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Riverdale Season 2 (Spoilers)

Gryffindorian said:
Betty's obsession with the Sheriff was ridiculous. Breaking and entering, really?
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Excessive, but understandable. Remember, the Hood (or the voice on the phone claiming to be the Hood, although the murder of the teacher seems to confirm it) said that he's committing these crimes for Betty. She undoubtedly feels some sense of guilt or responsibility for all this, and she's driven to do something about it. And that made her desperate. As Veronica said, she mistook wanting an answer for having one. (Which is a marvelously concise statement of an important principle. Veronica continues to amaze me.)

After all, as fundamentally decent as the core foursome are, they're still teenagers, and they're being forced to deal with matters even adults would find challenging. So they kind of have a tendency to make bad decisions.
 
Wow, Betty Cooper is a girl of many talents. Not only can she sing and pole dance, but she can do them both at the same time without moving her lips and without being next to the microphone. :D

I've heard that song before on a couple of shows and kind of liked it. I didn't know it was from Donnie Darko. Not a very festive song for a retirement party, though.
 
I'm a week behind, as usual, but holy cow, was last week's ep amazing. I super can't wait for witchcraft and the paranormal to seep into Riverdale, and hope that if the Sabrina show's straight-to-Netlfix order means no regular crossovers (and even then, stranger media mashups have happened recently), we at least get a Sabrina appearance on Riverdale before her own show begins, much like Grant Gustin's Barry Allen was introduced on Arrow. I can just picture it: our heroes hopelessly cornered one night, about to meet their certain doom, when a shadowdy figure struts towards them, sparky magic spells flying from her fingertips. (Of course, we'd have to meet her as a mousy, unassuming regular high school student first.)

Laugh of the night went to Betty once again: "Maybe [Sheriff Keller]'s having an affair... and is the Black Hood!" I had to pause the player to howl with laughter for the better part of thirty seconds. And the scene between the shirtless sheriff and Ronnie was also great for all the wrong reasons. :rommie:

In addition to The AV Club's "Dial M for Maple" podcast, and YouTube's Afterbuzz TV's webcasts (most of which run longer than the episodes themselves, What the Flick?! is doing segments on each episode:

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Black Hood Speculation Watch: Hal Cooper, his secret son, or a combination thereof remain the likeliest culprits, though we also got a new possible suspect in the school janitor.

I see that next week's year-ending ep is called "Chapter Twenty-Two: Silent Night, Deadly Night", so we'll finally have some real/Riverdale season convergence (not that it'll last).
 
Christopher said:
Wow, Betty Cooper is a girl of many talents. Not only can she sing and pole dance, but she can do them both at the same time without moving her lips and without being next to the microphone. :D

I've heard that song before on a couple of shows and kind of liked it. I didn't know it was from Donnie Darko. Not a very festive song for a retirement party, though.
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The original version of the song was good too, which was done by Tears for Fears. As for Betty's Serpent Dance, well, I thought that was a little awkward. :lol: I wanted to like it, but she didn't have much charisma on stage.

I suspected Janitor Svenson was somehow linked to the Black Hood. I thought he was seeking revenge for the murder of his family, but according to Archie, his eyes look different.
 
Okay, that was... busy. And kind of anticlimactic, since the guy who turned out to be the Black Hood (apparently, at least) wasn't a well-established character, just someone who's been in the background for the past couple of weeks or so.

Honestly, I'm still a little suspicious of Sheriff Keller, since the Hood was unarmed and fleeing from Archie when Keller shot him. So there was no immediate threat to justify lethal force.

Having the witness who could tell them about the townsfolk's murder of the wrong man turn out to be Grandma Rose was the craziest outcome that could've had, and I mean that in a good way.

I'm a little annoyed that the Lodges told Veronica all their big family secrets but we didn't get to hear them. I trust that's something that will come out later in the season.
 
Agreed. It was anticlimactic. It appears Mr. Svenson/Conway was guilty of accusing an innocent man of killing Conway's family. To make amends for his wrongdoing, he punished citizens of Riverdale whom he deemed sinful.

Jughead's actions - like driving Penny out of Riverdale tonight, or getting the Ghoulies arrested in previous episodes - might seem reckless and foolish at first, but he's a smart young man, and his plans eventually pay off and work in favor of FP and the Serpents.
 
Good Grief, Dilton Doiley. After the glorious, series-high of "Tales from the Darkside", "House of the Devil" wasn't just Riverdale's worst episode by far, it was bad enough to make me fear that the show as a whole has suffered a mortal wound. Where to begin?

- Where the hell is this Reaper "Reckoning" promised at the end of "Darkside"?

- The writing was just off all over. Veronica going to both of her parents for relationship advice concerning the L-word? Wtf? No, just, no. :vulcan:

- Speaking of which, wasn't Hiram supposed to be a big, sinister presence this season? What has he actually done, other than donating to Pop's and giving Archie a glass of whiskey (and encouraging him to fight fear with fear)? Where's the big Hiram/Fred showdown we were promised?

- As the AV Club review noted, this Serpent stuff is getting majorly convoluted, or (more likely) just plain sloppy. The whole point of joining a gang is that you don't retire and can't leave, so even if the Serpents were okay with letting FP step away once he got out of jail, no way in heck would they throw him a retirement party. And, given that Alice has been vehemently anti-South Side in public and in her and Hal's paper, why the hell is she allowed, much less welcomed, back into the Whyte Worm?! She, who called for South Side High to be shut down?!

- I generally love the show going dark, but showing us the bloodstain from two children murdered by shotgun under their own bed? Not okay, series. Not okay at all.

- Okay, Archie's a goober, and that's part of his charm. But even he's not dumb enough to think the Gary Jules cover of "Mad World" is an appropriate party song. (And would Veronica really like Donnie Darko? Seems like too suburban a movie for her.)

- The whole Betty strip/dance thing was deeply, deeply gross.

Stay tuned for my upcoming thoughts on "Silent Night, Deadly Night"... but I'm worried, guys. I'm reminded of how Arrow was a pretty damn good show through S3's "The Climb", but, knowing how that epic midseason finale farted out, I now recommended new viewers stop at the end of S2, when the show was still legitimately great, and before the terrible, pointless Sara fridging that, in retrospect, was the first sign of the decline.
 
Gaith said:
But even he's not dumb enough to think the Gary Jules cover of "Mad World" is an appropriate party song.
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I'm a little confused. Since it was a new performance of the song, how do you know it was based on an earlier cover instead of the original? Did this Jules person make some major change to the song? I think I've only ever heard one version of it before, and it sounded like the one they sang here. Although if it was the lyrics that were changed, I couldn't tell. I just like the melody.
 
^ Here's the original:

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And Archie specifically called it "that song from Donnie Darko", which is the slowed-down Gary Jules version that really inspired the whole slowed-down trailer cover that's going strong today:

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The greatness of the original song lies in the contrast between the darkness of the lyrics and the pep of the tempo, which the Jules version throws out entirely.
 
Well, that was a relief. Despite getting an even worse grade than "House of the Devil" from the AV Club, "Silent Night, Deadly Night" was a big improvement on the basis of a lack of Betty's horrible non-erotic dance alone (it wasn't even directly mentioned, thank goodness!). Also, Archie and Ronnie are back together as they should be, so while this was hardly the series at its best, it was definitely a B- to its predecessor's D+. Weirdly, the episode even seemed to ignore parts of the "House of the Devil", as when Archie and Betty had to hear about the vigilante killing from the nun (and he looked surprised), despite Archie and Ronnie hearing about it from Svenson himself before.

That said, the reveal of the Black Hood (apparently legitimate, according to executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa) was pretty weak sauce. If his shooting Fred was "anything but random", I guess we're to assume Fred's father was one of the murderous vigilantes? Or maybe Pop was the intended target after all, as one of the guys in the photo was black? Or was it a two-fer? And why did Svenson snap and go all John Doe from Seven now, all these decades later? And what happened to the "Reckoning" he promised us? Meh, just meh.

The Serpent stuff was a bit better this week, though I don't entirely buy that running drugs is a dire enough offense that a newbie like Jughead could round up a whole posse to attack and banish Penny. Still, at least it wasn't as absurd as South Side Enemy #1 Alice Cooper hanging out in the Whyte Worm without incident.

As you said, Christopher, it'll be interesting to see how the show progresses in a less tense atmosphere. From TV Line:

The resurrection of that classic love triangle is just one of the plotlines we can expect to see when Riverdale returns from its winter break on Jan. 17. The Black Hood storyline dominated Season 2’s first half and “made it more challenging to tell relationship and character stories,” the EP concedes, “so I’m excited in the second half to get back to that, and the romances, and stories that are more centered at the school.” Still, there will be a new mystery for the gang to investigate later this season, he confirms… “but I don’t want to spoil it.”​

So, I guess we won't be getting the apocalyptic, series-redefining vampires/Red Dawn turn I've been hoping for anytime soon. I got into Riverdale for its unique mix of murder mystery and teen romance, two genres I avoid by themselves, so without an active murder mystery, I may check out, or at least take a break, until the rest of the season hits Netflix. My post-"House of the Devil" faith in the show may be on the mend, but my giddy enthusiasm will probably take some more healing.
 
Gaith said:
- As the AV Club review noted, this Serpent stuff is getting majorly convoluted, or (more likely) just plain sloppy. The whole point of joining a gang is that you don't retire and can't leave, so even if the Serpents were okay with letting FP step away once he got out of jail, no way in heck would they throw him a retirement party. .
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Plus, I gotta wonder: When your newly-paroled dad is trying his best to stay on the straight and narrow, maybe throwing him a bash at his favorite biker bar, with all his old cronies, is not the best of ideas?
 
Riverdale returns!

The most interesting development: Southside High is shut down "due to safety issues" (though we know Mayor McCoy and the Lodges are behind the school closure) so Jughead and his Serpent buddies transfer to Riverdale High, much to the chagrin of snooty Northsiders like Cheryl Blossom. Others, like Archie and Ronnie, are far more accepting. Not to be looked down upon, Jug stands firm and refuses to take off his Serpent jacket, but later he realizes he and the others must lay low for now.

Betty meets her older brother (who was given up for adoption by Alice) but learns that he's had a rough life. Is he going to be trouble for the Coopers?
 
I wonder if the FBI guy who recruited Archie is really on the level. Anyone know what comics character he's based on? (Damn, I miss ComicsAlliance. Their columnist Chris Sims was an Archie expert, and they had a weekly Riverdale review thread that gave some pretty useful insights -- plus a fun bit where they put Riverdale's craziest lines of dialogue into speech balloons from Archie comics panels. Sims is doing a column and occasional other pieces for Looper now, but no Riverdale reviews.)

I find it hard to believe that Jughead is able to disguise his secret Serpents club as an RPG club, when it actually has "Serpents" in the name of the "game" and uses the Serpents' symbol. Is Principal Weatherbee really that dense?
 
I don't think Weatherbee is that dense.. I'm sure he knows all too well that Jug's RPG club is thinly veiled as a Serpent meeting, but he also knows that if he doesn't allow it, they'll just do it anyway and cause more trouble...

Or it could just be bad writing and they're going to get in trouble when Weatherbee realizes he's been tricked. LOL
 
The AV Club and What the Flick?! seem to agree: only four episodes after the series' best ep (and three after its worst), Riverdale is flailing. (Full disclosure: I haven't seen the last two eps, nor do I currently plan to.) First the Reaper's "Reckoning" was simply forgotten about, then that suspense-filled plot line was dismissed in a jumbled, awkward hurry, and now the big plot developments are Betty's brother twerking in front of his computer and more vague insinuations about the vaguely sinister SoDale redevelopment project? Not to mention Cheryl's stalking of Josie apparently forgotten. Sounds like it's time to bring in the vampires and aliens and sh*t. :p
 
I'm glad they've dialed it back. This is supposed to be a show about high school students, so having them jump right from solving Jason's murder to dealing with a serial killer (who only succeeded in killing one of his targets) was too much too soon. Where could they have escalated from there? Open warfare? A zombie apocalypse? They need to pace themselves -- get away from the murder-related stuff and find other sources of conflict. The problem isn't with the current arc, the problem is that the Black Hood arc was overkill. Going constantly bigger and bigger is not always good, especially if it happens too quickly.
 
Christopher said:
I'm glad they've dialed it back. This is supposed to be a show about high school students, so -
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It's a show about high school students and murder. Just like Smallville was about High Schoolers Clark Kent and his peers and the gradual fall into villainy of Lex Luthor.

Christopher said:
Where could they have escalated from there? Open warfare? A zombie apocalypse?
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I thought I was clear: Yes, absolutely, to all of that! Maybe not at this exact point, but certainly by the end of this second season, I'd be disappointed if the show and its world weren't radically and irrevocably upended. An unreasonable hope, you might say? Perhaps, but my hope nonetheless. ;)

But what I think we can agree on is the need for consistency from the writers vis-a-vis the show and its world. Jughead's narration promised us Fred's shooting was "anything but random," but even if Fred's father participated in the execution of the suspected traveling preacher killer, it certainly feels random. Alice should not have been allowed into the Wyrm for FP's party. Cheryl should be dominating and tormenting her mother as she promised in the season premiere. The Goonies should have attempted retaliation over Archie getting a number of them jailed by now. And now, out of nowhere, the Serpents are heavily Native American?! It seems as though the writers are just throwing crap at the wall at this point, with seriously limited attention spans.
 
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