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It seems that this season’s major storyline / mystery on Riverdale is going to focus on the Gryphons & Gargoyles game and how those who played it in the past are trying to prevent their own kids from playing it now … especially after two kids have already died, and a third came close. Which is the perfect cue for a flashback episode set almost entirely inside Riverdale High with the main cast of ‘teens’ playing the teen version of their parents. And also a chance to rip off … I mean pay homage to The Breakfast Club. Sadly there was no role for Molly Ringwald this week, but they did manage to squeeze in an alum from the classic movie, Anthony Michael Hall, who played Principal Featherhead (seriously?), the man who assigned detention to the students.
An 8-hour detention on a Saturday seems pretty harsh, and it was inevitable boredom would set in for the student and the viewers. But there was the novelty of Archie as Fred (with brown hair), Jughead as FP, Betty as Alice, Veronica as Hermione, Cheryl as Penelope, Josie as Sierra, Kevin as Tom, and even young versions of the fathers of Reggie Mantle and Dilton Doiley (welcome back Major Curda). And yes, there was a teen version of Hiram Lodge as well played by Michael Consuelos, son of Mark, and he looks and sounds exactly like a young version of his father. The gang’s all here.
The episode was framed with Alice Cooper finally relating the origins of the G&G game, how they found it tucked away in the desk drawer of their teacher (where all of the confiscated items were kept, so they also found a few other things that belonged to them), so as their detention was extended to three weekends for not completing an assignment, they all got drawn into playing the game, even going so far as to breaking into the school after midnight to do some cosplaying. But what the main group — Fred, Alice, Hermione, FP, Sierra and Cheryl — didn’t know was they they were not the only people playing the game as they encountered a second group with Hiram, Marty Mantle, Tom Keller and Daryl Doiley also cosplaying. Which was perfect because they could play against each other but there was a consequence. Principal Featherhead died after drinking from one of the goblets. And they even put on a concert. In the end, Alice warned Betty that the game is an addiction and no one should be playing it.
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It was a bit of a bore, but there were still some interesting things going on. KJ Apa gave us a really good young Luke Perry (it probably helped that pretty much all of the adult cast has been acting since they were about the same age, so the ‘kids’ had plenty of achival material from which to draw their performances), and everyone else did a fine job, even giving the teen versions of their charaacters different personalities from who they are today (like Hermione, whom is played as kind of a meek, mousey teenager in the past). Lili Reinhart was terrific as teen Serpent Alice, with her ‘enviable’ hair and chip on her shoulder attitude, ready to get into a major hair-pulling fight at a sideways glance.
We also learned some interesting things about the characters, some of which you need to suspend belief for like even though they all went to the same school, none of the teens were friends and barely knew each other — well except for FP and Alice since this is the time in which she discovered she was pregnant with his child. We also have to accept that these teens all grew up and had children at the same time for them to all be in the same age group (now there’s the makings of an entire seasons worth of shows). Probably the ickiest, and most intriguing part of the story was Penelope’s, whose name was Blossom even as a teen. But how if she married into the Blossom family?
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Young Penelope was an orphan, adopted by the Blossoms to be young Clifford Blossom’s sister (with Cliff being played by Trevor Stines who played Jason Blossom) and then groomed to be his wife. It’s all vageuly incestuous — not something out of character for the Blossom family — without actually being so. But it is creepy (and are we to assume Alice is telling all of this information to Betty, and if so, does Cheryl know the story of her own parents?).
That creep factor aside, the episode ended with Betty assuring Alice that she and Jughead are not playing the game, and Veronic and Betty assuirng each other that they are not playing the game, but armed with all this new information, Betty went to find Jughead in the bunker … and he’s now deep, deep into the game, a bit mad at this point, telling Betty that he’s about to ascend to the next level and meet the Gargoyle King.
Uh oh.
Riverdale airs Wednesday at 8:00 PM.
What did you think of the episode? Is Juggie in danger? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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