This show keeps getting more gothic and weird. But that's not a bad thing. This one really made me feel sad for Cheryl. And I still really like this version of Veronica, who's so caring and helpful. I liked to see her reaching out to Cheryl and bonding with her. (Nice costuming in their scene in the school hallway -- the redheaded one in black and the raven-haired one in red.) I bet there aren't a lot of high school newspapers with their own murder boards.
Interesting reveal from Grandma Blossom: Polly and Jason were engaged. I liked seeing Cheryl's vulnerable side when she was giving the eulogy; it made her less despicable for a change. I just had an OMG moment: Lochlyn Munro plays Betty's middle-aged dad on this show? When did he get to be that old??? I always remembered him in jock roles. I even checked IMDB and Wikipedia for his age. He turned 50 last year; I thought he was in his early 40s.
In case no one knew -- and I didn't, until about five minutes ago -- there's an official Riverdale podcast, featuring interviews with the cast and the producers. The episode for last night's episode is two hours long!
Man, this show keeps getting freakier and angstier. And Betty's parents just get viler. Sending Polly off to the Our Lady of Nurse Ratched convent/asylum/prison to cover up her pregnancy? They say she was unstable to begin with, and they appear to see Jason's relationship with Polly as predatory, but it seems more like sending her to this institution/indoctrination center may have created her mental imbalance. Even the seemingly harmless high school talent show subplot is fraught with angst and bitterness, with Josie's parents joining the "Let's screw up our kids as thoroughly as possible" club and the two Vs (Veronica and Valerie) switching their musical affiliations. I was briefly wondering if Veronica would be allowed into the Pussycats, but I guess Mayor Mom's definition of "woman of color" includes Latinas, even very pale-complexioned ones. Which is good, because Ronnie looked great in those cat ears. Meanwhile, I think the closing minutes of this episode are the first time we've seen Archie really smile, and it made him look more like his comics counterpart than ever. Speaking of counterparts, I think Jughead kissing Betty is probably out of character. The classic Jughead was a "woman-hater," in the sense of mistrusting the idea of romance and being a conscientious objector in the endless battle of the sexes that the other characters were immersed in. And the Jughead of the current Mark Waid-Fiona Staples comics continuity is openly asexual, something Cole Sprouse has said he'd like his character to be although the producers disagree. Either way, it might've worked better if Betty had kissed him and he'd been unsure how to react. Still, I wonder if he did it more as a gesture of comfort because Betty was so distraught than out of normal teenage lust. Or something. Oh, and Archie has DC Rebirth posters adorning his walls. Subtle, Warner Bros. Television, reeeeal subtle. Well, at least subtler than that intrusive close-up on Josie's mascara label in the middle of her dramatic scene with Valerie. Given what a large advertising footprint the makeup sponsor already has in the commercials, with those "watch the characters come to life" segments as well as actual commercials, isn't it overkill to cram these blatant product placements into the show itself?
Meanwhile, continuing my peculiar obsession with this show's pop cultural references, Archie the music-lover doesn't know who Bob Dylan is? But doesn't blink when Veronica or Kevin or whomever references Audrey Hepburn or Montgomery Clift?
The reference his father made was to "electric Dylan," and I wasn't sure if that was a reference to Bob Dylan or to some group named after him or something. And Archie did say "I'm not sure who that is" rather than "I have no idea who that is," so at least he had an inkling.
Christopher, it's a reference to "when Dylan went electric" at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Dylan, to that time, had been purely a folk singer in the Woody Guthrie style. But he began to "go rock" in 1965 ("Like a Rolling Stone" came out that year), and at Newport he gave his first electric, rather than acoustic, live performance. For people in the folk music movement of the time, Dylan going electric was a massive betrayal.
I cut them some slack on that one since Josie's dad assumes that Archie has never heard of Josephine Baker, but we never find out if he was correct in that assumption. And Baker already got some love on TIMELESS this season, where a time-traveler described her as the "Beyonce of the Jazz Age"--or words to that effect.
Yeah, I was hoping Archie would come back with "Who doesn't know Josephine Baker? She was a legend!" or something like that.
This reminded me of an old episode of Cold Case on CBS wherein a pregnant teenaged girl was sent to a Catholic institution by her parents in the 1960s. Polly was apparently oblivious about what happened to her Jason; now she's on the lam. Seriously, she's pregnant but managed to jump out the window of her room? I don't really care for the musical/musician aspect of the show, so I wasn't fully attentive to this episode. I'd rather see more suspense and mystery.
I guess the music element is kind of built into the series and characters, because of The Archies as well as J & the P. I am wondering if Archie will eventually convince Betty, Veronica, and Jughead to form a group with him, although it's hard to see this show's Reggie joining the band too. By the way, it was amusing to hear one of the characters (I forget if it was Veronica or Jughead) refer to their little investigatory cabal as the Scooby Gang, because Scooby-Doo was originally conceived by Hanna-Barbera as a knockoff of Filmation's Archie show; it was going to be about an Archies-like teen music group solving mysteries. Although, oddly, they ended up basing the Scooby-Doo characters on the cast of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis instead.
When I said Dylan, he thought I meant Dylan Thomas, whoever he was. The man ain't got no culture. - Paul Simon, "A Simple Desultory Phillipic (Or how I was Robert McNamara'd into submission)"
Not to this degree. Hiram Lodge is probably the worst, and even there it's more "Archie Andrews is a tool that I don't want dating my daughter" rather than outright villainy. I don't know anything about Cheryl Blossom's parents, so I can't compare them. Betty's parents are a little overprotective -- Betty is a bit obsessed with Archie -- but they're not emotionally abusive as Betty's parents are on the show. I have no impression of Archie's parents at all. Or Jughead's.
In the current rebooted comics, Jughead's family used to be super-rich (they were famous for a product with "Jug" in the name, which was how Jughead got his nickname in the new version), but they went bankrupt. I don't know if his parents were rich in the original comics, but for what it's worth, his real name is Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, which helps explain why he prefers to go by Jughead.
Original comics: Jughead's family not rich. Don't remember them saying how he got the nickname though. Cheryl Blossom's parents are normal, even nice. Both kids though are utter spoiled brats. All the parents are regular nice parents, other than Veronica's father, who is sometimes portrayed as a bit ruthless. And he definitely doesn't like Archie and would very much like Veronica to pick a better boyfriend.
Not even remotely. The worst parenting I saw in the comics (I haven't read any rebooted stuff at all; I go by what's in the comic digests) was Coach Clayton. He's Chuck's father; Chuck is nothing like in the series - he's a nice guy, has a girlfriend named Nancy, plays sports, and wants to be an artist. But Coach Clayton is extra-hard on Chuck, since he tends to err on the side of emotional abuse rather than be perceived as being easy on Chuck because they're father and son. This is a fairly common problem when a teacher-student relationship is also a parent-child relationship. Archie's parents are a bit old-fashioned, but they just want Archie to grow up and be a responsible adult. They see Veronica as spoiled and inconsiderate, and approve of Betty. Betty's parents are both super-nice. Polly isn't in the teen comics; she's shown up in the "Little Archie" ones as a much-older sister, and by the time Betty is a teen, Polly is married with at least one kid. Polly and Jason never knew each other, and in fact Polly is much older. Betty's parents tolerate Archie, but disapprove of him for tending to treat Betty as second-best - that she's only good to date if his plans with Veronica fall through. Jughead's parents went through a modernization during the time I was actively reading the comics. His mother was a frumpy housewife who was constantly nagging Jughead to do his chores (he had loafing down to a fine art), but she was eventually updated to become younger, not a frump, and Jughead now has a little sister called "Jellybean." Reggie's mother is never seen in the comics I read, and never mentioned. His father owns the local newspaper, and while not as rich as the Lodges, the Mantles are upper middle class. Reggie evidently gets a very generous allowance, which explains why he's always got a flashy car, flashy clothes, and can take Veronica to expensive restaurants and concerts. We don't see much of Reggie's dad in the comics. The Lodges are wealthy, and Veronica goes to Riverdale High because her parents don't want her to get too spoiled. Mrs. Lodge of the comic digests is a white-haired, nose-in-the-air society matron, with clubs, teas, and a country club lifestyle. She's not seen very often. Mr. Lodge is a tough businessman (not a crook like in the series), and he tries to get Veronica interested in business, or at least working at some sort of normal teenage part time job so she can learn what it's like to earn her own money. He's very generous with Veronica, but as mentioned, doesn't want her to get too spoiled. There have been times when he's told her to go get a job "like Betty does" if she wants money for a new dress. His issue with Archie isn't that Archie's parents are (relatively) poor; it's that Archie tends to be a klutz, breaks expensive stuff, and lacks the sort of manners necessary to mingle with the Lodges' socioeconomic class. He approves of Reggie, even though Archie is much more considerate, and honestly tries to be helpful to Mr. Lodge... it just never seems to quite work, though. I've never seen Jason and Cheryl's parents in the comic digests. Ditto for Josie; in fact, there's never any indication that Josie and the Pussycats are even still in school. They seem to dash around doing concerts at the drop of a hat and travel pretty much anywhere, so I don't see how they could still be in school. Jughead's parents in the original comics were middle-class.