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It’s interesting and a little disheartening to learn there are only three episodes of Riverdale left when there should be five since the Powers That Be promised this would be a full 22-episode season. It leaves us to wonder if things were cut short by the Writers and Actors strikes and they had to complete the series with what they had (and from the sound of it, our characters will not return to their own timeline until that finale). That’s disappointing because I was hoping for some kind of build-up to the return to their present. But the season thus far has been a good one at allowing a host of different characters come back and get at least an episode to shine, like Mark Consuelos as Hiram Lodge, Barclay Hope as Clifford Blossom and Tiera Skovbye as Polly Cooper. This week’s episode gives us probably the biggest, most hoped for return of all as Josie McCoy makes her final appearance.
But before we get to that, let’s quickly give a mention to all of the side stories this week. Betty has decided, after the slap heard round the world, that she will take her Girl Next Door column to the next level and write a book. But how can she write a book about sexual experiences when she’s had none of her own? Accidentally catching a glimpse of Cheryl and Toni’s boudoir photos, Betty is intrigued and wants a photo shoot of her own for the book, which Cheryl gleefully offers to arrange and will turn Betty’s favorite image into a painting for the book cover. Cheryl also alerts Betty to the fact that she only needs a hot bath and a helping hand to have her own sexual experiences, and with some instruction from Cheryl’s ‘Femme-And-In’ magazine, she does just that. Meanwhile Archie is still all aglow from his session with Twyla and Reggie and turns the experience into a poem that impresses Mrs. Grundy very much. Archie plans to return to Twyla to get more inspiration, but she turns him down, suggesting there must be a frustrated housewife in town eager to take a bite out of a red delicious like him. Unfortunately, Archie channels that desire into a poem that he presents at The Dark Room, with Josie and Mrs. Grundy in attendance, that is clearly aimed at Mrs. Grundy, which sends her jetting out of the room before he can even finish. The next day she tells him to drop the love poems and channel his greatest pain into his work. Of course, I think we all know that is the loss of his father and he sets down to write a heartfelt tribute to his dad. But Uncle Frank finds the poem and berates the boy for ‘exploiting’ his father’s death, ripping up the poem in the process. I thought for one second the heartfelt words would impress Frank but nope, he’s a total d-bag.
Meanwhile things are heating up for Jughead and Veronica, and she recalls her arrival at Riverdale High in her sexy witch costume for Halloween … which Jughead somehow missed. But the idea of a sexy witch lights a bulb over his head and he creates a drawing for Mr. Fieldstone that he calls Veronica the Teenage Witch. Veronica is impressed, but Fieldstone is not, knowing the new Comics Authority will shoot it down, especially with the word ‘witch’ in the title. And she’s too sexy. And too brunette. And Veronica is not a name for a witch. Relaying all of this to V, she suggests the name of that recent Audrey Hepburn movie, Sabrina. Yeah, and make her blonde with more clothing. Fieldstone loves it, but the idea is still rejected leaving Jughead to wonder if Pep Comics is doomed.
But the star attraction this week is Josie McCoy, newly arrived from Hollywood to make an offer to Veronica — she wants to hold a screening of her new film Going Uptown at the Babylonium to judge an audience reaction ‘in the sticks’. And she doesn’t want the usual ‘rubes and blue hairs’ filling the audience. Her big concern is that Riverdale really isn’t with it and perhaps she made a mistake coming to this town. Veronica assures her that there is a hip crowd in town and offers to show her around the next day. The early hour V suggests amuses Josie who explains she doesn’t roll out of bed until late in the afternoon and you won’t see her before dusk. Dusk it is and Veronica offers to take her to The Dark Room. That news travels fast and before V knows it, Toni is asking if Fangs can perform for Josie since she has the connections he needs to get a contract and impress Midge’s parents. The performance is arranged but before Fangs singe, everyone has to endure Archie’s poem which almost convinces Josie that she was right about this town. But Fangs manages to impress, even though rock and roll is not her genre, and she asks how he is on the bongos. Apparently Fangs is the master of the bongos and Josie performs her own number for the crowd with Fangs accompanying her. As the night draws to a close, Josie has decided that Riverdale is the place for her test screening, and Toni and Clay also invite her to attend their Black Athena meeting at school the next day which she accepts.
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Josie is impressed by the group (and there are suddenly quite a few more Black students at Riverdale High than there were when the group started) and says she would have loved to have had a group like that at her school. One of the group asks if she’s ever had to compromise herself to get ahead and she defiantly says she has not and will never compromise and neither should any of them. She puts all of her blood, sweat and tears into her work and they should never let anyone hold them back. After the meeting, Josie tells Veronica she’s changed her mind about the screening. Instead she wants to go forward with V’s original red carpet premiere, something Veronica thought she should have done after their personal screening of the film which V thought was perfect and needed no tweaking. Josie tells Veronica that this premiere has to go well, the critics in attendance have to love the movie or she’ll lose everything. The movie is based on a Broadway show for which Josie won a Tony Award, but when the option was bought to make it a movie her part was going to be recast with Lana Turner. Josie could not let that happen so she took all she had and bought the rights out from under the studio and financed the film herself. The test screening wasn’t about tweaking the film, it was about getting feedback to convince a studio to buy and release it. So everything is riding on this premiere going off like an explosion that Hollywood can’t help but hear.
As the denizens of Riverdale settle in for the film, Clay and Kevin somehow become the most bungling and inept projectionists ever and just as the title comes on screen, the film jams and melts. Veronica and Josie dash up to the booth and V freaks out, berating the boys and firing them but Josie brings a calming presence to the room and asks how long it will take to splice the film back together. Five minutes, they say, which gives Josie enough time to entertain the audience with a live performance of the film’s theme song, accompanied again by Fangs on the piano and a couple of other musicians in attendance. With Reggie and Archie blocking the exits so the critics can’t flee, they are instead enchanted by the performance and after the screening ends, Veronica has a few words from one of the critics in attendance to read to Josie. She noted earlier that this man is a bit on the crotchety side so if she can win him over, then everything will be fine. As V reads, the critic says exactly what Josie was hoping for, that the film launched like an explosion and Hollywood should be banging down Miss McCoy’s doors. The whole experience has also created a bond between the two young women, with Josie suggesting that instead of running a movie theater Veronica should be making movies. Could this send Veronica Lodge back to Hollywood before the finale? And how will any of this impact the characters when they return to their own timeline? We’ll find out in three weeks.
Let’s give a shout out to Ashleigh Murray for her performance, actually putting quite a different spin on Josie McCoy since the last time we saw her, thanks to the clever writing of Ariana Jackson and Evan Kyle. Their combined work allowed Murray to show us a Josie that has all the airs of a ‘big star’ in public, but they also gave us the real Josie as she talked with the Black Athena group and revealed the truth about the film to Veronica. Great work all around. And KJ Apa is really killing it as the dopey teen-aged Archie, taking the whole premise of this season and running with it. It’s going to be sad to see it all end.
Check out both of Josie’s songs, ‘A Different Kind of Cat’ and ‘Moving Uptown’, and Fangs’ rendition of ‘Great Balls of Fire’ through the Apple Music links below.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 9:00 PM.
What did you think of this episode? Let us know in the comments section below.
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