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This week’s movie title episode of Riverdale, ‘Primary Colors’, is an easy one to connect — the movie (and novel) of the same name was a thinly disguised version of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. With Hermione Lodge hitting the campaign trail for mayor of Riverdale, the title makes complete sense. And she isn’t the only Lodge running for office … Veronica has decided to run for student council president even though her parents warned her to keep her head low now that the town knows of Hiram’s plan to build a for profit prison on the bones of South Side High. It’s a plan that is not sitting well with the residents of Riverdale. It may mean jobs and a boost to the economy, but no one wants to live in a town where the prison is the heart and basically the only place to get a job.
But Veronica is Veronica and she has pulled out all the stops to get some votes. Seeing her mother pull in Andy Cohen (yes, THE Andy Cohen) to give her a celebrity endorsement, Ronnie decides she needs one too. And she focuses on Josie, despite the fact she ‘borrowed’ the Pussycats and helped run her mother out of office. But a promise of meeting Andy and getting on Watch What Happens Live! gets Josie on board. (Sidebar: this is the second cross-promotion The CW has done with a different studio in as many weeks, this time with Bravo which is owned by Comcast/NBCUniversal.)
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But Veronica just doesn’t see the disdain most of the school has for her. First she’s got to deal with Ethel Muggs, who went through all the trouble to go to Pop’s and buy a milkshake so she could bring it back to school and throw it in Ronnie’s face, all because of what the Lodges did to her father. But Ronnie promises Ethel that her father will get a cushy new job at the prison to placate her. With Betty on board as her running mate, Veronica sets up an assembly with special guest Josie to do a duet (Archie is on guitar, of course) and it all seems to be going well … until Ethel starts handing out flyers listing all of Ronnie’s and her family’s sins (she knew South Side was closing, the Lodges own Pop’s, etc). This information is so startling that Betty bails and it looks like Reggie has this election in the bag. Wait till Ronnie finds out it was Josie who gave Ethel all that intel.
But the Lodges have bigger fish to fry. A puff piece in the newly Lodge-owned newspaper probably isn’t going to sway people in their direction, especially with Jughead and his South Siders deciding to chain themselves to their old high school … a place Jughead attended maybe four days? Why is he suddenly so attached to the South Side? The moment his dad got out of jail, it was like a switch was flipped in Juggie even thought his dad warned him not to get involved with the Serpents. Even his group thinks he’s gone a little overboard but they agree to protest with him … at least until the weather changes and they get cold. But they do come back and Hiram doesn’t need the PR nightmare so he sends his newest stooge out to put a stop to things, pitting Archie against his best friend who is really unimpressed with Archie now being Hiram’s lapdog. But the chains are cut and Hiram will proceed.
Archie’s new devotion to the Lodges is not sitting well with his father who wants out of any future business dealings with the Lodges. So he calls in the big guns — Archie’s mom — to help in his legal battle. Mary doesn’t see any way that Hiram will release Fred from their contracts, and she’s not happy that Fred and Archie are butting heads. But after Archie puts an end to the protest, Hiram makes good on the condition Archie set for going up against his friend — Fred is freed from the contracts. And now that he’s free, he’s running for mayor and Mary is staying around! I can only see this bringing more trouble for Archie.
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Speaking of trouble, the Cooper household is in turmoil. Betty now has proof that Chic is a fraud … or is he? After bringing the DNA results to Alice’s attention, she finally has to admit that Hal is not Chic’s father so that’s why there is no DNA match with the Blossoms. But he is her son, and she almost hints that FP is the father, but she also quickly denies that when Betty brings it up. So we still don’t know who Chic’s father is but he’s not too happy with how Betty’s been treating him, especially when she wakes him up in the middle of the night holding a Zippo lighter in front of his face. She’s making it way too easy for him to show Alice that Betty is the one terrorizing him, and he even goes through her stuff and shows Alice the Dark Betty wig and tells her Betty wears it while she has sex with Jughead. This is all almost too much for Alice to bear, especially with her history with FP. But we’re still not sure she’s being truthful about Chic’s father. How awkward would it be to find out she’s dating her half-brother’s half-brother? And on top of all that, she’s got Kevin ratting her out to Chic about catfishing him because the two have actually hit it off during their webcam sessions.
But no one was having a worse day than Cheryl Blossom. Her day started out well enough as she brought Toni into the cheerleaders and then asked Ronnie, Betty, Josie and Toni to a slumber party at her grandma’s house to celebrate. The party was a ruse. First, she’d been terrorized by someone trying to get into her room the night before and she thinks her mother and uncle are trying to poison her. The other reason for the party was because Penelope would never allow Cheryl to invite Toni to the house alone. While Cheryl told of her fears of being poisoned, we saw a flashback to dinner with Uncle Cornelius offering Nana some special tea. Cheryl should have smacked the cup out of her hand but just watched with great concern.
Later that night, there is a loud thud and all the girls run out to see Nana sprawled on the floor at the foot of the stairs, her wheelchair in pieces. She survived the fall with Penelope blaming it on her ‘sundown syndrome’ but Cheryl is pretty sure it wasn’t an accident. While sitting with her grandmother at the hospital, Cheryl tries to get some information from a doctor about her condition. She was in good shape following the fall but there were traces of a poison in her system from tannis root. The doctor said Penelope told him that Nana grows the root in their greenhouse and has been caught chewing on it but before Cheryl can tell him about the tea Penelope shows up and whisks her away.
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On the ride home, Penelope tells Cheryl that she’s lost her mind and they’re going to fix her. After Cheryl fails to show up for school, Toni pays a visit and Penelope tells her Cheryl just left for a boarding school in Switzerland. Toni’s not buying it. And then we see Cheryl in a cell. I’m not sure, but it may be the same place where Polly was sent. A nun enters the cell and tells Cheryl they are about to begin her conversion. Oh my gosh! Penelope has sent Cheryl away for gay conversion therapy! Will Toni and the girls be able to find Cheryl before she permanently damaged?
Oh, and if you’re wondering what exactly tannis root is, you’ll have to watch Rosemary’s Baby. It’s the ‘herb’ inside the necklace Rosemary’s neighbor Minnie gives her as part of the ritual to make her baby ‘more like its father.’
What did you think of this episode? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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