I'm a bit surprised. I'd figured that Hiram would be played by someone more Anglo-Saxon, to explain how two Latina ladies ended up with a surname like Lodge.
Except she clearly isn't, because we've heard Hermione and Veronica speaking Spanish on several occasions. Also, Veronica was picked as a replacement Pussycat after Josie's mom explicitly said it would have to be a woman of color. Plus, of course, the surname would presumably come from the husband, which is why I expected Hiram to be white. There's no reason whatsoever why Hermione would have to be the same ethnicity as her husband. (Although Hermione isn't exactly a Latin name either.)
Of course not. I'm not saying it's impossible or wrong, just that it's not what I expected, and I wonder what the explanation for it might be. Was Hiram's father a white guy named Lodge? Or did he Americanize his name from, say, Jaime Lazaro or something?
For some of the iconic characters it would be nice if some explanation were offered. To me, Mr. Lodge has white hair, usually wears suits when he's not relaxing by the pool or playing golf, and he and Archie can reasonably be described as unintentional rivals for Veronica's love and respect. Mr. Lodge regards Archie as uncouth and clumsy, and while generally not a bad kid, he doesn't think Archie is good enough to be a potential son-in-law. At least in the comics. In the TV show, who knows? At least the actor is well experienced playing a soap character, and this show is basically a very weird murder mystery soap.
No, but since when was it a bad thing to be curious, to explore possibilities? Asking questions is not an attack, it's an expression of interest.
Meh. He hardly did anything the first season. It's disorienting that they made Chuck such a despicable piece of trash, when the comic character is one of the nice guys. They should have made Reggie a more important character and kept Chuck as he was in the comics.
Well, a lot of big, dramatic, shocking revelations happened this week, but the one thing that sticks with me the most is... Man, Jughead has really big, poofy hair when he takes his hat off! The other thing that stands out is also hair-related -- seeing Mr. Blossom (Barclay Hope) without his redheaded wig, I recognized him for the first time as an actor I've seen before in recurring roles as military men on shows like Stargate SG-1 and Eureka. Those wigs completely change his appearance. The makeup featurette this week was about Josie, but what struck me with regard to cosmetics was that Veronica's heavy mascara reminded me of the way Dan DeCarlo, who was pretty much the definitive Archie artist for decades, drew female characters' eyes, with the shape of the eye defined entirely by the heavy upper eyelash line and the iris. You can see some examples of the classic style, by DeCarlo and other artists, in this article. So who could've planted the gun on FP? Presumably the real killer. I guess this means we can rule out FP as the killer, and probably Alice as well, since she was the one who sent Archie and Veronica to the trailer. She wouldn't have sent them there before planting the gun if she didn't want the frame to be discovered. Given the timetable, we can probably rule out Hal too, since he probably didn't have time to get from the Cooper home to the Jones abode before the police search. But he might have, since FP dropped off Jughead and Betty at the dance first. But that probably means we can rule out anyone who was at the dance, doesn't it? Unless the killer had an accomplice who planted the gun. Let's see, which adults weren't there, or arrived late? Well, Sheriff Keller wasn't there. He could've planted the gun, then claimed he'd gotten a tip and gone back with the police. Mayor McCoy arrived late, I think. Although... While Archie and Veronica were together in the trailer, just before they got the text warning them to leave, the headlights of a car outside passed over them. They didn't react, and it wasn't close enough for the engine to be audible, but could it be that that was the culprit approaching to plant the gun, and they waited until Arch and V left the trailer? If it happened that soon after they left, then the culprit would've had time to get to the dance.
I remember Barclay Hope now. He used to be on a show called PSI Factor back in the 1990s, and he played an agent named Axon. Back then he had salt and pepper hair. He was rather attractive. And I remember Martin Cummins from Poltergeist The Legacy. A lot of these actors have changed a lot over time. Molly Ringwald stood out to me. She looked just as pretty as when I saw her in 16 Candles.
We know the list is small - it can't be Archie or Veronica, it can't be Betty, Jughead or FP and I doubt it would be Fred, Alice, Hal or Hermione. Presumably strike out Kevin and Joaquin, and Josie and the Pussycats. Alice could conceivably have planted the gun - in the absence of any evidence for a story would she create some evidence in order to get the story that she craves (this doesn't even need to link through to the identity of the killer, but would be a red herring). However - outside of the Inner Circle the one character they went to lengths to provide a concrete alibi to was Polly with her having drunk the drugged milkshake. However, we only ever saw her sip the milkshake and her reaction to the drink indicated she realised Mrs Blossom was up to something so I'm expecting it to be Polly.
That is an interesting thought. I was going to say that it was likely to be one of the adults, because a consistent theme of this show has been that the kids are better, kinder people than their wildly dysfunction or borderline-psychotic parents. Cheryl's the resident "villain" among the teens, and even she's sympathetic and occasionally decent. And even Reggie hasn't been half the jerk he traditionally is in the comics. Then again, there is Chuck Clayton, who's pretty much irredeemable. I guess it could be Polly, since it would be very unexpected. I wonder about her motives, though. Wasn't Jason bound and tortured for a week, or something? That seems pretty hardcore for Polly. Although given what "Dark Betty" did to Chuck (while zoning out and believing she was Polly), maybe that sadistic streak runs in the family.
There's also the fact that Polly was in the "play book" and she wasn't far from the bottom of the list, the question about how much of their 'relationship' was in her imagination. She's an unreliable narrator for the most part. I think that it's possible that Jason was going to run away (since this has been validated outside of Polly's own narrative) but not necessarily with Polly (Miss Grundy?) and that Polly found out and shot Jason - near the hidden car (explaining why she knew about it). Hal and Alice knew about the pregnancy - and we know Hal wanted her to have an abortion, but that Alice wanted to send her away until she'd had the baby. But they didn't send her away until after Jason had vanished - I think they said they sent her the same day but why would they suddenly do that on the day he'd vanished, unless they knew there was more going on. Maybe Hal's in on the fact that Polly shot Jason and was the one who kept Jason's body on ice for several months, putting her apparently out of the way for the timeframe of the murder/torture by giving her an apparent ironclad alibi.
Yes, according to the medical examiner, Jason was shot and killed a week later than he disappeared and appeared to have been tortured. That pretty much rules out Polly entirely; she was forced to the Catholic home to wayward girls (upstate?) the morning that Jason disappeared. She would have had to escape the facility multiple times in the week to torture Jason, murder him, freeze the body, and then, months later, dispose of the body. I suppose the facility provides her with the perfect alibi -- "she was institutionalized by a bunch of nuns, your honor!" -- but it's very, very unlikely that she's the killer. IMHO, the fact that Jason was held captive for a week and then killed rules out all of the teenaged characters. The absolute left-turn at this point would be if it were Archie's mom -- introduce her at a very late date as the suspect you never even knew was there.
Hmm, yeah, if for no other reason than that their movements and activities would be fairly closely monitored by their parents. Hal still seems like the adult most likely to be a torturer and murderer, and the one with the most motive to hate Jason. But it could also have been one of the Blossom parents, out of rage that he would taint their precious bloodline (syrup-line?) by slumming with a Cooper.
Just a thought - Why are we putting so much weight on the word of the mortician? He's been shown to be a little corrupt by accepting money from Alice - Who's to say that he wasn't bribed (by Alice or Hal, perhaps) to put a suspect out of the picture. The fact that someone heard a gun being shot on July 4th was put aside as a red herring and attributed to Dilton Doiley - but ... What if it wasn't, what if Doiley was the red herring in this situation and the murder DID occur on July 4th. Everything seems to have been set up to give Polly the biggest alibi going.
Polly is the only teen character I really don't care about. In all the comics I read, she wasn't even in them unless it was a "Little Archie" story. Even in those, Polly was already grown up. I've got absolutely no emotional investment in her. Even Cheryl matters a tiny bit more, since I have read stories in which she and Jason appear as snooty Pembroke students who enjoy slumming with "townies" Archie and Veronica.
Polly was in some where Betty was a teenager. She was a reporter and sometimes she came home for a visit and at least once, Betty visited her in the big city.