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Let’s Talk About ‘American Psychos’:
- Tickets are selling like hotcakes to Slaughter Con, but will this be enough to draw TBK into the daylight?
- Uncle Frank suggests to Percival that it’s time for him to use his mind control on the entire construction crew to get them back to work on the railroad which needs to be completed within the month before Bailey’s Comet arrives.
- Archie has managed to get full benefits for the striking workers, and Tabitha is offering free meals to them and their families at Pop’s.
- Toni wants to deliver the news to Cheryl that she and Fangs are getting married. It does not go over well.
- This quasi-musical episode has Kevin kicking off Slaughter Con with a number from the musical version of American Psycho.
- Percival does make his move on the workers but hitting that many people at once comes with consequences.
- Betty is clued in that she has ‘fans’ and perhaps there is more to Drake than meets the eye.
- Archie is a little weirded out by Slaughter Con, and Betty worries that her own darkness will ruin their relationship.
- Cheryl and Kevin join forces to drive a wedge between Toni and Fangs.
- Archie, Tabitha and Toni join forces to break Percival’s spell.
Riverdale returns after a week off and before another week off — why on Earth break up the flow like this and why put the ‘musical’ episode on against the Tony Awards on your sister network? Well, it wasn’t a traditional musical episode as the songs were from the very short-lived Broadway serial killer musical American Psycho, which Veronica helpfully reminds us is based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis with music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik. But what she left out was that the book of the show was written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa … creator of Riverdale. I suppose that may have been a little too meta, even for this show. It was funny how Charles immediately asked if the show was Sweeney Todd, but that music would have probably been much too expensive, and they had an in with American Psycho. Plus it’s fun how the show likes to highlight little seen musicals (like they year they did Carrie). It also wasn’t the usual all-singing musical episode, with three of the five songs staged as performances at the convention (two by Kevin, one by Betty). One song that did feel like a musical number involved the female members of the cast, and another didn’t even seem to come from the same show. So it was an interesting way to do a musical episode without it being a musical.
The focus of the episode was Slaughter Con which was designed solely to draw TBK out of the woodwork so Betty could finally arrest him … because serial killers are narcissists, so a convention about him would have to be something he would attend. Of course there is also the issue of other people dressing as their favorite serial killers (yes, there was also a Black Hood and a few TBKs) which could only make Betty’s job harder. Also complicating matters for Betty is Agent Drake, who delivered a lecture on hybristophilia — a sexual interest in and attraction to those who commit crimes — a condition Drake seems to have as she admits her feelings for Betty because, you know, she’s got that darkness inside of her and she couldn’t possibly find the same common ground with Archie in their relationship. That sets Betty’s wheels to spinning to the point that she even considers breaking things off with Archie, especially after she has a dream about Drake. But with her focus needed to be snaring TBK, and Archie having to deal with Percival and the construction crew, the one person Betty can talk to is Veronica … and she urges Betty to find a moment to talk with Archie so they can find common ground … unless she really does have an attraction to Drake. Betty also has stalkerish fans who keep showing up in costume, brandishing Black Hood’s weapons … that they want her to autograph. And she has to prepare for the convention’s main event — an interview and Q&A session with ‘The Girl in the Well’, a sit down with Alice detailing publicly how and why TBK finally released her.
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In the midst of all this, Toni decided to visit Cheryl and give her the news thats she and Fangs are getting married. Cheryl was visibly shaken, but she played it off and introduced her to Heather. But after Toni left and Heather asked if she was bothered by the news, Cheryl completely snapped at her. Then she ran off to see Kevin, who had also just gotten the news from his lawyer, so she asked if he wanted to join her in breaking up the lovebirds. The two performed a ritual spell to drive a wedge between Toni and Fangs, but unfortunately they didn’t specify what exactly the wedge would be. Turns out they ended up giving Baby Anthony colic, which angered Kevin and terrified Cheryl. The last thing they wanted to do was hurt the baby, but Heather was able to intervene and cure the child, and then she warned Cheryl never to perform a spell while under emotional duress because it always backfires. But the incident did finally allow Cheryl to release her feelings for Toni and admit how she felt about Heather … who obviously feels the same way which is a relief to Cheryl. Now perhaps they can combine their powers to help in the fight to save Riverdale from Percival.
Speaking of, he’s none-too-pleased that the construction crew is still on strike. Frank asks if he can just use his mind control on them — which begs the question of what hold Percival has on Frank if he knows about the mind control; that’s not something someone who’s being controlled would know was happening — and he does just that, marching himself to Pop’s where the workers are enjoying their free meals courtesy of Tabitha, and after Archie got them full benefits while they are on strike, ordering them back to work. Percival needs the railroad completed within the month ahead of the arrival of Bailey’s Comet, which won’t return for another 65 years. (So how much track does he actually need laid, and where exactly is the railroad coming from and going to?) The first person he approaches is Fangs, who was supposed to be using Baby Anthony as is tether to combat the mind control but either he must have forgotten or Percival was more powerful because he immediately left the diner and went to work. Then Percival did a mass mind control and got everyone back to work … but at a cost as he developed a nose bleed from the exertion. So Percival does have a weakness that may be exploited. And exploit they do as Archie, Tabitha and Toni arrive at the conclusion that music is an emotional tether everyone has, so they go to the job site with a few others and sing ‘Bread and Roses’ which snaps all of the workers out from Percival’s spell. But it doesn’t work on Frank, so that is another indication that there’s something more going on with him than mind-control.
Back at the convention, Betty freaks out a bit when it appears Kevin is being attacked by TBK during one of his numbers, ‘Killing Spree’ — it’s Dr. Curdle Jr and it was part of the performance (umm, thanks for the heads up, Kev) — which forces him to drop out of the final performance, which now Betty also takes on. But during the Q&A session after her interview with Alice, they get a phone call (not sure how they are taking callers — is this being livestreamed?) from … TBK. It’s a bit unsettling as he tells her they are destined to be together and she’ll never find that same connection with her all-American boyfriend (this sounds familiar but there’s no way TBK is Agent Drake … right? … and did anyone check her credentials when she just popped up at Betty’s FBI field office?). But for as long as Betty had him on the phone, Drake signaled that they were not able to get a trace.
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The girls all prepare for Toni’s bachelorette party in one of the suites at Babylonium, performing ‘You Are What You Wear’, and then Betty tries to have a talk with Archie, but there’s still too much going on. Betty then heads back to the convention to perform the last number, ‘A Girl Before’, but it does not draw out TBK. Drake asks Betty who she was thinking about while she was singing the song, Archie or TBK, and we see during a flashback to the number that she was thinking of Archie … but she doesn’t tell Drake either way. When Betty gets back home to Archie’s, he’s not there but she texts him that she’s ready to talk. She then looks across to her house and sees TBK in her bedroom. Grabbing her father’s gun that she confiscated from the fan, she runs over and finds Charles and Alice bound, gagged and nearly suffocated at the dining room table. TBK is no longer in the bedroom, but Alice tells her that he said he’d be waiting for her in the garage and begs her not to go. But she does and confronts him where he again tries to manipulate her into joining him — put on her own TBK mask or kill him with her father’s gun. She finally opts for the latter and shoots him after he refuses to take off his own mask. And then she leaves him laying in a pool of blood while she goes to free her mother and brother. Nope, she didn’t unmask him so we still don’t know who it is, and for all we know she left him laying in the garage because the next thing we see is Betty having that talk with Archie. She says TBK is dead — is he? — but she’s still worried that all that darkness inside of her is going to tear them apart and she doesn’t want to hurt Archie. He, however, reminds her of the time they both saved a baby bird, Betty building it a next of shredded newspaper in a show box, and how she has always put her concern for him and other ahead of any dark impulses she might have, trying to protect them. All of that is enough to prove she isn’t as bad as she thinks she is and that seems to finally take a weight from her shoulders so they can move forward as a couple.
But with Archie and Tabitha proving to be formidable adversaries for Percival, and the workers establishing tethers that will make it harder to get them back with mind control. Frank asks if he wants to do some old school union busting, but Percival tells him that if the people of Riverdale want to continue their defiance of him, their punishment will be truly Biblical.
Ruh-roh.
Riverdale airs Sundays at 8:00 PM.
What did you think of this episode? Let us know in the comments section below.
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