Man, the finale was gripping. Especially the scene on the river ice, the gang's rescue of Cheryl. I was on the edge of my seat from the moment Veronica got that text. I feel so sad for Cheryl. She's so damaged by her surroundings and her parents. And Madelaine Petsch did a great job playing her eerily serene and controlled persona with a river of anguish underneath.
But what was Veronica thinking leaving her alone (or with Hermione, which might as well have been leaving her alone) after a suicide attempt? She should've had someone with her at all times. Heck, she should've been in the hospital after nearly drowning in a frozen river.
That glitch aside, this episode carried on with the thread I love most about this show, which is how fundamentally good and heroic the four core characters are, how much they care and try to help people despite all the craziness their parents' generation subjects them to. I'm really glad this show found the secret to having loads of drama and conflict without having all the characters be total jerks -- which is to have the supporting characters be even bigger jerks so that the main characters can be more noble while still having problems created by all the other characters.
I guess Cheryl's the contrast to the core foursome, the one who was broken by what her parents put her through. There but for the grace of God went Veronica, I imagine. Though V is ultimately stronger. When her pampered life fell apart, she decided on her own to be a better person, and she's been awesome at it. Cheryl's response to adversity was rather more destructive. I'm sure V will try to help her turn it around as she did, but I think Cheryl is broken too deep down to be easily healed, even with friends like Veronica and Archie willing to help her.
I suspect Betty's long-lost, adopted brother will be a plot thread next season. Although I guess the big mystery, at least to start with, will be "Who shot Fred?" (hopefully non-fatally -- I think the producers said the crime featured next season wouldn't be a murder). This is yet another crime in which Hiram Lodge is bound to be a suspect, given all Hermione's warnings about them not getting along.
Meanwhile, they were going all-out with the pop-culture references. Jughead's opening narration referenced the famous Scooby-Doo "meddling kids" line -- which is ironic, because Scooby-Doo (as I may have mentioned before) was initially conceived as a knockoff of Filmation's The Archie Show. They also referenced Heroes -- "Archie Andrews, who saved the cheerleader and saved the town." And Jughead's line about "the whole multiverse" telling him to move to the Southside may have been a wink toward the Berlanti DC shows, or just toward the popularity of multiverses in comics. I think there were one or two more that I noted at the time but can't remember now.
And we got a couple of long-awaited Archie Comics allusions at last. We finally saw Jughead in his iconic pose of chomping down on a hamburger, and we got a cameo by Hot Dog, who was introduced in The Archie Show as Jughead's pet dog and was then added to the comics (putting him in the same category as other broadcast-to-comics characters like Jimmy Olsen, Harley Quinn, and Phil Coulson).
All in all, I'm amazed by how hooked I've gotten on this show, given that I'm not a big Archie fan or a big fan of this kind of soapy teen drama sans SF/fantasy elements. It's just been really well-done, engrossingly written and very well cast. I think the folks who do the casting for Berlanti Productions deserve a lot of the credit for its shows' success. They have a knack for finding people who are really great for their roles.
