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I am really curious to know exactly where this season of Riverdale is going. I’m a bit disappointed that Jughead lost all of his memories of the real world, and even more disappointed that we haven’t seen Tabitha/The Guardian Angel popping up . And speaking of popping up, where in the heck did Evelyn Evernever come from when we haven’t even seen Reggie, Moose, Josie and her mother, or the Pussycats in this alt-universe Riverdale? I get that they want this final season to have a happier tone than the previous six, but we need some weird, dark mystery to keep us guessing over the course of the next sixteen episodes (well, that is, if they are able to complete the season now that the writers are on strike). There is some hint of something diabolical going on with Mayor Blossom, Principal Featherhead, Dr. Werthers, and now Uncle Frank, but it has to be deeper than comic books, right?
And what is up with Uncle Frank anyway? He’s been riding Archie hard. First he made the boy apologize to his mother for ‘not being a good son’ and then to Featherhead with the promise that he’d work hard to get his grades up, at least to a B-level. Frank pressured Archie into putting his nose to the grindstone, and then he gets on the boy’s ass about Archie not wanting to be on the newly reformed basketball team at school — Featherhead made Frank the coach, which raises some red flags — so he can focus on his homework, so Frank humiliates his nephew and makes him take the position of waterboy, which only leads to further humiliation at the hands of Julian Blossom. And Frank seems to relish Archie’s belittlement. On top of everything else, Frank takes Archie’s jalopy away and gets him a job pumping gas at Pop’s … which only causes further humiliation at the hands of Julian. What exactly is Frank’s endgame here, and how is he tied up with Featherhead and Werthers? After Archie and Julian trade a few blows when Julian throws some shade at Archie’s dad, Mary comes to the school to speak with Featherhead and Frank tries to intervene on her behalf, but she actually puts him in his place and says she’ll handle this. Good for her. Archie finally tells his mom that he can’t think about playing basketball without thinking of his dad, and it just hurts his heart. Plus he is afraid he’d let his father down if he wasn’t good enough. Mary assures her that Fred would want nothing more than for Archie to be on his basketball team, and that he’d be proud of Archie no matter what. Maybe he could even wear his father’s number. Archie’s confidence is propped up and he makes himself known at the next practice. Julian isn’t happy that Archie thinks he can just walk in and be on the team, but Frank seems to be satisfied, perhaps thinking it was his own brand of ‘tough love’ that got Archie to change his mind.
Meanwhile, we’re told by narrator Jughead that comic books have basically been banned in Riverdale, right when his writing career is taking off. That, however, has not put Pep Comics out of business, but something else just might — a lawsuit over plagiarized stories. Jughead notices that several comics bear striking similarities to the works of one of his favorite writers, Brad Rayberry (and how they could keep repeating that name without messing up or cracking up, I’ll never know … can we see outtakes?). Mr. Fieldstone does admit that they tried to contact Rayberry but never heard back so he assumed the author was dead and wouldn’t mind if they used his stories. Jughead somehow knows exactly where Rayberry lives and brings the plagiarism to his attention. Rayberry doesn’t seem concerned at first, but before you know it he’s storming into Pep Comics demanding they cease and desist from publishing any more stories based on his work. Jughead intervene and negotiates a monetary and credit deal between the two parties and all is well. At Pop’s Rayberry and Jughead are celebrating the win, that Juggie obviously orchestrated so that Rayberry would perhaps demand that Jughead be the writer on any stories based on his work. He even offers to read Jughead’s own original work, and after hearing the story of FP fleeing town because he was a bank robbery suspect, Rayberry tells Jughead he should write about that. Later when Jughead pays a visit to deliver a draft of his story, he spies another one of Rayberry’s unpublished novels, ‘The Jupiter Journals’ (an obvious reference to Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles), and takes it home to read it. Without permission. Returning the next day, Jughead fesses up to taking the story and tells Rayberry that he needs to get this thing published, and he can help. Rayberry flies into a rage that Jughead ‘stole’ his novel — wrongly saying the ‘theft’ was even worse than the plagiarism — and throws Jughead out of his apartment. But there’s even more trouble brewing for Jughead as it’s brought to Featherhead’s attention that his student is actually writing for Pep Comics.
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Cheryl is finding her life to be a bit more complicated as it’s tryout time for her beloved Vixens cheerleading squad. When returning Toni’s book, she makes a comment that a greaser girl like Toni probably wouldn’t dare to try out for the squad, but Toni actually takes the bait and shows up, much to Cheryl’s pleasure. Evelyn is appalled that Cheryl would let Toni just walk in, try out and put her on the team but Cheryl is the sole decision-maker and what she says goes. Evelyn decides to do some digging after hearing rumors about Toni and finds the book Cheryl had just returned. She then tells Cheryl that they can’t have someone like Toni on their squad — and Cheryl at first thinks Evelyn is referring to Toni’s skin color, but Evelyn assures it that is not the issue, it’s that Toni is a … ‘lezzie’. Yep, they went there with that word. Cheryl is furious at the suggestion and tells Evelyn that is not true, and then makes Toni the girl at the top of their pyramid formation, Evelyn’s usual spot. Toni, however, is angry that Cheryl tried to deny who Toni is, and Cheryl said she was just trying to protect her. Toni said she doesn’t need protection and whatever is going on between them isn’t going to work. As Toni walks away, Cheryl stops her and finally admits that she thinks … no, she knows she has feeling for Toni. Cheryl took Toni’s bait this time, and the two had a hot and heavy make-out session in the locker room. Cheryl also revealed to Toni that her aunt was labeled a ‘Sapphic sexual deviant’ by her mother, so she moved away from Riverdale to Greenwich Village, and Cheryl believed she was more like her aunt and hoped she could live her life truthfully. But will things work out for these two in this universe?
Poor Betty doesn’t know what to do with her sexual urges, admitting to Veronica that since she and Kevin broke up she’s had eyes for Archie. She also asked Ronnie what it was like to have sex, but she admitted to Betty — just between us girls — that she’s never had sex despite the air she gives off. It’s all about feeling sexy and confident, things you don’t need to have sex to feel. Betty has no idea how to feel any of those thing, so Veronica invites her to the Pembroke to try on some lingerie. Getting into the black lace number, Betty just feels awkward but Ronnie tells her to just look at herself in the mirror and embrace how sexy she is. And the only way to keep feeling sexy is to wear that lace all the time. But Betty can’t because of gym class and she doesn’t want the other girls to think she’s some kind of nymphomaniac. Ronnie thinks that’s absurd but she understands. Talk turns back to Archie, and Betty reveals to Veronica that she’s seen Archie — all of Archie — many, many times as their bedroom windows face each other. Well, Veronica needs to see this for herself so that night the girls watch and wait as Archie finally arrives and begins to get undressed. But he glances over and the girls duck hoping they aren’t spotted, but the next day at school Archie approaches them and asks to speak to Betty alone. He tells her that he saw them and … he liked it. This actually makes Betty feel better because earlier she had asked Archie out on a date, and she didn’t believe his story about homework, being the waterboy and having to work at Pop’s. She just thought it was a polite rejection while Veronica said that perhaps it was true (they even went out on a double date with some Stonewall Academy preppies, but Betty just stared at Archie outside working the gas pumps). Now that the two lovebirds are on the same page, there’s only one thing they can do — watch each other get undressed. They set a date for midnight, and Betty promises she’ll be wearing something special. The time comes and they both start stripping down, Archie to his tighty-whities, Betty to her black lace lingerie. And at precisely the same moment … Hal bursts into her room and Frank bursts into Archie’s room, throwing some metephorical cold water on their sexy shenanigans. Oops. From the looks of next week’s promo, this is just going to make Betty even more rebellious, embarrassing her parents on the set of the local dance show.
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 9:00 PM.
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