honor the memory of our murdered classmate, Jason Blossom, with a pep rally and a sexy cover of “Sugar, Honey, Honey” by Josie and the Pussycats!”
  • Also the song “Sugar, Honey, Honey” is by the band, The Archies. Very spooky.
  • “Butt out, closet monster, you have forfeited the right to take the higher road,” Cheryl
  • We also learn that Moose, the sexually fluid guy who wanted to have sex on a riverbank, has an official girlfriend named “Midge.” That is such a “beard” name.
  • Also I would like to say that I used a locker room all throughout high school and was never hit on by a football player named Moose. I would find this more insulting had I not looked like a thumb in high school.
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Review, television

REVIEW of RIVERDALE EP. 1, “The River’s Edge”

Grade: A-/B+

I’ve never really been a fan of the Archie comics. I mean, I’ve been aware of them in the way that you’re aware of everything tangentially that existed in your life. But I was always more of a Calvin and Hobbes kid. I was made aware of the newest adaption from the podcast Who? Weekly. But I think the premise—comic remade into sexy murder-y thriller—would’ve been enough to eventually put it on my radar.

The cinematography is clean, lush and hazy. It’s filmed in Vancouver, so it has that “better than any forest, any town, any place you’ve ever been” combination of familiarity and dissidence.

Let’s start with the light stuff. This is the CW, so we’re expecting certain tropes. And we’re gifted them. There’s the Gay Best Friend who’s proves that somehow gay people are just cloning each other because I swear if I’ve seen one attractive gay with a severely-gelled hairstyle I’ve seen a thousand.

“Is being a cheerleader still a thing?” asks Kevin Keller (the gay).

“Is being the gay best friend still a thing?” responds Cheryl Blossom (the ginger).

And there’s the “sexy” lesbian kiss between Veronica and Betty to give their cheerleading audition some “sizzle.” But rather than bask in the awkward and trite sexuality, they call to the moment.

“Check your sell-by date ladies, faux-lesbian kissing hasn’t been taboo since 1994.” YES CHERYL YES.

I think what I like most is that they’re—at this point—subverting expectations. I can handle the hypersexualized clichés but as long as we’re recognizing them for what they are. And I can handle classic tropes as long as we classifying them in their proper sphere: fucking science fiction. Because no sophomore in high school looks like Archie Andrews. And that’s fine, but we need to remember our place.

Side bar: It’s nice to see depictions of hot redheads on screen. We are a group that are largely unrepresented.

Also I’m tired of jocks wanting to play music and their dads being against it. this is 2017—Donald Trump is president—you don’t need any qualifications to do anything anymore. And of course, because Riverdale is trying to show us it’s woke, Veronica points out much the same thing. “Guys, can’t we just liberate ourselves from the tired dichotomy of “jock” “artist?” Can’t we, in this post-James Franco world, just be all things at once?”

I never watched Pretty Little Liars but I assume it’s a similar thing, how can students and teachers who are fucking yell about their illicit affairs in public places and nobody say, “Whowhatnow?” It seems physically impossible that no one immediately discovers their affair because they’re literally screaming about it.

Aside from Reggie and Josie and the Pussycats,* Riverdale seems entirely full of people so white they’re nearly translucent. You can almost hear the thoughts echoing in Josie’s head as she looks out onto the crowd of students dancing to the song she’s singing (that’s a cover of the song that the Blossom twins were conceived to), “Why am I here with these idiots?” Like I get this is the CW, but if you’re gonna be woke about the Gay Best Friend, you’ve gotta be woke about everything else too.

Now on to the eeriness. The pop culture references are a little uneasy, at odds with Veronica’s sweater set and the malt shop. But maybe that’s the point? The bizarreness of this place existing both in the ‘50s and in 2017—making references to Blue Jasmine, Mad Men, and Ansel Elgort—mimics the bizarreness of Riverdale. You don’t expect people who live like this to know references like that. It begs more questions: do they use Spotify? Why were the Blossom twins in a Thunderbird? WHY is Veronica wearing a sweater-set and pearls? You’re put off-kilter by the “hereness” and “otherness” of the town. Things are off-kilter here.

The classic cinematography showcases beautifully the ice-white face of Cheryl Blossom against the blackness of her smudged mascara and her red hair. The sharply angled eyebrows of Veronica Lodge. The red lipstick from Veronica’s kiss running across Betty’s lips like a nosebleed and the red gashes on her palms from her tightly clenched fists. There’s a gruesomeness in Riverdale.

But the scenes and the music are tinny and Instagrammy—we’re experiencing through a filter. It’s like we’re someone watching the world unfold in front of them, someone beyond the average viewer. It’s a sentiment made stronger by the fact that we’re brought into the world of Riverdale by the voice of Jughead.

And it’s echoed by the song (“The Passenger” by Hunter as a Horse) rising above Jason Blossom’s waterlogged corpse as it’s carried to the ambulance in a stark yellow body bag.

“Someone is watching…someone is watching.”

But who?

QUESTIONS FOR NEXT EPISODE:

  • Who shot Jason Blossom?
  • Did someone drag Jason Blossom’s body from the depths of the river?
  • Where did Ms. Grundy get her heart-shaped sunglasses?
  • What is “pouring concrete?”
  • Is Jughead our Dan Humphrey?
  • Does anyone remember The Secret Circle, which was also on the CW? If so, let’s talk.
  • Who is getting arrested for the murder of Jason Blossom halfway through fifth period on Tuesday?

*Edit: it has come to my attention that KJ Apa, the actor who portrays Archie Andrews, is part-Samoan.

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Source: CW//How extra

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