#S7 recap

[class1akids]

This was another good scene - Shouto is again emphasizing how he's here because he found a support system at UA - something Touya was lacking.

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale S7 E20 (Chapter 137) Goodbye, Riverdale

We open with Betty Cooper’s signature color as everyone around her thinks of her  - pink and soft and fluffy.  Cherry blossom petals are falling from leaves against a backdrop of a pretty yellow shingle house with pretty windows.  (Betty doesn’t actually consider herself to be pink per se- one of her earliest fights with her mother that we saw were whether she has the right to scarlet lipstick).

A Jughead Jones (not THE, but A) tells us that it’s “the present day.”  67 years after 1955.  It’s 2023.  Not that it means anything in RIverdale where it was 2020 for 7 years.  He starts to speed through people’s lives.  The teenagers”have become adults.”  We scan to black and white photos of Betty, Veronica, Cheryl and Toni looking very wholesome.  There’s a glamorous photo of Polly Amorous performing that number she market tested on the girls of Riverdale.  And a photo of Alice Cooper holding something up, looking very proud.   There’s a photo of all the participants (with Cheryl in the center) of Riverdale Grandstand.  In the most laconic way, this Jughead says people grew up and got married and had kids and raised them and also, uh died.  

The knick knacks we are show are another shot of Polly Amorous, a tourist souvenir nightlight of the Statue of Liberty, an old hardcover copy of Kingsley’s Human Sexuality.  The Riverdale postcard that adorned 1955 Jughead’s window in his train car, a little handout for The Annual Sock Hop, the button for Bee and Vee for Co-Presidents button.  The final item we get shown is a photo of Betty doing her panty flashing turns on her mother’s tv show. 

“The story tonight is about saying goodbye to a town that was once lost in time.”  He says it’s going to start near the end with an 86 year old Elizabeth Cooper, who is hanging out with her granddaughter.  Her hobby is apparently to check the obituaries daily.  (I mean, obituaries are in every newspaper, so does this mean Betty reads ONLY the obituaries?) The dark haired granddaughter asks Grandma Betty about knowing someone in high school who is the subject of the obituary.  She remarks that whoever is dead seems “like an interesting person.”

I had to pause to look. The obituary is for Forsythe “Jughead” Jones, in glasses, tie and suspenders. I can’t make out what it says. 

Grandma Betty (there are multiple Betties in this episode just like Jughead so I’m going to have a heck of a time getting the nomenclature clear) says that the dead person was.  Jughead Jones, in a blue S t-shirt, yellow suspenders and the felt crown flashes like a hallucination next to her as Grandma Betty fondly agrees that Jughead was indeed an interesting person.   He’s smiling very brightly  He rarely does actually, in this entire series, including the most recent season, so it’s nice that Grandma Betty specifically remembers him in this rare moment of unabashed grinning.

The granddaughter is named Alice. 

Alice.

ALICE?

Immediately I don't like or trust Grandma Betty. It’s not my culture to recycle names so something about this western habit seems very ill-starred to me to begin with, but you named a girl child after ALICE COOPER on purpose! Oh NO!

Anyway, Grandma Betty says that she and her friends were all interesting people, and they had “marvelous adventures” the likes of which Granddaughter Alice “wouldn’t believe.”

Uh. If you’re in your 80s in 2023, Grandma Betty, you’re not the Betty that had marvelous adventures, per se.  At least not with the other three members of the core four. Like, you barely ever even talked to Jughead. 

Betty says that since Jughead is dead, she’s “the last of them.”  With this thought she decides that she wants to go back to Riverdale before it’s too late, because she’s forgetting more things daily, and she wants to go back before she “forgets everything.”  Granddaughter Alice agrees before taking her leave.

Mercifully the show shows me the obituary.  

Forsythe “Jughead” Jones (no Pendleton or the 3rd), Prolific Editor of Jughead’ Madhouse Magazine, Dies at 84.  

But the photo they use must have been when his Madhouse magazine did something because he is not in 84 year old make up.  Grandma Betty lets out a heavy sigh.

It’s night-time now, and Grandma Betty has fallen asleep with her Riverdale year book.  The nightlight comes on.  (I feel like this nightlight is important somehow between the Cooper sisters but I can’t recall).  This wakes her up, making her call out “Hello?”

There’s a jingle of bells.  A Jughead Jones is sitting on a chair, staring at her, smiling.  Watching her sleep??  Suddenly all the lights are on.  Taking the entirety of this in stride, Grandma Betty calmly tells him that she was going through “our yearbook,”  The Visitor Jughead Jones (I told you, nomenclature was going to be a problem) also acts like they just always talk to each other, asking casually what she was trying to remember.  She tells him that she’s going to Riverdale tomorrow, and her granddaughter is taking her.  She then says, “Going through these pictures, I just wish I could go back to how it was.”

Which the fuck Jughead is this that she’s hallucinating/ is visiting her?   He’s wearing a beanie, an S T shirt, flannels.  His demeanor is closer to the Brittle Sadness Jughead of S1, he’s not wearing the glasses of Adult Jughead, he also doesn’t have the manic-eyed chipmunk cheek demeanor of slick-haired RiverVale Narrator Jughead.  

Anyway, Visitor Jughead tells her, like this is completely normal, that “You could pick a day, and I’ll take you.”   He also warns her that even though this is possible, it will be painful, because she’ll have this double consciousness - one part of her will be living that day, and another part will be watching herself live it.  So then Betty says that if it’s actually possible to “go back” then she will pick a day that she “missed.”  The day she picks is the day of the yearbook handout, which she missed out on entirely because she “had the mumps and had to stay home.”  She never got her yearbook signed.  

It’s very disconcerting watching the young Jughead look at this old woman in a paternalistic way as she talks in an increasingly babyish way about how, out of 86 years of life, the thing she regrets with a lot of feeling is being sick on the day she could’ve gotten her yearbook signed. 

Visitor Jughead, looking very lighthearted because she doesn’t actually want to relive a day that actually occurred, cheerfully tells Grandma Betty that all she needs to do is walk through a door (which magically appears) bearing the sign “Betty’s Bedroom,” and “you’ll have your day, the day you missed.”

There’s another magical twinkling of bells.

Ah. OK. So you see, every single thing that happens on ‘this day” absolutely didn’t happen.  The actual day was a wash for Betty - she was sick in bed with the mumps. She has only a second hand (if at all) recollection of how that day went, maybe via phone call from Veronica or something.  The things that happen on the other side of that door, DID NOT HAPPEN.

We’re on the other side of the door, when it opens and Betty walks out of a black void, looking young and played by Lili R and in a super pink outfit.  The black void is absolute.  She leaves the door open as she walks into a bright sunny day in her 1955 bedroom, to do a twirl, celebrating how “it’s exactly like I remembered.”  Then she catches a glimpse of her 1955 self in the mirror and is stunned. I mean, anyone would be, to wake up and find yourself in Betty Cooper’s face and body with the 1955 styling - aesthetics 10/10,  A++ etc.  She gawks in wonder at herself, which is very funny, before turning around to ask Visitor Jughead (who hasn’t changed clothes or anything to  make himself fit into 1955 better) if this is what she really looked like. 

Bathed in gold light, Visitor Jughead nods at TimeTravel Betty.  

“There were so many things I wanted to change about myself back then,” Betty says, before bursting out with “Why? I was perfect!”  I mean, speak for yourself, I guess, but also I kind of know what she means.  “We were all perfect!” she exclaims.  

Visitor Jughead has an eerie agelessness about him, which is different from Angel Gabriel Inhabingting Jughead. He has no comment to make to Timetravel Betty about any of this, and just calmly, distantly observes how she reacts to this fictional world with 1955 trappings he’s constructed for her (reasons unknown).  Reminder once again that she hasn’t been taken back in time to a day that happened. This is his personal magical gift to her (is he HER guardian angel? Why does he take the shape of a Jughead?) 

Betty doesn’t really care what he thinks, and continues to exult over the perfect verisimilitude of this false world.  “My window!” she cries. “How many sunrises have I seen out this window!”  Well, technically speaking, none, because this isn’t in any way a real world.  This is a fourth alternate universe (after Riverdale proper, Rivervale, and  1955 Riverdale) constructed specifically for Grandma Betty. 

Then we see an Archie come into view, getting ready to leave his house for the day. “How many times have I looked out this window into Archie’s?” she says, her eyes suddenly full of emotion, her voice husky.  This question, Visitor Jughead does answer: “In the thousands, at least.”  (I mean, she and he lived in adjoining houses with the same assigned bedrooms since they were very small kids, so given the 365 days in the year, thousands seems like rather a lowball number). 

Because Visitor Jughead is an omniscient narrator as well as a time-bubble builder, he tells a calmly accepting Timetravel Betty that Archie is “about to have a talk with his mom, about what he’s going to do after graduation.”  She doesn’t ask like, How do you know that or whatever.  She just turns to the window, apparently to … watch? 

Then we cut to Archie looking at a pamphlet for “Building America’s Highways.”  Inside, it says things like “Make an Adventure Out of It!” and “Everyone is Welcome” showing very cheerful, burly men in overalls doing manly work with other men.  “Help build America for us, our children and those visiting our lands.  Strong hands and positive minds are building roads for generations to come” and so forth.  This is how you get trafficked, Archie, but okay sure, believe a pamphlet. 

Mary Andrews summons Archie to breakfast.  Archie says that he has to let Vic known if he’s going to be “joining his crew on Monday.”  This upsets Mary immediately.  She sits down to say that it doesn’t make sense to her, wanting to “dig ditches.”   Archie starts to riff on what we’ve just see in the pamphlet.  He is all about Eisenhower’s call to build roads “from coast to coast, all the way to California.”   Then he adds that it’ll “give him something to write about.”  She points out that he’s been plenty prolific while staying put in Riverdale.  Archie patiently reminds her he’ll be gone three months at the most.  Mary tells Archie that he’s going to “take one look at the Pacific Ocean, and forget Riverdale.”   He insists that Riverdale will always be “our home.”   She then says the things you should never say to Archie Andrews if you don’t want him to do something- “You’re just like your father.”  In any universe, including this fourth one, this is the way to unlock Archie Andrew’s heart.  If Mary actually wants Archie to return home from his road building adventure, she shouldn’t say what she says next: “He always dreamt of settling in the West.” 

It’s very bizarre that Fred Andrews who died in 1952 would think of California as “the West” like that, like he was born in 1852 but okay. Sure.   

Then Mary says that Archie has her blessing to settle in the West.  So at least, this third? (because does Mary Andrews exist in Rivervale??) Mary Andrews is consistent with the others - she doesn’t want that much to do with Archie Andrews, her son.   

The scene ends with them telling each other they love each other and embracing.  Mary starts crying. 

It’s clear that somehow Timetravel Betty was in fact able to ‘watch’ all this along with the audience.  She comes in from the side as Mary’s upset face starts to fade, to inquire of Visitor Jughead, “I don’t remember. What happened to Mrs. Andrews?”

There’s a whooshing sound, and Visitor Jughead tells her a made up story, which he also shows her in a sort of TV show hallucination.  Mary was running her dress shop. A customer named Brooke came in, and they fell in love, and lived together until “the end.”  There’s a whooshing fade out. Timetravel Betty skips over the any of the obvious questions - Mary Andrews wasn’t straight?  Was she out?  Did anyone give the two women trouble?  - to simply say that Mary was “always a kind woman.”  Which … that hasn’t really been evidenced by anything that’s ever happened with the story as far as Mary Andrews is concerned, but we have to remember that TimeTravel Betty is the same person as Grandma Betty who was the 1955 Betty grown old, and 1955 Betty was actively, alarmingly, intensely stupid.   And once again, Time Travel Betty exhibits this same trait that sets my teeth on edge so much about all the other Bettys - “She once gave my mother hell for disowning me.”  Either someone is directly useful to the life of Betty Cooper  and their action counts, or it doesn’t matter at all.  

Why even ask about Mrs. Andrews if you’re not at all going to be listening to the answer nor care about what happened to her?  

I think Visitor Jughead feels the same, because he activates the Not Alice and Not Polly clones that he has invented for this bubble universe. Polly is heavily pregnant, seated at Alice’s table fiddling with ribbons or decorations or something, and laughing and talking with Alice Cooper, who is wearing a flight attendant’s uniform.  Time Travel Betty bursts in on them to say - You’re talking again! after noticing they are both alive and so young.  They both laugh at her in an affectionate way.

This is how you know this is completely not real.  I don’t know what happened to Polly Amorous Polly but she definitely did not come home to have her twins in the actual timeline.  This is just Visitor Jughead making things nice for TimeTravel Betty.

In any case, Time Travel Betty and Not Alice have an exposition dump type exchange in which Time Travel Betty tells Not Alice that she divorced Hal and made her dream of becoming a stewardess come true.   Betty insists she isn’t sick with mumps, and then has a really wonderful hug with Not Alice, followed by the same with Not Polly, where she tells them she loves them.  

This sort of exchange never, ever can be possible between any of the iterations of Alice and any of the iterations of Betty.  It is so absolutely not true to either of their characters that I vomited a little into my mouth. Visitor Jughead is a very sentimental fiction writer. 

Sitting on the stoop of the Cooper house, TimeTravel Betty asks Visitor Jughead how this version of the multiverse of Riverdale turned out for Alice:  “Was my mom a stewardess for very long?”   Still in his very, ‘I don’t know these people’ sentimentalist way, Visitor Jughead makes up some stupid story about how she managed to land a plane because the pilot died mid flight.  So then TimeTravel Betty picks up the story from there and further invents another OC who takes Alice out to dinner for sheer gratitude, after which they got married and the man took her around the world.  TimeTravel Betty, at age 86 obviously has long since lost her mother, so she has to finish with her death, but in a really nonspecific way:  Alice was sending post cards from new locations, and then stopped doing that and hence that’s how, in this false universe full of stories of things that never happened, is how Alice Cooper died.  

As for Polly, TimeTravel Betty again leans on Visitor Jughead to give her the headcanon.  The thing is, Visitor Jughead just doesn’t know a lot about Polly, so his sketch for her is the most ridiculously barebones - she had twins, “she was very fulfilled with her family” and ummm she also just stopped performing as Polly Amorous as soon as she was weighted down in motherhood with twins.  There’s some nondescript dark haired white man in a suit in the hospital room when Alice and Betty allegedly meet the twins shortly after birth, but interestingly Visitor Jughead doesn’t say she got MARRIED, so I am feeling very validated in not believing Polly about her so called engagement to her so called uptown gentleman in the alternate universe that DID actually occur. 

Visitor Jughead takes TimeTravel Betty to school.  

The episode directly addresses the fact that everything that happened past the point when TimeTravel Betty walked out of the void into her ersatz bedroom to her ersatz version of her family did not occur. “Is this real,” she asks, “or a dream?”  Visitor Jughead says what she’s experiencing is something ‘in between’ → it’s most definitely not real.

Time Travel Betty says some pablum about how everyone looks young and beautiful and are unaware of how special this time is and how it goes by so fast.

I guess this is what a fabricated flashback to a day that never happened feels like to someone who peaked in high school?  I really wish I could find some way to connect with Betty, since they’re making her the focus of the show’s final episode, but really, I feel nothing but irritation about everything she’s ever done or said.  

Thankfully, we run directly into Veronica.  Betty is ecstatic to see her.  So this Not Veronica’s appearance managed to make Visitor Jughead completely stop existing.   The two of them march into school, and they talk about how emotional they feel about this day when they are about to get their yearbooks. 

Toni comes onto the intercom to tell everyone that she is senior class president.  Then she recites a poem as “the final” one as Weatherbee looks on in adoration.  My schools did not have this thing of having some kid make an announcement first thing in the morning, and thank god.  Some girl reciting a poem like this before 9 a.m. followed by some earnest speech about ‘making lasting change’ after ‘dreaming it first’ would’ve ended my high school ‘career’ prematurely with murder charges.   In any case - this is odd because in the early episodes of this season it was Cheryl who was making these announcements.  So an ‘improved’ world is one where Cheryl doesn’t say anything and Toni forces her political views on people. 

We’re at the Blue and Gold office now, where Visitor Jughead is suddenly back.   There are a lot of framed articles on the wall, all of which are Social Justice oriented.  Time Travel Betty says that Toni always insisted that they report on national news about race issues.  Visitor Jughead says that engagement with the “larger world” would continue, then starts to speak of Toni’s future when Time Travel Betty stops him.  She doesn’t want to know, yet, so she requests that he doesn’t tell her.  Look like he has a thousand more things to say, Visitor Jughead simply says, “ All right, I won’t.” 

The slightly embittered expression, laced with a sadness, that Visitor Jughead keeps on his face is the only thing keeping me watching this saccharine disaster.  Who the heck is he?

Next we’re watching Cheryl hand out Yearbooks to people standing in line, behaving as though she’s the principal handing out diplomas.  Somehow she knows precisely which illness Betty had on the actual day, so she is very alarmed.  (“I don’t want your lumpy cooties!”).  She hands a yearbook to Betty but refuses to sign right then, because she will see Betty later.  They’re having an event at the Dark Room, and then a party at Thornhill.

The first person seen signing Time Travel Betty’s Yearbook is Fangs, who is with Midge, who tells Betty that Fangs has a song on the charts.  The huge accomplishment of a hit single got Midge’s parents to agree to let them get married.  Fangs adds on that he’s going to go on a tour.  Betty starts to cry immediately. 

Visitor Jughead is with Betty again.  If I’m to posit that whatever it is Visitor Jughead tells Time Travel Betty was “Really What Happened”  to the S7 characters in their timeline, I’m supposed to believe that 86 year old Betty simply FORGOT what happened to her mother and her sister but had total recall of exactly how and when Fangs died.   Which is a very long winded way to say, I don’t believe any of this happened to the actual people we knew from 1955 S7. 

Dementia from old age manifests in people in a LOT of different ways, and I’ve read about examples of people who remember their earlier lives but not their adult ones, sure, but the framing device for this - that this is the alternative, fanfiction, The-Way-She-Wishes-It-Was version of the day she didn’t get to have because she was sick in bed - makes me doubt everything about the life stories that are told by Visitor Jughead. 

So, to return, I don’t know what Visitor Jughead’s reason is, but he gives Fangs a pretty dire ending.  The tour bus crashed in the Rocky Mountains and he died immediately.  He was the first one of ‘us’ to die, apparently.   Visitor Jughead invents a super successful posthumous music career for Fangs - his songs made so much money that Midge and daughter were able to live off of it forever.

….Sure OK yeah.

Time Travel Betty says that she’s ‘remembering’ more and more.   Disbelieve.  Truly.  It’s more like, you’re getting a comforting false memory implanted into your head by Visitor Jughead who, like all fanfiction creators, is trying to make sure his audience stays engaged with his vision.

Visitor Jughead disappears in a jingle of bells again when Kevin enters the room to fetch Betty, who is wiping away tears.  She goes out to sit with Kevin and Clay for lunch.  Kevin signs her book while waxing sentimental about this is the last time they will do this experience, of sitting to lunch together.

I think I get what my problem is with this episode, and it’s deeply personal (but hey this is my blog and my reaction).  High school was not a good time. I only endured high school as a way to get to college and then grad school (and yeah I planned to go to grad school well before I graduated from hs) then on to my adult life, which I expected would get exponentially better the closer I got to adult life.  And I was right, by the way.  Being an adult has been awesome so far, incomparably so compared to how life was daily in high school, so I feel zero nostalgia or warmth about high school whatsoever.  So for me, the last day of high school was not this like, sniffle-sniffle Farewell My Friends type of a deal. I was very much uh, come to think of it, ETHEL as in - I AM FINALLY GETTING OUT OF HERE, NOBODY CALL ME, BYE BYE~!   This is yet another thing I do not understand Betty about, at all.

Anyhoo-

Riverdale, possibly because of the educational pedigree or, more likely, the educational insecurity of the maker, is very snobby about school.  Instead of saying “going to school in New York” like most normal people who go to any school in NYC, Clay specifically says I AM GOING TO COLUMBIA and KEVIN IS GOING TO NYU.   He also says that they decided it “made sense to get an apartment together.”

It…. really doesn’t.  I am not going to bother looking up where NYU was located vis a vis Columbia University in 1955 but no, it doesn’t. If one of you was going to Fordham, maybe? Or Julliard? Even then it’s quite a distance between Lincoln Center and Harlem.

Kevin admits as much  - he immediately adds that this is the excuse they each gave Kevin’s mother and Clay’s father, and even made lovey dovey eyes at each other right there, and even reached out and held each other’s hand, and both parents (a white woman whose former husband is fucking Uncle Fucking Frank and Clay’s African American father) seem extremely pleased with everything.  In 1955.  So, this is something I very much like about Riverdale. If you’re going to imagine gay people, then HELL YEAH imagine for them good supportive families that are happy that they found love. This show is more than half magical realism fantasy anyway, so go with that.  I’m all for it. 

There’s that jingling sound effect, and Visitor Jughead is there, sitting in mimicry of Clay’s pose, across from Betty and visible only to her.  TimeTravel Betty asks what happens to them, but then she puts in a specific fan request: “Nothing awful, I hope.”

So, in acquiescence of her request, Visitor Jughead makes up something that I think he thinks the very stupid 1955 Betty can handle. He tells her a ridiculous fairytale about an interracial gay couple in NYC who lived there through more than one race riot, Stonewall (1968) and Studio 54 (the 70s) and AIDS but had the most insulated, untroubled life on planet earth.  Like, THEY NEVER EVEN HAD TO MOVE. I guess they got one of those super prized rent-controlled apartments that I’ve read so much about and just lived in that one place for sixty years.  What??

 See, this is how you know it’s a lie.   Betty pretends that she remembers visiting them - at this point I wonder if Visitor Jughead is just implanting memories in her head the way that Angel Tabitha could edit the Riverdale S1-7 episodes to be only good memories (such as, erase the homophobic abuse that Cheryl suffered but recall the happiness of Toni coming to Cheryl’s rescue and their romantic kiss).   

Clay got tenure, Kevin ‘started’ a theater company, and they both lived into their 80s ,and Kevin died first (causes unknown but given his age probably  just old age) and Clay died very soon afterwards. 

I want there to be more story.  Like, if Kevin was in the theater arts, and even moderately successful, he would have experienced the decimation of the performing community that happened in NY in the 80s.  He did zero AIDS related activism?   OK wait actually, 1955 Kevin was a self serving hideous asshole, so he might well have.  But Clay?? 

Visitor Jughead only relates the very start - they moved in together into an apartment in Harlem, which to reiterate they apparently never moved a single time, IN NYC, for SIX DECADES  (sorry, I’m hyperventilating from all the trauma of apartment hunting in the same city omg), and the sequence of their deaths.  The rest, 1955 Betty is too stupid to understand.  She cries very prettily about it, thinking about their deaths. 

Somehow, Kevin notices her tearing up, asking if she’s OK.  She tells Clay and Kevin that “you two are soulmates.”

I despise this.  Kevin really REALLY REALLY needs to be taken to hardcore TASK for how he abused Betty during the time he was using her as an unwitting beard.  Betty rolling over like this makes me not respect her at all, whatsoever, given how vicious she can be about her mom in the 1955 universe.

Then Kevin, on the day that never happened, asks Time Travel Betty, who is getting fed fiction by Visitor Jughead, asks if “the four of you have figure out what you’re gonna do yet?”

Time Travel Betty has no idea what he means by “the four.”  When she says as much, Kevin tells her that she is not only dating Archie but she’s also dating “the others.”  Time Travel Betty still has no clue what he means.   So then Kevin says  she can’t “suddenly have forgotten” that she “Archie, Veronica and Jughead have been in a quad this entire last year.”  Time Travel Betty has no idea what a quad is either. 

When she looks over, the other three wave at her, with the tall boys flanking the very tiny, very happy looking Veronica on either side.  The waving clues her into what a ‘quad’ means.

There’s a cut to commercial.

Then Betty is in the bathroom, smiling blissfully into the mirror.  Cheryl comes by to wash her hands, wanting to know why Betty looks so smug.  Betty tries to explain that she is in a very different place from “a year ago” right before The Teenage Mystique came out.  Cheryl impatiently waves it away  - “Yes yes, we all read The Teenage Mystique.”  The last time, ahem, ‘a year ago’ allegedly, that Cheryl knew the identity of the Teenage Mystique author, she was a huge fan of it.  She was an important part of the book. This is very not how Cheryl is about that book. 

Time Travel Betty smiles to herself as she says it’s been a very fun year.  Cheryl’s response is ‘ugh.’

Next up, Time Travel Betty has tracked down this alternate version of Reggie Mantle to get her yearbook signed.  He expresses regret that the two of them could’ve had a fun time together if only she’d chosen him over Archie.  Scooting closer, Time Travel Betty, who has completely bought whatever these Marionettes of Visitor Jughead versions tell her, tells Reggie about the Quad she is in with The Other Three like she literally had no idea what any of that was about until the Marionette Kevin put that in her head. 

You know what I think?  I think at this bend in the story, Time Travel Betty has become a co-writer with Visitor Jughead, for this final story. It’s just a story, remember?  By telling Marionette Reggie this story, Time Travel Betty is making this real for herself in her fantasy. 

So her version of the story is as follows:  That after the visit of Angel Tabitha and the strange mind-wipe she sort of kind of did on everyone except for Betty and Jughead,  Bughead and Varchie both had recalls of what it was like being in those couplings, so that the 1955- established Barchie and Jeronica (I refuse to call them Vughead) pairings felt that they didn’t have to make a single solitary choice, and could just do a mix’n’match among all involved individuals “at the same time.”

And see, this is the bit that rankles me. Archie and Veronica remembering their sexy times (without the burden of how their attempt at an adult relationship entirely failed, or um, how much Archie made Veronica cry, or how taxing and painful it was for her to keep it all together for the three of them after she discovered the Archie-Betty cheating situation) wanting to regroup, I can kind of understand.  But Betty and Jughead chose to remember the bad with the good, did they not?  Jughead also chose to remember Tabitha as she had been.  So … Uh.. No.  There’s something very fucked up about Bughead reuniting when they BOTH remember what happened in the previous seasons. 

So. 

I’m tired.  I think the playfulness of the music and the very funny Marionette Reggie performance is supposed to inspire feelings of delight in watching exactly how this foursome supposedly worked in their senior year, but I am mute with disappointment and honestly, a dash of horror. But before we get to that - I wish we’d gotten to see more of this wide-eyed doofus funny 1955 Reggie in the previous season.  He’s carrying a HEAVY load, here, being made responsible for selling this hogwash to me.

There were double dates among the four, which lead to Jughead and Betty holding hands.  Then it graduated to Archie visiting Betty in her bedroom (which is permissible because Uncle Fucking Frank has been exiled from the Andrews house) and Veronica going home with Jughead. And other time, Archie would visit Veronica at the Pembrook, with Jughead being the lesser, unofficial partner and hence being unable to come to the Cooper house.  Betty also visited Veronica a lot at the Pembrooke. 

I would do some hollering about Jughead and Archie but the thing is, they were setting us up for there being no Jarchie in the mix even if Beronica is a reality in this bubble universe, because Jughead and Archie in the 1955 time bubble really don’t know each other very well at all. They are somewhat close at the start of the year - such that Archie is the one to tell Jughead that he sounds insane when he starts spouting off about the future from whence he’s just come - but as the season went on, they spent almost no time with each other.  1955 Reggie inquiring about Archie’s friendship with Jughead got an ice cold non-reaction from Archie, because whatever closeness they had in their preadolescence was completely obsolete by the time Archie wanted to take Reggie to fuck a prostitute together or whatever. 

Reggie is upset that he wasn’t asked to join, and Betty says that this is because Reggie seemed too focused on basketball.  Reggie insists that he would’ve completely made time for the sort of busy nights that Betty is making up - err, describes - had he been invited. 

Betty had the flattering experience of Reggie competing outright for her against Archie, but Veronica actually got roundly rejected by Reggie for being too much of a handful and then had the missed connections problem.  Plus, what was the highlight reel of ‘good’ that Reggie and Veronica would’ve been shown?  Was NONE of it good?  (This is where Time Travel Betty making up this quad completely falls apart for me- why it is that Reggie and Veronica don’t remember THEIR connection.  Is it condemnation for the entirety of the Reggie-and-Veronica friendship, relationship and situationship in toto?  But their relationship deteriorating was no more toxic than Bughead’s implosion and the extremely bitterness they exhibited about each other in S5.)

After the two of them very nicely tell each other that they would’ve liked to have hooked up but it’s too late now (but why?), and also say that they think the other is destined for greatness, Visitor Jughead is back.   Time Travel Betty wants to know what happened, so Visitor Jughead says that Reggie  Reggie’s life is Kansas State, then a short professional basketball career with the Lakers which apparently didn’t make him a whole lot of money because he still had to work the farm during the off season for his still very invisible parents, after which he had to sell the land upon their death.  He had an unnamed wife who is killed the second she is introduced so she can be buried next to him (she predeceases him), and he had to return to Riverdale to be a coach, where both his sons were also on the basketball team.  Betty tears up again, apparently in reaction to the thought of Reggie dying. Or maybe she’s crying because he ended up back at Riverdale, coaching

Visitor Jughead tells her that they have to go to the Babylonium now. She looks a bit scared.  They’re showing “The Big Sleep.”  Since Riverdale (intentionally?) misquotes cultural chestnuts all the time, I think the title “Big Sleep” is meant to be a pun on the fact that this story we’re being shown is a big dream that the 86 year old Betty is having. A lucid dream, in which she’s controlling all of what she allegedly ‘remembers’ via the narration of the invented Visitor Jughead.

Veronica’s opening line is “How’s that absinthe, Betty?”  It’s in the middle of the day, so Veronica Lodge being an unacknowledged alcoholic is a weird theme they are carrying through to this season for reasons unknown.  In any case, Veronica says she’s given Betty the alcohol because she has news which she hasn’t “yet shared with the boys.”  

The news is that Veronica has been haunted by Josie McCoy’s kernel of inspiration about being a producer of movies, so she’s gotten herself a job straight out of high school to go work at a studio in L.A.  Her long term plan is to work her way up the ranks to become a studio executive with the power to gatekeep film production in the future.  

I really love the scale of Veronica Lodge’s dreams, and the fact that she just launches businesses and careers for herself all the time. Whenever she works at a place, even as an actual child, like the Diner, she goes, OK but one day I’m going to OWN it and then open a bar underneath it and also I’m going to be the direct producer of the alcohol that I sell in the bar under the diner that  I own.  So Betty, looking very very teary eyed all over again, says that what Veronica has set out to do seems like “the opportunity of a lifetime” then adds “of all the businesses that you’ve started, this move feels the most right.”   Veronica says it feels like destiny.

When Betty says California feels so far away, Veronica says they will always be in each other’s lives. They tearfully hold hands. 

OK so this is the second time that California is talked about like it’s Cape Good Hope, and I would think that for small town upstate New York people, New York City also feels very far away, no?  I mean, Frank Sinatra used to sit on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, which is literally a mile wide, and stare across at the City vowing his dreams to himself, because NYC felt unreachable.  

Another woosh, and Visitor Jughead is back, pretending like he has ever seen a single movie at the Babylonium. (No he has not). “I always loved this theater,” is what he says.  So maybe this is one of those like, multiple eternal universes theories where every moment in every possible universe also exists for eternity?  This Jughead has never seen a single movie in this theater, I repeat.  He also says, “Lots of kids made out here” before flipping up the seat next to him to show a lot of gum stuck underneath - ew - and his signature crown graffiti as well as some other markings.  The 1955 Jughead went to see B-horror movies and watched them with full concentration, completely ignoring everyone who was making out all around him.  

Time Travel Betty asks what happened to Veronica.  The usual lie comes out of Visitor Jughead - Veronica started out at the bottom of the corporate ladder (I mean, maybe the Hollywood nepotism helped??) then “within a few years” she was running the place, leading to “two Oscars” and she produced “iconic movies.”  I’m happy that the two of them are concocting a nice narrative for Veronica’s life, but what I notice is that she isn’t given a wife or a husband or children. She just had her career, and was buried in Hollywood.  Betty is crying again and it’s getting very tedious.  She regrets that they - the two of them but also in the larger sense of the four of them, did not keep in better touch, because they were “so close.”

Um.

I think maybe you weren’t, Betty.   I think 86 Year Old Betty is expressing some sort of Crone Sexualityawakening, something along the lines of -  instead of fighting the one girl who I was really good friends with over the boy we both had the hots for I should’ve just fucked all my friends!  The false narrative is that the four of them were “so close, inseparable” suddenly in their final year, and Betty can’t actually say the truth.  “And then we just … dot dot dot.”  That faltering has the truth hidden inside of it - none of this happened.  They did not have this kind of senior year.  And there was no quad.

Visitor Jughead isn’t really necessary anymore because Time Travel Betty has just taken over the fiction making, so he’s staring off, not even looking at her as she has her self-serving memory-induced breakdown about her lost friends (based on the fictional relationship she is just now coming up with), and the flat, cold way he looks down at her has that same eerie disconnect he was exhibiting earlier. 

“That’s what today is all about,” he says, “Remembering.  And getting one more chance. And no regrets.”

This long hallucination is that Betty remembers she was sick that last day of school, and then as everyone moved on to the next bit of their lives, they all grew apart, so her second chance is her wishing she’d had more sex when she was younger.   She’s just getting to write a fix-it fanfic of her life.

So then we go to the Choni fanfic segment. I’m getting very tired.  Cheryl and Toni are fully out, at least in the confines of the underground coffee shop. Cheryl says that “there’s no separation between our art and our love.”  Toni just looks at her, but doesn’t say a single word of support about this so called perfect love, which fits in with how nasty a user fail girlfriend she’s been this entire season. When she does talk, Toni talks about Black Athena, her accomplishment she was very reluctant to take Cheryl to and from which Cheryl on her own cognizance banned herself. 

The theme is “Beefcake Meets Cheesecake.”  This seems like Toni forcing her bisexuality on Cheryl, who wouldn’t seem the type to voluntarily draw shirtless men.  Time Travel Betty really likes the paintings.  

The most important thing about this scene is that 1955 Jughead with his felt crown is there, with his arm around 1955 Veronica.  

The very nice, kind future that Visitor Jughead weaves for Betty’s benefit about Cheryl and Toni is that Cheryl had a super successful career as a painter, and that Cheryl and Toni stayed together for life, in California (he says Oakland, and for some reason this doesn’t merit a third mention of how very, extremely far away California is), i na big rambling hippie house.  They “lived as artists and activists” - I assume off of Cheryl’s family money.  They also “had a son” which they named after Riverdale (poor boy).  They both died “peacefully.”  Time Travel Betty doesn’t really care about either of these people, so the details are extremely hazy - no age, no sequence of death, no cause of death, no place of burial.  Their lives were long and sexy, apparently.  OK Sure.

Visitor Jughead and Time Travel Betty take in Julian, sitting alone, taking a drink.   She wants to know what happened to him.  He’s the second man who caused problems for Betty, so he gets a really sad, bad ending.   He was not “just a lost soul” - what, no invitation from Kevin to perform at the theater company he founded?? - and he died in Vietnam, leaving behind no lover, no children.  I mean, the Vietnam War technically began in like, 1955, so it was already ongoing by the time they all graduated in 1956, but damn that’s cold.

See, and I understand now why Fangs had to be killed in his version of his life story. His impregnating Midge, and Betty’s very limited intelligence making her unable to understand how that happened was a pretty humiliating conversation for her.  Fangs had to die for sins of his dick.  Julian was the one that clued in Betty to the fact that Archie and Reggie had gone to a prostitute, so that’s why HE had to die. Poor Julian.  He was 28 when he died, by the way, which means he would’ve died in 1966 (the US military presence in Vietnam peaked in the late 60s so this tracks, but what was he doing before??).

Nana Rose, who somehow is at this event, is asked after by Betty, and Visitor Jughead just makes something up - She reincarnated multiple times.  (Rivervale is real?)

Weatherbee and Mrs T got married, late in life. (No other story).

OK so then we come to Frank Andrews, who Betty has a lot of reasons to be mad at, and Tom Keller, which she had less of an interaction with, also meet a bad end.  WHY would either of those men be HERE at this event?  They wouldn’t but of course, as I’ve been saying all along, this isn’t happening, not really. This is the dying 86 year old Betty telling herself a fanfiction of her own life.  Anyway, what happened to them was this: “A hustler they picked up one rainy night named Chic” murdered them both.  Betty in earlier seasons of Riverdale very much disapproved of gay pick up culture, so again, instead of dying of AIDS or homophobic attacks, these two assholes died of gay on gay murder.  Uhhh. That’s a bit homophobic of you, Time Travel Betty. 

Veronica, in the corner, is telling 1955 Jughead and 1955 Archie about her pending departure for California.�� Visitor Jughead says of himself and Archie, “We are not taking it well.”  Betty says a true thing that was already established - she wasn’t there for any of these conversations.   So Visitor Jughead offers her another fix-it fanfic writing opportunity.  “You should be.”

The “boys” are very down in the dumps.  Veronica calmly reminds them that they all knew “they would be going their separate ways after graduation.”  Time Travel Betty is writing the story now, and marionetting all these people. They are all utterly silent and still and devoid of reaction as she catches them up to her fantasy’s narrative - that their senior year was “incredibly” physically fulfilling as well as emotionally a great experience.   Veronica immediately agrees.  Then Jughead says the most unJughead thing of all time, because Time Travel Betty’s narrative is forcing him to: “If I had to live through high school twice, I’m glad it was with you three yahoos.”  

Jughead, you barely saw Archie all through junior year. We have no idea what happened senior year. He would not say this.  

Betty says what she wishes she’d told all these people: “I love you all so much.” 

This episode is her party and she can make it do whatever she wants it to do. 

Betty does acknowledge that there were in fact “heartbreaks and all.”  The four of them hold hands, so then Archie suggests a last ride to Cheryl’s afterparty.  For some reason it’s not night time, so they have a long ride on the jalopy in slow motion. 

Ok I really liked this. The world OPENED UP because we see the huge Canadian forest, the Sweet Water River, the bridge - just this big huge space the show used to inhabit before the cramping down of the available sets from both the pandemic and budget constraints.  They start to look very bittersweet (emphasis on the bitter) as the ride goes on - Betty looking rather askance at Archie, not meeting his eye, Jughead looking away from Veronica at the river as she stares stony faced straight ahead.   

Betty is outside the house, fidgeting, which then brings Visitor Jughead.  He wants to know why she hasn’t gone inside.  Time Travel Betty has fully bought into her own bullshit - this evening, this party and basically NOTHING FROM THIS WHOLE DAY ever happened, but she is now weeping because “this is the last time that that all of us will be together, ever.”  Betty doesn’t want to say goodbye to these fictional versions of her high school friends she’s invented as she lays dying at age 86 on the other side of the close door void. She says even this idealized version,  the act of saying a proper farewell to all her friends that she, even in her made up memories can’t help but decide she never saw much of ever again, woul d be too painful.  

As Visitor Jughead looks at her with that same cold, disengaged affect he’s had this entire time,  Betty regrets the entire venture - “It was a mistake to come back  here. I should be at home with the mumps.”

Visitor Jughead gives her a weird little koan, that the whole arc of a life is to say hello, “walk alongside someone for a while” and then the relationship ends.  This pat summary seems to upset Betty, but at the slightly threatening reminder from Visitor Jughead that “every minute counts” she girds her loins and goes into the party that didn’t happen and even if it did, she was never there. 

First speaker at this event is Archie, who is going to read a poem.  Julian ribs him meanly about being a poet (“You won’t shut up about it!”) and Reggie coos flirtatiously at him, (“Are you going to give us the weeps?”).  I’m bracing for impact here, because Archie’s poems have been hideously painful.  

What Archie mentions in his strange little ode reveals the truly bizarre things that apparently counted as worth being included in the “happy memories only” cut from Angel Tabitha that almost everyone opted for:

And  here it comes: “And no, I won’t be mentioning the epic highs and lows of high school football.”  This is said to ironic affectionate laughter.  The scene in which it features, which happened in juvenile detention for Archie, and was mentioned a second time in universe by a very miserable grown up Jughead Jones when he was having to work as a waiter in the diner where sometimes he served his sneering students - made the cut for a ‘happy memory’ that everyone got to have via Angel Tabitha. 

Betty Cooper having the serial killer gene which could also be set off by the word Tangerine (which was the incident in which the plot played with whether she really killed Jughead Jones or not) was another ‘happy’ memory that everyone gets to remember.  And laugh about.

Veronica not ever being prom queen is mentioned by Archie (because??) and then also the fact that she was a human dialysis machine in S6 is also in everyone’s memory.  Veronica even addresses this: “I specifically asked Angel Tabitha not to let anyone remember that.”

Jason’s death, his exhumation and mummification, then being hauled around the house while in such a state is another happy memory that everyone remembers. 

????

Toni looks very displeased at this mention, but Cheryl acts like this actually was merely embarrassing rather than distressing. 

Maybe I don’t know what happy means, after all, to Betty Cooper, because this is still Betty Cooper’s fanfic of what she thinks could have happened if there had actually been an afterparty like this. 

Betty Cooper is possibly a meaner girl than I ever gave her credit for.  Or Archie Andrews is. I don’t even know anymore. 

Anyway, Archie really doesn’t have much to say about Toni in particular, other than to point out that Southside is one word not two, so the South Side Serpent jacket logo is stupid.  

Heehee ha ha? (I think this might be both a cultural problem and a personality trait of mine coming together.  I hate practical jokers - not the jokes, but the people who come up with them - and I don’t see the point of roasting.  It’s hardly ever done well, and never has good consequences.)  

We come to Jughead Jones, of whom Archie begins, “Jughead Jones needs no intro.”  The first thing Archie addresses is the suicide of Chipping - “he made his teacher jump out a window.”  

I mean.  You got groomed and child molested by one of yours and tried to redo that relationship again in this timeline asshole, and also this is inaccurate. Jughead didn’t make Chipping do anything. 

Further, why is everyone remembering this?  This can’t possibly be anybody’s idea of a happy memory, least of a Jughead’s.  Was Angel Tabitha fully lying about leaving only the happy memories for people?  In narrative, that doesn’t seem likely, because there has never been ambiguity about Angel Tabitha’s goodness.  Which brings me back to - this thing is being written by Betty, who remembers all the bad things along with Jughead, and she is the puppet master behind this Marionette Archie being deeply unfunny and meanspirited to everyone.  Because my general thesis about S4 was that Betty was furiously resentful of Jughead being given the opportunity to ‘pull ahead’ of her by getting himself this plum spot at prep school, so the first major indication that things were about to go seriously awry for him (Chippings’ suicide) may well have been a happy memory for Betty after all.  

I have also garnered from Tumblr fandom that the actor who played Chipping annoyed the writer’s room at some point by seeming to mock the plotline of which he was a part, so I think this may be them settling scores in a really bitchy fashion, and not giving a shit what happens to the character arcs by having ALL of these assholes laugh about someone’s suicide, regardless of how cartoonish.

The rest of Jughead’s ditty goes: 

Thinks himself a private eye/ Chained himself to Southside High.

… Again this was, at the time of presentation, shown to be deeply hurtful to Jughead, because he was making a stand for something (in his usual grandiose way) and his person, who was Archie at the time, more than Betty, betrayed him in a publicly humiliating way. 

This is so mean. 

Betty the fic maker has Kevin eagerly volunteer himself for this put down which by rights in the flow of the story if it really happened should have been 90% utterly incomprehensible to him. 

Archie starts out by saying that Kevin has a beautiful voice and should be singing always (fair point) but then adds: “But he spends most of his time Cruising Fox Forest.”

This!  This is evidence absolute to me that Betty Cooper, the one who remembers, is the one writing this entire scene.  The only person who was ever deeply upset about Kevin’s cruising was actually Betty Cooper.  Fangs, his actual adult sexual partner, was puzzled by it but did not take it upon himself to mock Kevin.  Cheryl, his gay semi-ally, knew about his compulsion but also never publicly attacked him or outed him or tried to punish him for this activity. It was only and ever Betty.   And what a hypocrite 86 year old fanfic author Betty Cooper is.  She imagined a very sloppy smorgasbord of teen lovers for herself (Archie AND Jughead AND Veronica but NOT Reggie oh my!) but she’s going to STILL DO THIS about Kevin’s S1-6 sex life.  I want to chuck the angry spirit of George Michael, he of the immortal This Is What Men Do quote, at her. 

Next up is Fangs, whom Archie-as-Puppeteered-by-Betty mocks as being “a long way from a cult member who stole organs to put in freezer.”  Of course, Fangs and Kevin worked together to attack Betty  when she tried to overturn the Edgar Evernever Cult. This is the only time that Fangs was significant in the life of S1-6 Betty.  Other things he could be mocked for that were equally terrible- such as the killing of Tall Boy - did not have much to do with Betty, so she doesn’t mention them.

Archie-Puppet goes on to roast Reggie, to say “Pound for Pound/ You’re my closest equivalent.” To whom is this true? Since when?  Possibly only in S7 when Reggie suddenly replaced Jughead as the primary best boyfriend and then got all the affection from Archie that Jughead never got?  “But there’s that other Reggie/ So how do we know you’re even legitimate?”   Then it gets weirdly racial, which everyone hoots about like it’s funny. “I’m going to need to seem some sort of birth certificate.”  

You know how I have been curious about exactly how it is Reggie is American and 17 in 1955 when we never see his parents and he’s visibly biracial and it’s just not clear to me at all?  This is not… funny.  After creating a super awkward and strange episode dealing with Anti-Korean racism, they do this.   Reggie answers,  “You know I’m sensitive about that,”  and it’s not clear if it means his immigration / naturalization status in S7 or the other Reggie existing at all. 

Dilton, the other boy doesn’t get any sort of mention, and Julian, the other Better Archie than Archie, doesn’t get a single line. 

They - as marionette by Betty - give him a standing ovation. God knows why.  This is Betty applauding herself for being mean to these paper dolls. 

As a grand finale, Archie comes to Time Travel Betty after everyone has left, to say a special goodbye to her in particular. “I know we’ll see each other again,” he says, including a very flattering confession that he’s always felt that it would be Barchie end game, because it started with them, “a boy and a girl next door to each other.”  But just like she reacted to his proposal in S6, this Betty also rejects Archie.  She tells him the future - that Archie settles in California for good. He marries some girl (unnamed), settles down in Modesto, has an unnamed number of children, he never breaks into publishing (“amateur writer”) but he’s content and happy.  She even goes to invent a death for him - she insists that everyone has to fucking be buried in their place of origin - but she does get this right about him:  Instead of being buried near is “sweet, strong” wife or his “beautiful” family of children, Archie Andrews in Betty’s imagining will seek to be buried next to his father (but not his mother).

After this self-serving self-insert fix-it fic is over, Betty tells Visitor Jughead that she has one last place she wants to go, so they visit Pop Tate’s grave.  Even though Pop Tate in S1-6 got to actually have a retirement, and see his gorgeous, smart granddaughter take over his business with big ambitions for it and also not coincidentally take up with the boy he’s adopted in his heart (Jughead!), Time Travel Betty wants to kill of Pop Tate as soon as his usefulness to her as the proprietor of the diner is over. Self centeredness taken to the point of homicide is basically the show - not mine! - the SHOW’s repeated thesis about Betty Cooper.

Like any good improv partner, Visitor Jughead doesn’t argue with any sort of thing that Betty Cooper wants to do in this universe he’s created for her, so he just plays right along, to say that the death of Pop Tate was “a terrible blow” to the town. 

What can I say- the cemetery is gorgeous, and I’m so excited (in this last episode) and sad to see the time and potential that was lost because of the limitations placed on television productions during the pandemic of 2020. 

I can’t help but recall that 1950s Betty was much, much stupider and less creative than all the other iterations of Betty in seasons prior when she finds that she can’t imagine a theology of death for herself in her own self-insert fanfic, and has to ask Visitor Jughead about it.  “What do you think happens when we die?”  Visitor Jughead says that Pop Tate is still going to make burghers and making people smile FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY.  This is extraordinarily cruel, and see, Betty can’t not recall Tabitha Tate, but she absolutely won’t mention her in the context of her own grandfather’s death. 

Sitting at a bench in a really truly lovely bit of wilderness, Betty tells the Visitor Jughead, whom if she has any intelligence would know is NOT the 1955 Jughead that went on to die at 84 after founding “Madhouse Magazine,”  that she read “your” obituary.   But as I’ve been saying and the show has been showing all this time, 1955 Universe Betty is deeply, exceptionally, stupid.

The nice thing about this is that the show shows me more of 1955 Jughead’s obituary. 

“Forsythe Jones III, Jughead to his friends and followers, passed away on Tuesday at his home in New YOrk State.  Jughead took fledging Pep Comics, popular for it’s (TYPO IN THE TEXT, TRANSCRIBED FAITHFULLY) horror themed comic books in the 1950s and created the wildly successful Jughead’s Madhouse Magazine.  Jughead spent his youth devouring comic books and short stories and turned that passion into a profitable enterprise that gave an outlet to the misunderstood, twisted minds of America’s teens for the better part of two decades.  A young horror writer and [illegible] for Pep Comics himself, Jones [illegible] the magazine in [lots of words illegible] comics [illegible] back in 1955, [illegible] the first issue of Jughead’s Madhouse which still [illegible] high school in Riverdale.  

Jughead is remembered as the…. satirical …[Illegible].”

Anyway, Time Travel Betty gives the Visitor Jughead (WHO WASN’T THAT JUGHEAD) her assessment on his life. “Yours was a life well lived.”   Ever the faithful improv partner, Visitor Jughead simply Yes-Ands her.  He pretends to be speaking for that Jughead, the 1955 one,  by answering that “it was swell.”  He knows what she knows, because he’s not living the narrative, and possibly has just read he recall of the obituary that she recalls reading earlier in this episode. “I put all my eggs in one basket.”   When she tries to praise him about the magazine he founded being an institution, Visitor Jughead (oh whom the captions suddenly refers to as ANGEL JUGHEAD by the way) says modestly that it was “juvenile satire at best.”  Betty keeps praising him, because Jughead, whom she has decided she would’ve had a fun time fucking in the 1955 universe but without the intensity and purity of the one-true-love type relationship that he tried to have with her from S1-4, is one of those who are going to be gifted a nice (enough, and according to her very twisted rules) life by Grandma Betty.   Angel/Visitor Jughead keeps playing along, saying in answer to her saying that people adored his work 70 years in, that he had an audience of “mostly teens and adults” even though the ‘self’ we are shown in flashback is a mutton chopped, rather portly man who seems like a cranky middle aged dude. 

Anyway, Visitor/Angel Jughead, now pretending to be 1955 Jughead, says he’s happy with the legacy (that Grandma Betty is inventing for him) and then asks what Time Travel Betty thinks about legacy.   She says she doesn’t.   Then, in improv partner mode, Visitor Jughead creates the most improbable series of events for 1955 Betty to have lived through:  the Teenage Mystique becomes a “best seller” even though it was “self published.”  Sure.  Then there was an advice colum called “Betty’s Diary,” then it was New York City, then starting She Says magazine (a sort of Ms. I guess).  “Exposing hard truths and still being published today.”   

Time Travel Betty echoes more or less exactly what Visitor/Angel Jughead said about the life she wrote for his 1955 iteration, but saying she could have done worse. 

Then the show drops some really, really weird summary bombs. 

Bomb 1: Revealed by Visitor/ Angel Jughead - Betty never got married, but adopted a daughter, whom she named Carla.  Carla is the mother of the dark haired Alice that we saw at the start, and Betty says she loved being a mom and a grandma.   Then she says something incredibly retrograde to me - that her true legacy is her family. Okay sure.  Even though apparently you didn’t have any sort of relationship whatsoever with Polly or your niece and nephew. 

Bomb 2:  Revealed by Time Travel Betty - Jughead also never got married and never fathered any children either. She’s only doing this because she’s just not very creative, and also because demonstrably mean. She doesn’t WANT Jughead to have moved on to some unnamed “sweet strong girl who makes you laugh” like Archie. She definitely doesn’t want Jughead to end up with someone like S5-6 Tabitha either.   Visitor/Angel Jughead, speaking for all the Jugheads that have existed, sounds very, very sad when he says that he “sometimes” regrets “not getting circled” in her words.   Her improv partner doesn’t like the direction she took his story.

Then because Betty is upset for the umpteenth time in this episode (I’m getting very tired of her tearing up non stop with no real reason for it. I feel absolutely nothing.) Visitor Jughead holds her hand.  Betty expresses a strange wish: “I wish we could stay in Riverdale forever, with all of our friends, as we were. Young and beautiful.”

This is a very dangerous thing to say to a genie.   He’s looking at her in that same calculating way, though his face is reflecting some of her intense emotion.

It’s only when she says something patently untrue and not shown so far that Visitor Jughead looks away.  “Bursting with love for each other.”

Erm. Okay so the Core Four were rarely ever bursting with love for each other. Bursting with lots of other complicated emotions, yes, but if the show was about four people bursting with love for each other it would have been a) fucking boring and b) I wouldn’t be here writing an extremely long winded blog about it, trust you me.

She keeps fishing for reassurance from him, easing Visitor Jughead out of cosplaying 1955 Jughead for her into being his magical self, because she says “I know it’s not possible” twice, until he finally confirms, “No, it’s not.”  But that strange ambiguity of expression remains in this Visitor Jughead’s face.  She wants really not to return to her 86 year old expiring body.  She says, in the end, that she’s ready to go back because he tells her it’s time. 

We cut to Grandma Betty being taken to Riverdale by car by her granddaughter.  She starts to say goodbye to things, out loud:  

Town Sign

Sweetwater River and all its mysteries (there was only one mystery)

Fox Forest and its haunted trees

Red Door and secrets behind it

Room (empty), window, Archie’s room (empty) Pembroke (with furniture covered up) “with its crackling fires and sexy sleepovers.”

Then we are shown a really weird space.   It looks like the bombed out remains of the train car that 1955 Jughead, except it looks cruddy without all the fancy improvements that 1955 Veronica made to it.  Instead, what’s in it are a bare mattress, a cruddy couch, and on the floor, some weird objects that do not belong in the 1955 train car:  a ceremonial looking bulls’ head mask (minotaur?? Gargoyle King????), and an abandoned G&G game complete with the gate prop.   The voiceover by Betty describes this as “Goodbye to cups of coffee and late nights of writing.” 

Then we move on to the emptied out set of Thornhill, and tumbleweed rolling across very inappropriately (Riverdale would not have tumbleweed) the front of the Babylonium, then “music and poetry and art” are bid farewell to the completely scuppered and emptied out set for the Dark Room/ the Speakeasy.  

Next comes the farewell to Riverdale High, the basketball court set, with Betty solemnly intoning “Goodbye to basketball games and pep rallies and dances at the gym.”  The main high school sets of the show are shown - the school hallway, the classroom where the beat poets and heteronormativity were discussed, the Blue and Gold workroom, the boys’ locker room, the music room, the time capsule…and time.

“I wish, I wish there were more of it,” Betty says.

OK so this last bit really did get to me. I did get verklempt. I also wish there were more of Riverdale.  

The final place we along with Grandma Betty are taken to is the diner set, which has a leaf-strewn empty parking lot and is adorned with a for sale sign with this number (914-555-0157).

“It was wonderful getting to grow up here,” Betty says, and my sentimental feeling is entirely gone just like that.

No it wasn’t.

NO IT WAS NOT. 

Granddaughter Alice tells Grandma Betty they are “here,” then looks around at no response to smile at her, telling her no-name male companion that Grandma Betty is asleep. The man, whose name is apparently [Robert] according to the captions, somehow knows on sight that Grandma Betty is dead.  Alice sees is too, and start to get upset.

Then we cut to the ominous red lights of the Sweet Hereafter, or hell, or whatever it is, bathing Betty, young again, who opens the door to a different car (a 1950s design) to walk up to the fully functional diner as Visitor Jughead watches her approach the silent Jason, who is the doorman to the reanimated Diner.

A song creepily starts just before she gets there, and the lyrics are “You’re Miiiiine” and goes on to say, “And we belong together… for eternity.”  Inside Betty’s personal afterlife diner, everyone is already dead and delighted to see her:

Toni and Cheryl in one booth.  1955 Jughead with ARchie and Veronica.  Dilton sitting with Ben Button, and Dilton looks absolutely ecstatic.  THERE IS NO ETHEL.  There’s several black students, whom she did not interact with at all during S7, but they’re all delighted too.  Julian and Reggie are playing Foosball together, and Reggie looks excited and Julian looks at Betty with a sort of brotherly affection he has absolutely no reason to exhibit.  Betty gives Reggie a big hug as the song goes on to say “You’re mine” again as I break out in hives.  The big pink ribbon tying up Betty’s long hair in a ponytail really bothers me.  She then goes to greet Pop Tate who is going to be flipping burgers for her benefit for the whole of eternity.  Then she hugs Kevin and Clay  (song: “They belong to only me/ For eternity”), followed by Fangs and Midge.  She skips over to Choni, and Cheryl is also ecstatically happy to see Betty, as is Toni. “I swear by everything I own…” says the song, as Dilton and Ben, who had been the most demonstrably happy to see her, get only waves, and no hugs.  

She joins the core four booth, giving Veronica a hug, then reaching out hands to hold with Jughead, followed by ARchie.   “You’re mine/ we belong together.”  Archie tells her that her timing is perfect, and they have a strawberry milkshake waiting for her.  She says thank you.

Cut to the outside of the Diner, which is bathed in that unholy red neon light.  In a red T shirt with red flannel we see Angel/Visitor Jughead, who breaks the fourth wall to say:

“We’ll leave them here, I think.” His summary for what is going to be going on in the third iteration of the 1955 universe (this is another pocket universe, and Grandma Betty’s own personal afterlife, that she specifically order from this Jughead) is depressing and reductive as hell.  These are “the moments that make up a life”:  “Forever seventeen” and “always grabbing a burger” “always going to or coming from some dance” “talking about school” “who is dating who” “homework” “movie playing at the Babylonium.”

He brings it around to say that this is where “they”- quickly amended (lying?) to say “we’ve” - have ALWAYS BEEN, IN THIS DINER, IN THIS TOWN.

This is a magic spell/ curse that he’s weaving, to trap all the puppet version of all the 1955 Universe characters in the heaven/hell of Betty’s making, for her personal preferences. 

He just names it: This is The Sweet Hereafter.

Visitor /Angel Jughead has been Death all along. 

He invites all of us to come into this little personal afterlife he’s made for Betty Cooper, whenever it is we are destined to die.  He says that we should come in, because we’ll “always be among friends” and “Riverdale will always be your home.”

To the sounds of typewriter clickety clacking, Visitor/Angel Jughead refuses to go into this little hell himself. and instead walks off. 

1955 Betty got exactly what she said she wanted, at the end.  Which is to say, perhaps, that everyone else may have as well.   They may have ordered a very different Sweet Hereafter, from the one that Betty requested for herself.   Jughead’s Sweet Hereafter was him inside the diner having fan meetings, AWARE that it was an artificial construct full of puppet versions of people, and enjoying himself so much that Tabitha couldn’t bring herself to yank him out of it. Betty, who was aware of all parts (well, as many as she considered salient and had the cognitive capacity to understand) of S1-6 summoned a Jughead shaped Angel of Death, as the prime fiction maker, to create her Sweet Hereafter for her, as well as a last-day hallucination of the life she did not live to send her off in comfort.  The actual 1955 Betty’s life was not worth recalling for her on her last day of consciousness, because the quad never happened, and because people didn’t live in the ways or die in the order that she would have preferred.   On her final day of consciousness, Betty got to rewrite Riverdale to HER tastes, and this is how it worked out.   She made a thing wearing Jughead’s face give her the story she wanted, for herself. 

I wonder what really happened to 1955 actual Betty, because it was NONE of this.

The least believable, most ungrounded portion of this very shallow set of stories Betty wrote for her people was the path she gave Jughead Jones.  If anything, Jughead Jones has been a compulsive relationship maker.  There is no way he never got married.  He got married multiple times.  There is no way  he never had children, either.   It’s just telling to me that the possibly infertile Betty refused to imagine a future for Jughead where he got to have even the short amount of time he DID have to Tabitha Tate before the world ended. 

As far as finales go, I’ve seen better and I’ve seen a lot worse.  I do appreciate the consistency - Betty Cooper is indeed a very dark character, not for the reasons her stans think is dark, but because of her hypocritical victim-stance-stealing malevolence and self absorption.

On a meta level, I also wonder if this is from the power of the actual fandom, the vast majority of whom I think really were Bugheads. They produce a lot of fiction and art - and the only way the show can avoid any and all accusations of cribbing from those fanworks is to work out a cramped ending like this- Betty never had a great love in her life, never got to have her own kids even though in the final analysis she found that her core value was motherhood, and oh fine, neither did Jughead! 

What a strange, odd, supernatural way to end this strange, odd, lovable show. 

Goodbye Riverdale, I will miss you!

[simplydm]

The fuckimg whiplash I’m getting rn hearing tango go “so I’m working on this deck building dungeon crawling treasure hunting collect ‘em all trading game” and the video’s from 3 years ago

[makorragal-312]

And since I know some of you will ask, 9-1-1 dropped a promo promoting the whole series being on Hulu as well as the move to ABC, but it got deleted.

However, some people were able to screenshot it and post them on Twitter. Just go to the #911onABC hashtag and you should be able to see it.

[castle-dominion]

Season premieres & finales, trying to remember what happened when

season 1: he met beckett

he said "I looked at your mom's murder"" & she kicked him out

Season 2: he came back for a photoshoot & the reporter said "ooh I want to see the two of you in action" but I think this one is the one where the body got stolen.

he left for the summer with Gina

Season 3: his artist was murdered when he got home from his book tour. he started investigating on his own so they arrested him for murder lol.

Monty got shot, beckett did too & was on disability for three months. Castle says he loves her.

season 4: Gates shows up. First homicide back is some gal who got shot in the chest ("good thing beckett sat this one out") & hastings had a line with a front shot on her. they are simultaneously investigating becketts shooting. also the guy's name is rod haelstead which is very similar to a famous Métis fiddler rod olstad.

Monty's place had a breakin & evelyn shot someone with his old gun. Files were stolen. the dead guy who stole files was in contact with an old friend from the military who got him into this crap. Smith calls again, as he does. Castle needs to stop becks from looking into this case. He fails, she's hanging off a roof, all she can think of is castle. Ryan saves them by telling gates their secret & especkett get suspended & they are mad at ryan. Beckett resigns & goes to sleep with castle. No time passes but she does get a suspension in 5x1 which was the hiatus.

Season 5: Smith got beat up by maddoox. Ryan shows up at beckett's apartment bc he is working without a team. Esposito gets his army friend to find maddox. Caskett find smith all beat up & go to his property where esposito also happens to show up. The file goes kablooey & the cops are like "caspeckett why r u here?" Ryan shows up at beckett;s apartment again & gets two guns pulled on him lmao. they do a puzzle & somehow the file got blown up into pieces but not blown up into ash... anyway they find out it's bracken. Smith "dies". Beckett is not an assassin. Beckett wants her job back & gates is like "smh" but she lets beckett back. Well. After her suspension which is why I consider 5x1 to be more like 4x23b.

She gets a job at the AG's office bc of some anti surveillance tech guy who I really appreciated. Castle is like "what about me" but then proposes.

Season 6: she is working at the AG's & engaged to castle. Castle is no longer working with the nypd. Alexis introduces Pi too.

He has resurrected Derek Storm. Beckett turns out to be married. Castle got into a car crash & disappeared. Beckett is back at the nypd btw. She is the new roy montgomery, always quitting her job & coming back.

Season 7: they pick up at the end of the last season but Castle is missing for 2 months after that. Then they find him. Yay. He has no memories. (He should keep it that way.)

castle also becomes a pi in this season.

Castle's childhood trauma comes back to haunt him. Beckett is trying to be Captain or Senator. Castle gets an award & all the people are there which is nice.

Season 8: Beckett has become captain but then gets a call from the AG's office from some poor nerdy kid. Bracken, who is in jail now, still has a plot going on. Sullivan does not return (he was beckett's replacement when she was in the AG's). Hayley Shipton is introduced. She takes a break from her relationship with Castle & he is no longer working at the precinct but he keeps coming back anyway.

Idk how it ends. Don't tell me.

[5-pp-man]

hearing the day again when we turned on the recaps had me n my brother clapping and cheering

[carnage-vrp]

session seven; the devil you know

Bruce alters Lachie's scholarship through Kal's original favour from Ash, accepting a less presitigious position in exchange for putting some distance between his son and Kindred dangers.

The coterie meet with Jacob, both he and Genevieve lamenting on what could have been and what may yet come to fruition. At a loss, Jacob insists Genevieve continue meeting with him if only to know she remains alive. Annaliese also asks to catch up, far more chipper and with renewed purpose.

Alistair is once again bundled into the trunk of the car. Valeandre talks shop with Kalypsia, clearly pleased by the news of Freya's staking. He emphasises how politically valuable it would be for them to hand her to Adelaide, but ends up agreeing to leave the choice to the coterie. The group interrogate Freya in her prison, where it is confirmed that the Anarch Baron is suffering from the burdens of her multiple diableries and revealed that Valeandre killed Martin. Edwina films Freya's confession and the coterie release the knowledge of her location to all Anarchs involved in the haven attack. Freya bids a regretful farewell to her Childer; she warns Bruce that his family are in grave danger whilst he remains entangled, and assures she bears no grudge for Edwina. Kalypsia's feathers are ruffled by Genevieve's abrasive behaviour towards Valeandre.

Bruce resolves to bring his family into the larger truth of things, at last considering his options with the Anarch sect. Edwina contemplates her debt to her mother, free of Sire and looking towards Valeandre as a means to an end. Genevieve stands her ground to remain independent of any faction, making plans around reclaiming her haven. Kalypsia laments over the naivety of her disparate coterie members, torn between friendships and fealties to a system she knows may well swallow lesser Kindred whole without her guidance.

[alienssstufff]

HOW DID I GET HERE // NICK OF TIME

My parts for the @bdubszine ! Love that guy to death it’s been a pleasure to work on such a project ^_^!!! These pieces come in a set and are dedicated to his Hermitcraft S7 POV (left page) and 3rd Life POV (right page)

[ ZINE LINK ]

[ notes undercut ]

HOW DID I GET HERE (hcs7)

This page was the winner of 6 other compositions (censored — one day they will be posted in their own time). It takes direct inspiration by the theming of Bdubs’ HCS7 thumbnails in the comic-book style, particularly the episode Bdubs get his iconic big beautiful eyes and smile x]

IN THE NICK OF TIME (3L)

In another universe- the right portion of the set would have been a continuation of the S7 theme, imitating that of an actual magazine spread with recaps and shit (rejected— too much research u_u)

The happenings of HCS7 and 3L overlap, and I wanted to visually show that mirror transition between the two series. The 3L page for that reason was harder to manage without being too different or too underwhelming to its HC37 counterpart. This page is dedicated to his season finale POV of 3rd Life ft Day 1 Crew (and Tango)

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Weekly Recap | December 30th 2024-January 5th 2025

Welcome to 2025 everybody!! The year of #BuddieCanon!!!

Started working on my favourite fics of 2024 rec, I'm hoping to post it in the next week! And when I'm looking back, I always end up distracted on the way, which is the reason for the ungodly amount of re-read fics in this rec 😅

Little bit unconventional but I'm gonna rec some meta! The Buddie Vers-Switch Theory: a Meta-Analysis is really interesting!

Complete

just like coming home by tinygiantsam/ @watchyourbuck (S7, First Kiss | 1,5K | Teen): Buck and Eddie go on their first date. Eddie wears the 'good cologne.' 

when the clock strikes midnight by tinygiantsam/ @watchyourbuck (Post-S8 Spec, Christmas | 4K | Teen): Future Buck looked at his watch, then at the clock on the wall, then back to him. “In about five minutes, Eddie’s gonna try to kiss you.” Buck’s heart skipped a beat, his throat drying from back to front. He wetted his lips in instinct. “What?” “And I’m gonna need you to kiss him back.” OR: on christmas night, buck is visited by what seems like the ghost of christmas future. he has a very particular request (that he cannot refuse). 

every corner of this house is haunted by justhockey (NYE, Chris comes back from Texas, Getting Together | 4K | General): And now that love is everywhere, is in everything. It’s worn so deeply into the grooves of his skin that it’s changed the very structure of his fingerprint - is burrowed so deep inside of him that it has rewritten his DNA. His love for Eddie and for Christopher is carved into his bones - etched onto his heart like an epitaph: love lived here. Love left here.

Next in line by tinygiantsam/ @watchyourbuck (Getting Together, Post-S6 | 6K | Explicit): “Hold on,” he muttered, putting his finger up and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “So you’ve been dating this man for six months, b-” Buck cut him off. “Yes.” “But,” Eddie continued, “he’s not your boyfriend?” “N-No.” Eddie’s frown deepened. He tried to keep it in; he really did. “Okay, well, does he want you or not? Because he’s holding up the fucking line!”

Let me give you my life by paleredheadinascifi (Post-S8S6: Confessions, Getting Together | 6K | Teen): “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I am. Fuck. I am freaking out,” he agrees, lifting his head to look at Buck helplessly. “You’re in my lap.” “I’m so extremely aware of that. You’re not wearing any pants,” Buck adds. A smile tugs at the corner of Eddie’s mouth. “I am also very aware of that.” Or, another take on what happened after the couch scene. Eddie *wants*. They're both brave about it.

a lighthouse in the fog by greenbergsays/ @greenbergsays (BT Break-Up, First Kiss | 7K | Teen): The one where Buck wakes up after surgery and realizes that Tommy doesn't meet his emotional needs. The break-up doesn't go quite like he expected.

It Still Gets Cold in Texas by jukoist/ @beforejuko (Post-S8A, Eddie moves to El Paso, Outsider POV, Getting Together | 9K | Mature): Cara Alvarez of the El Paso Fire Department knows exactly two things about her new coworker Eddie Diaz. One: Diaz has a husband named 'Buck', who he left back in LA. Two: Diaz is Extremely Annoying about how much he misses his husband, the aforementioned 'Buck'. Or; Eddie moves to El Paso, and his new coworkers come to certain assumptions. Eddie... does not correct these assumptions.

🔥 If Only In My Dreams by songbvrd/ @songbvrd (Post-S8A, Eddie goes to El Paso, Christmas, Getting Together | 9K | General): Evan Buckley had never been good at knowing when to let go of things. So when Eddie Diaz told him on a chilly Friday afternoon that he had put his house on the market and started packing, Buck told himself that this time, he wasn't going to cling to someone trying to leave him behind. This time, Buck would understand what rejection looked like, and he would let someone he loved walk away with dignity. OR Eddie moves to El Paso a month before Christmas. Buck goes a little bit insane about it.

see both sides by snorlaxer (Post-S7, Mind-reading | 9K | Teen): When Buck overlooks a small injury to the head during one of his shifts, it turns out to be a very big problem once he starts hearing the internal voices of everyone he walks by, including his best friend, who seems to be undergoing a silent life-crisis. As Buck listens more and more to the thoughts that surround him, he becomes increasingly more confused with his own. OR Buck can hear other people's thoughts, and Eddie's are everything and nothing like he expected.

Wherever you find love (make it last all year) by rainbow_nerds/ @rainbow-nerdss (Canon Divergent, Christmas | 12K | Mature): Buck first met Eddie on Christmas. This is the story of seven Christmases they spend together.

🔥 i can't see you (the light is in my face) by withmeornotatall/ @chronicowboy (Post-S8A, Eddie goes to Texas, Eddie Sexuality Crisis | 15K | Explicit): "Have you even tried making friends?" "God, Abuela, what am I in kindergarten again?" "No, you were much more outgoing in kindergarten. Made friends with the whole class. Teachers too. Now, your only friend is an old lady. If you're really moving here, Eddie, you need to make some friends. You can't just rely on me and Christopher to keep you company." "I know. I know. I think I'm just scared to put roots down. It doesn't feel real yet, you know? Every time I wake up, I keep waiting to see my ceiling from home, walk past Christopher's room on the way to the kitchen, find Buck in the kitchen making pancakes. I don't think I want it to feel real. Plus," he adds with a brittle grin, "the last time I made a new friend, Buck almost broken my ankle." And then slept with said friend, he thinks. "I'm not convinced he couldn't give me a bloody nose from eight-hundred miles away just by thinking real hard." (OR: eddie makes a new friend, she makes some assumptions, eddie spirals about it in his patented life-ruining way)

🔥 all the ashes I've earned by greenbergsays/ @greenbergsays (Post-S8E8: Wannabes, Near Death Experiences | 22K | Teen): A horn blares. Buck looks in time to see the truck barreling right for him. Something a lot like relief washes over him. Good, he thinks. At least now he doesn’t have to watch Eddie walk away. -- OR: Spiraling about Eddie's announcement, Buck gets into a car accident and falls into another coma. This is Eddie in the aftermath.

🔥 wake up, boy, you're far from home by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Post-S8A, Christmas, Eddie Sexuality Crisis, Getting Together | 23K | Explicit): Eddie is miserable in El Paso, having seemingly made things worse. Buck is miserable in Los Angeles, without him. When Buck agrees to go home to Hershey for the holidays, everything implodes.

WIP

🔥 Finding Mr Christmas by JJK/@trenchcoatsandtimetravel (Canon Divergent, Reality TV, Christmas | 9/11 | 52K | Teen): "Welcome to Finding Mr Christmas! You’re all here chasing the same dream, to star in a Hallmark Christmas movie, and over the next few weeks we’re going to be putting you through your paces to see which of you has the most star quality and that ‘it’ factor that makes you shine above the rest." 🎄🎄🎄 An AU where Buck and Eddie meet as contestants on Hallmark's Finding Mr Christmas competition (and fall for each other).

🔥 Cadence by Nejinee/ @nejineeee (Future fic, Getting Together | 1/2 | 6K | Explicit): When the credits finally finished rolling and Buck was left in the shrouded silence of Eddie’s house, he sighed. He turned his head slightly, feeling Eddie’s unbelievably soft hair brush against his cheek. Eddie’s cologne was all but gone after a day like today. Eventually, he’d need to shower and get ready for bed. Buck wanted to wait a moment; he wanted to sit in this silence a little longer.

🔥 Things We're All Too Young to Know by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon S1-S6, Divergent Post-S6 | 141/? | 454K | Mature): This is a love story. Even if it doesn’t always look like it. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it. A look back on Eddie and Buck's lives up to now, and what led them to each other, interpreted from the current 9-1-1 canon.

🔥 Gentle On My Mind by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon Divergent, Shannon Lives, Buck/Eddie/Shannon | 10/? | 63K | Explicit): In which Shannon lives, tells a lie, and sends hers, Eddie's, and Buck's lives down a very different path.

Podfic

[podfic] and we can stay all day by be_brave13/ @djemsowhat // fic by trippedandfell/ @trippedandfell (Zoologist Buck AU | 20-30min | Teen): “So let me get this straight,” Hen says, once she’s stopped laughing at him. “Your nerd crush-” “-Evan Buckley,” Eddie miserably interjects. “Your nerd crush,” Hen repeats, waggling her eyebrows. At the kitchen table beside her, Chimney is grinning like Christmas just came early. “Read your drunk tweet and then sent you animal facts via DM?” or: Buck's a zoologist. Eddie's pretty sure he's in love. (Part 1 of zoologist buck)

[Podfic] What's love got to do with it? by Pretzel26 // fic by ColorMeParanoid/ @color-me-paranoid (Platonic Boyfriends to Lovers | 1/30 | 10-20min | Mature): "Hear me out," Buck said. "Clearly, both of us are sick of dating other people. And we're a good fit, in pretty much every way that matters. So what if we're not in love? We don't need to be in love to be happy together." Eddie frowned. "So basically, we'd be boyfriends, without benefits?" "Yes!" Buck snapped his fingers. "Like platonic boyfriends! We'd get all the benefits of a relationship and none of the heartbreak." And maybe Eddie had finally lost his mind, or maybe it was from all the alcohol clouding his judgment, but the idea of it didn't sound half as crazy as it should have. *** After Buck’s and Eddie’s dates both end with disasters – proving once again that maybe dating just wasn’t meant for them – they decide to simply settle for each other. If there was one person in the world they'd ever trust with their hearts, it was each other. And who was a better person to date other than your very own best friend?

Re-read

🔥what if i can't have us by woodchoc_magnum/ @woodchoc-magnum (Post-S7E5, Getting Together, Sexuality Crisis | 47K Explicit): In which Eddie is dating Marisol; Buck's dating Tommy, and Eddie has feelings about that, which he simply does. not. understand.

🔥 The Heart Opening Sequence by Leslie_Knope (Post-S3, Getting Together | 34K | Mature): Eddie’s handsome, that’s obvious, Buck clocked that the second he met him. Part of him still can’t really believe that the guy he was so threatened by at first ended up as his closest friend, which is why these weird twinges are so unsettling. Buck isn’t sure if they’re real, for one, these odd flashes of what it would be like to lean over and kiss Eddie while they’re watching a movie or brush a hand over his back while they’re in the kitchen. And for two, it’s so far out of the realm of possibility that it’s barely worth thinking about.

🔥 drink the river dry by Rianne/ @rianneeyre (Post Shooting, Getting Together | 32K | Explicit): It wasn’t until they were discussing his discharge paperwork and painkiller schedules that it really sunk in for Eddie that Buck would be staying with him and Christopher. That he would be around 24/7 except for his shifts at work. That he’ll sleep on the couch, where he’s been sleeping for days now to look after Christopher. The worst part is that it’s necessary—Eddie isn’t going to be able to do a damn thing for himself for the next couple of weeks. He’s lucky if he can put a shirt on by himself a month from now. Yeah, that’s going to be a problem. Or: Eddie gets shot, breaks up with his girlfriend, and pines like there’s no tomorrow.

🔥Plus or Minus by ElvenSorceress/ @elvensorceress (S5 | 10K | General): “Why are you cleaning out the kitchen? Why is my stuff in boxes?” Eddie slows, then stops. “Figured you’d want it back.” It’s quieter. Pained. When he says it. “I haven’t decided anything. So unless you’re kicking me out—” “Buck. Come on.” He’s not angry or snapping. It’s still quiet, and somehow that hurts even more. He’s resigned and defeated, and Buck is a scooped out, gutted, hollow shell. “I know how this ends the same way you do. You want to be loved, you want to be married. You’re going to leave. Might as well…” His voice cracks before he can finish and get it under control. “Shouldn’t drag it out.” ~ Taylor is offered a job across the country and asks Buck to go with her. Buck has to figure out if he wants to start over or if he has a reason to stay right where he is.

🔥 The Pain Will Leave You Once It's Done Teaching You by fruitsdoesnotknow (Canon Divergent, Daniel Lives-kinda | 40K | Mature): “Hi, I’m Buck, a firefighter with the 136,” for now, the thought crashes through Buck, leaving a sour taste in his mouth. “Uh, you’re both welcome to take a tour with us, if you’d like.” Buck awkwardly scratches at his neck, running a hand through his hair, unsure what else to do, and it spurs the man in front of him to take a large step forward up to Buck’s bed. “Eddie,” he says, thrusting a hand to him, and Buck reaches over without a second thought. His whole palm feels electric, it smarts and carries the touch of Eddie, Eddie, that Buck feels it completely. He has no idea what’s happening to him. “Edmundo Diaz, but just Eddie though, uh, no one calls me Edmundo. Right. I’m a new nurse here, at Cedars-Senai. Oh –” *** When Daniel Buckley lives a little longer, Evan Buckley dies a little more. And this is how Eddie Diaz saves him, a little later on.

i find you in everything (but its here you find yourself) by withmeornotatall/ @chronicowboy (Post-S6, Getting Together | 3K | Teen): Buck takes another sig of beer, "she left." "Sorry, man, I know you liked her. Guess where most people are scared of death, a death doula is scared of life." "Wow, that's actually pretty poignant," Buck says. "Didn't know you had it in you." Eddie just rolls his eyes. "Its weird, though, her being scared off by a donor baby." Eddie frowns over at him. "Chris didn't freak her out?"

and if someone asked me if I love you (I'd lie) by forgetmyname/ @kingmieczyslaw (Crack | 10K | Explicit): Eddie has a concussion. Suddenly he can't lie. It would be fine if he wasn't trying his best to not confess his undying love for Buck.

🔥 the kiss that lingers by greenbergsays/ @greenbergsays (Getting Together | 10K | Explicit): 5 times Eddie kisses Buck's birthmark & 1 time he doesn't.

🔥I'm Hearing Secret Harmonies by Chash/ @ponyregrets (Canon Divergent, Witch Eddie, Coffeshop AU | 18K | Teen): When the firefighter walks into Eddie's coffeeshop, Eddie immediately knows two things about him: he's not human, and he's the love of Eddie's life. Oh, he knows a bunch of other things too, obviously. He's about thirty, a few months younger than Eddie himself. He has a scar on his throat, like he got stabbed there, and one of his legs has some metal rods in it that must have come from a bad injury. The guy doesn't know he's not human, which is a tricky thing to figure out, but Eddie's almost positive. Most of the non-humans he knows have always known they aren't people, but there are exceptions, and they tend to carry themselves differently. The firefighter moves like he knows he doesn't belong, but not like he knows why. Like he's afraid of taking up space, afraid of being noticed. As if Eddie is even capable of not noticing him.

you are so gorgeous it makes me so mad by bellabrady (Post-S6, Getting Together | 5K | Not Rated): Or: Eddie is annoyed with Buck for being so very kissable but his drunk self isn't the best at phrasing things.

🔥 This May Be Practice, But I'm an Experienced Idiot by giselleslash/ @gigi-gigi (Fake Dating, kinda, Getting Together | 10K | Teen): Buck overhears a conversation between Eddie, Hen, and Chim and misunderstands it all. Or, the one where Buck thinks Eddie’s only asked him on a date for practice.

[class1akids]

Anime-only scene added with a conversation between All Might and Shouto, suggesting that it was All Might who convinced Endeavor to let Shouto fight Touya.

The scene creates a bridge to Shouto's discussion with Izuku and to Ch 286.

[vanillaa-sky]

I need s7 to open with a full show recap delivered by Rayla and Callum as they catch Runaan up to speed with SIX SEASONS OF PLOT

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale S7 E14 (Chapter 131) Archie the Musical

Well, this was fascinating. Do feel free to skip directly to the read-more which has the recap proper, because this next bit is a preamble. 

I always wonder about the urge of actors and people who work with actors to create situations in which the actors have to put on performances within performances.   At worst, it can get very navel-gazing, vain and shallow, but a lot of the time, if you can forgive performers for being too fascinated by themselves, the actual task of putting on the performance within a performance, where there’s a character who doesn’t know they’re a character in the show you (the audience member) are watching but IS aware that they’re pretending to be a character in a show that they know is a fictional creation seems really hard.  The task that the makers of Riverdale set for the actors of Riverdale in this episode is all that, squared, and it was very fun to watch.  Oh, and I’m a big fan of  this show, in an unironic, unabashed way, and I genuinely think a lot of these actors are actually very gifted as actors and putting on intentional, deliberate performances using their gifts, so take that under advisement as well.  

The musical opens with an alarm and just no preamble of any kind whatsoever.  Archie is singing a song from the literal second he wakes up.  Season 7 Archie has been Archie without the darkness and pain and sexuality that made him so fascinating to Jughead in all previous seasons to begin with, but in this opening sequence Season 7 Archie is fully a Classic (as opposed to Renaissance or Modern era) Disney princess.  He’s SO innocent and SO wholesome.  It’s very jarring.

“Why is life so cruel” he sings as he puts on clothes and says things like “same old teachers yapping in our ears!”

This song is extremely untuneful.  It’s a bad song.  This sounds like something I would sing at a passing street cat when I am wobbling home from having too many soju-beer mixes after dinner.   And Archie insincerely ‘selling’ it  makes it so much more awkward.

Very confusingly, Archie says it’s his Senior year as he waves out his window at Betty, who apparently has been standing there fully dressed in her perfect pink outfit watching him get up out of bed and into clothes this whole time.  If I wasn’t getting over Covid which I’ve caught later than literally everyone else this would’ve been the first valuable hint, but instead what I thought was, Oh this is the musical episode with a cold open AND a time jump?  Because they weren’t seniors yet last episode right?

Archie, who has never once been shown doing this, is waiting for her outside her door. They do this Singing in the Rain type of box step around each other before they skip off to school smiling entirely too much. It’s very surreal watching two characters repeatedly presented as All American being a parody of the All American concept.

Anyways, Betty takes over the song and she acts the most Un Betty-ish out of this whole season of being very unBetty.  She’s twirling around like she’s manic off of uppers, singing about how last year was “nothing but good times, nothing but fun ahead.” The net effect of this is very creepy and a lot scary. This is Betty Cooper as Alice Cooper always wants her to be. Betty, are you ok?!?  She starts hollering about how she’s “a model A student/ I’ll be perfect and prudent” and I totally feel like I’m having a stroke.  This is way worse than those NO She Would NOT Do That type of fanfics.

The first time I watched this episode I was already discombobulated by this time but the feeling became one of alarm when we moved on to Veronica.  Veronica is warbling about herself - she has “looks and style and brains and class” and “money? Well I do have a lot.”  I’m about to commit harakiri.  NO SHE WOULD NOT SAY THIS ABOUT HERSELF.    Veronica seems to be resisting the narrative because she addresses a free standing mirror as “mirror mirror on the shelf.”   She has a huge black and white actor profile type of photo of Archie stuck into her mirror.    She starts referencing designers that most definitely were not active in the 1950s (Versace, Prada, Klein).  

But I spoke far too soon about being scared of what’s going on in this opening sequence because the scariest is yet to come.  Jughead.  He’s apparently a super early rising morning person which - NO HE ISN’T. He’s fully dressed, seated at his desk, typing.   He’s singing. Is it because Jughead hasn’t sung much on this show that I am so scared of this or is this genuinely scary?  His eyes look totally crazed.   “Four years/ feels like I’ve done it before” he warbles.  He keeps smiling in a joyless way as he sings.  

He has a folder he shoves his morning pages into called “Genius Story Ideas” and after he chucks the paper in there he starts doing a solo dance sequence in front of his dog. It’s so bouncy, with big swinging motions.  This is so un-Jughead and I am very worried about him.  Jughead is apparently  done with summer school (when the hell did that happen?) so he can now take his place among his other classmates.  Then he finds a pizza box under his bed, looking absolutely maniacal.  

He’s doing a really alarming thing with his EYES.  Part of the reason that Jughead’s singing sequence is so scary is that he looks boyish  but his voice is all grown up, so the disconnect is very disconcerting. The other jarring element is that he is smiling like a Spearmint gum model  while singing this upbeat, chipper song, but his voice is much more indie-rock and melancholy.   

Next, he dance-steps his way into school carrying a cafeteria tray, accompanied by Ethel (looking great in a yellow and orange ensemble with green hints), Dilton and Ben.  He also makes up a word to rhyme with Sandwich (the last word of his song.).  Once again  - omg those maniacal googly EYES?   Jughead would never say “kicking back with my pals/ and finding myself.”   He keeps grinning as he swings his face from side to side except he’s not smiling AT anyone - he smiles at the back of a girl’s head after he grins at a shelf of trays.   He does a little twirl but he’s tense as fuck.  I feel like any second now he’s going to rip the skin off his own face using his fingernails.

Then comes the cheerleaders, followed by the basketball players.  

The cheerleaders seem very comfortable compared to Jughead. They have less to do in terms of choreo but they also don’t look terrified/ enraged.   The boys in particular line up to do a hip thrusting thing in formation in their short shorts.  They all pick up Reggie, and Julian and Fangs touch his chest.   This song will not end.  It’s just so untuneful!  It’s really hard to listen to the lyrics because I just find the notes so ugly.  Reggie however screams “I Rule Here!” as he sits on boys’ shoulders and once again - HE WOULD NOT DO THAT.  Not even S2-6 Reggie would be like this, and S7 1950s Reggie is too cautious and repressed to even think these thoughts.

The thing that upset me the most during my initial viewing, second only to Jughead tensely grinning away as he tried to sell his song like he was a child performer on High School Musical was that Julian Blossom is a natural performer.  Some people can sell any kind of choreography.  Like, even if the steps are objectively stupid the performer can elevate them to something charming or cute, even if they can’t fully dissipate the stupidity.  Julian is someone who can do this, and that surprised me. Why is the resident toxic masculinity jock a great musical theater performer?

Archie, Betty and Veronica drive up in his jalopy.  Suddenly everyone is congregating on the steps of the school main entrance.  Archie and Jughead finally act like they know each other - they give each other an extremely enthusiastic high five.   They’re all doing this super cheerful looking dance sequence, grinning ear to ear in bright sunshine and I feel like I really want to get on my knees and apologize to Roberto for complaining about all those times when the show was very murkily lit such that it was hard to see anything.   Watching all these people grinning is like watching those robotic children of the North Korean propaganda choirs, where the people have been perfectly trained to be more like animatronics than actual robots could ever be.   My eye keeps compulsively going to Jughead because he is completely not acting like himself.  LIke, Betty and Veronica and Toni and Cheryl and Clay and Archie all putting on their perfect Americana smiles, standing legs apart and arms spread in celebratory Vs - I can accept this.  JUGHEAD DOING THIS I CANNOT.  I keep wanting to reach into the screen to shake Jughead, to ask, Who is hurting you now?  What has happened??

And GUESS WHAT - it’s a fakeout.  

We finally get an explanation of what all this insanity was! In the ‘reality’ of S7 Riverdale, in the 1950s alternate universe, Kevin, who looks so pleased, calls out “Wow that was incredible!  Was that not so incredible, Clay?” 

Clay agrees with him because he’s not allowed to disagree with Kevin (The show posits that lovers can never actually disagree with each other, because that’s not what it means to be supportive, to disagree with your partner).

I hate Kevin so much, I have all season and this just seals the deal for me.  This musical sucks! Your song writing sucks!

And then the show does an about face and agrees with me, because all the ‘performers’ agree with me that this song was objectionable.   Clay and Kevin are in raptures about how fantastic it is, but everyone looks back at them with disagreement full on their faces.

Betty tactfully asks if the song they were all just forced to sing were written by the two boys.  That is, she wants to know how honest she’s going to be allowed to be about how much it sucks.   Unfortunately for her, Clay and Kevin did indeed write the song. This makes it so much more awkward for everyone to give their honest feedback.  Ethel, being the bravest girl in Riverdale and also someone who has recently not just seen the hacked-to-death corpses of her parents but also killed a man, tries first.  She says in a roundabout way that the song is too long and there are too many songs overall in the musical (“There’s a lot of music”) which is what you say when the material you’re given sucks ass.

Clay and Kevin, who are doing this because they’re finally allowed to put on a show that isn’t Oklahoma (which would have been a better choice because at minimum it comes with Agnes DeMille choreography and not the totalitarian cult dance that we just saw them all perform), take a very, very long time to realize that their cast actually doesn’t like the opening number very much. 

They’re both grinning ear to ear, exploding with joy, but nobody else looks even a little happy.  

Archie tries to object to the entire premise of the show, but because he’s not very bright he asks it in a dumb way: “Why are we playing seniors in the show? We’re juniors in real life.”

Kevin absolutely refuses to take the hint that not even Archie can stomach his songwriting, and gives a very pompous explanation about how Senior year is always a much better premise. 

Veronica tries to out theater-snob Kevin, since she knows a thing or two about putting on hideous musical numbers.  “Dramaturgically” is a word she wields like a weapon, to try to puncture Kevin’s ego-balloon.  Veronica asks  why it is she’s still ‘the new girl.’  She also directly criticizes the lyrical content - “Does that make sense?”

Kevin very slowly starts to realize they all totally hate it. 

Julian speaks up next.  He thinks he should be the lead because he’s the best singer (to which Midge says Fangs is the best singer) (which no, honey those are just your pregnancy hormones fucking up your brain) (And sorry for the string of parenthetical thoughts but JULIAN IS RIGHT. He IS the best performer -he looks intentional and natural singing and dancing.)  

Clay is as much of a bullshitting asswipe as Kevin (this is why they’re perfect for each other, I guess?) because he tells Julian that he’s Archie’s understudy in response to the bickering about who the ‘best’ singer is between Julian and Midge.   Actually the reason Julian isn’t the lead is because Kevin and Clay don’t like him as much, simply because he’s less likable, kind of a dick, but also Julian is very straight.  That is - the makers of this high school musical picked the boy they liked the most to be the lead, and they do not give a shit about meritocracy even for the purposes of putting on the best possible show.  

On the meta level though, this comment is very important for an analysis of this show   The redhead Blossom boy (previously Jason, now Julian) and Archie Andrews are often made to play oddly parallel parts to each other, so this is the show acknowledging this strange connection - that is, Jughead’s fantasies about Jason fueled S1 plot as much as his fantasies about Archie fuel the plot of the rest of the show;  Cheryl and Jason possibly probably had a (psycho)sexual something and in the wake of Jason’s death all the Blossoms tried to abduct Archie into their family; Archie became captain of the football team when Jason died and he became captain of the basketball team when Julian fell into a coma etc. 

Anyway, in answer to the two shitty songwriters’ arbitrary comment that Archie has to be the lead in the musical, the lesbians object immediately.  Cheryl and Toni in tandem state that a musical that’s “about all of them” can’t have Archie Andrews as the “main” character at the same time, and further, that they object to being relegated to ‘chorus’ girls in a male-centric narrative.  Yup.  Kevin the woman hating gay man would totally do this to women.

Sidebar - This is an interesting and visceral thing they keep doing with Kevin.  A man can be gay and be an enemy of women is the Kevin thesis.  Why it is that RAS, a gay man, keeps making his show make this point over and over in its final season?!

Anyway, Kevin and Clay continue to be dicks and also bad artists - they do not address any of the valid criticisms they are being given.  In response to “why is there a white straight male lead character when you (lied and) said the show was about all of us?” Kevin gives an insultingly condescending answer:  “You’ll have lines in the closing number.”

Way to miss the point, you git.

The untalented gay musical theater duo try to sell the finale of the musical as happening at The Prom.

This idea is extremely exciting to Midge for some reason, but it takes Jughead completely out of the game.  “In my opinion there is no lower art form than American musical comedy,” he says, which is very funny because he is an active participant in another “low” art form - the American horror/underground comic books, and he is saying this on Riverdale the show on CW exported to Netflix which keeps getting pilloried for being ‘bad’ and ‘low culture’ by people who are not as sophisticated and artistic as me.  

Reggie immediately says that while he “has the looks for acting” he doesn’t want to do either singing or dancing.  

Taking a step away from episode recapping to note that the best way I’ve found to enjoy Riverdale is to assume that all the decisions being made on screen are deliberate and intentional.  All these people - the writers, the choreographer, the actors, the editors etc - have made every choice presented to me ON PURPOSE.  So Jughead looking scarily manic was a performance choice that the actor made which the lighting director chose to make highly visible which the director encouraged. That kind of hamfisted hamminess with its strange undergirding of anger is what Jughead the character thinks American musicals are like.  By the same token - the amiable ease of Archie and Betty’s performances was supposed to communicate their cooperative characters. 

Do you get me?  Jughead Jones looked awkward and insane during what we saw of his song and dance number because Jughead Jones the character felt awkward and insane doing the number. 

Kevin and Clay take the departure of Jughead and Reggie in stride, because their focus was always on Archie.   Archie, Julian - and in fact, everyone visible on the ‘performer’ side of the room look deeply unhappy. 

It’s time for Archie’s “I want song” which Julian has to participate in because he’s Archie’s understudy.   Archie still hates Julian.  He is only staying to spite Julian, and you have this hilarious spectacle of two hyper masculine jock boys competitively singing a really dorky, frankly effeminate I Want Song at each other, line by line.  Archie is a stiff-as-fuck musical performer. He doesn’t understand this musical, he doesn’t like its premise, and all of that comes through in his stiff performance as he tries to stay on the beat. (Archie elsewhere has given good singing performances where he wasn't stiff and awkward, so this is very deliberate for this particular episode.)

Julian has a beautifully modulated singing voice.  His motions are fluid and natural.  He even moves his EYEBROWS well. He sells the song. It … like- i can’t believe I’m saying this - it sounds good when he sings it. Tuneful and catchy and everything.    Julian is elevating Kevin’s stupid music and I’m torn to pieces because a good performance is always pleasurable but I DON’T WANT THE SONG TO BE ELEVATED BECAUSE I WANT KEVIN TO FAIL.

Then Riverdale fully goes BOLLYWOOD.  Just. This is Bollywood. With no warning.  The camera pans up to follow the line of Julian’s sight as he does a really great piece of impromptu motion, projecting his voice to the ceiling.  Bollywood does this thing where people are in ‘reality’ (like say, in front of a bangles stall at the market) and then the song starts and suddenly they’re in a fantasy outdoor reality (say, in front of the pyramids of Giza), and the initial notes of the song are always shown with the character either running towards or away from each other.  They also change into much fancier clothes.

By the same token, this song transports both Archie and Julian to the sunny outdoors. They’re wearing tight fitting  sports uniforms that BOTH say Andrews.  And they’re running.   Julian looks completely at ease, dance-running gracefully to demonstrate the lyrics (“Archie going left/ Archie going right”).  Archie is having a really hard time running and singing at the same time, plus he’s very annoyed at Julian having this beautiful voice so he keeps scowling, too aware of what Julian is doing to give his own performance his all.  Julian is able to introduce truly lovely details into his ‘dance-run’ like annoyed little twitches of his head when Archie pulls ahead of him before racing to catch up. 

We’re back in the ‘reality’ of the rehearsal room.  Archie has picked up some performance points from Julian, again out of spite and competitiveness more than inspiration.   He’s starting to try to actually dance as he sings.  He’s snapping his fingers.  He does things with his hand as he delivers the lyrics.  He still looks stiff as fuck, but Julian is big enough to appreciate these gestures at improvement.    He actually, as a fellow artist, approves of Archie making an effort.  He even gives him an encouraging nod!

Julian, who is a nepo baby through and through about literally everything, is a meritocrat about musical theater.

I CAN’T COPE.

Kevin is ecstatic with hope again, thinking that it’s coming together. He’s so stupid.  He just lucked into having a talented musical theater leading man in the form of Julian, whom he’s incompetent enough to use as THE UNDERSTUDY. 

Archie is bouncing on the beat to every note of this song, but Julian knows (because he’s talented, omg I’m freaking out) that economy of movement is always better in the dance arts, so he keeps his body still and only makes gestural motions when they are necessary to communicate the song.

We’re back to the outdoor Bollywood reality.  Fully aware that he is losing, that he is Salieri to Julians’ Mozart, Archie brings out his best weapon - his abs.  He takes off his shirt as he runs. He looks really stressed out and aggressive about Julian being so much better than him.  Julian will not ever back down from a challenge, so he takes his shirt off too and GUESS WHAT  he has the same washboard abs as Archie!  “I’m a ripped ginger too!” is what Julian’s face says to Archie as they sing their song and run.   Archie is deeply unhappy about this.  He can’t bear to look at Julian. He doesn’t know what to do now.

Guys, I’m so into this musical. I love it. This is so fun. And it’s all because of Julian. 

Then they’re in the boys' changing room at school, singing at each other while taking their showers after the run.  This Bollywood reality is very gay alluva sudden.  Archie, Mr. Stiff & Awkward, is trying very hard to level up his choreography game.  He slams a hand into the shower wall as he sings.  Julian does the same thing, but better, with more panache.  Archie gives Julian a cock-eyed look.  Julian has super flexible eyebrows and does the cock-eyed challenging face BETTER.  Archie tries running his hand through his hair while making a cocky face.  Julian does it but with BOTH hands, HARMONIZES, and while Archie gets stuck with his hand in his own hair, extends the motion by spreading his hands wide and doing this fun little head tilt while adding a whole lot of swaggery sass to HIS version of the cocky face.

Archie gets pissed enough to slap the shower wall and - 

SEE, THE RIVERDALE ACTORS ARE GREAT.

This wall slap is categorically, visually, emotionally different from his doing as a ‘dance’ to try to one-up Julian as a performer.  This is genuine. It’s the ‘real’ Archie’s actual frustration about not being as good as Julian. 

Archie the fictional character breaks character as the fictional Archie, bringing on the record scratch sound. 

No STOP STOP STOP! Archie screams in desperation. He wants very much to be the lead now because he’s seeing how great Julian is and Julian Blossom cannot be allowed to win.  I’m furious and scared because I have a crush on Julian now even though I still hate this musical and why is this happening to me??

Julian says that “we were humming” and Archie is petty as anything.  He tries to assert dominance by saying he doesn’t like that “my UNDERSTUDY” is “singing at the same time as me!” because it’s “super distracting.”  Julian knows what I know which is that Archie is hating it that Julian is just immensely better than Archie is.  He makes a face and says UH Huh! at that.  

Archie, like all mediocre performers, starts to blame the material. “I’m not really jiving with this song.”  Julian won’t let him get away with this at all - “That’s funny, I am!”  And Julian would be. He was making it work.  

Kevin, because as I said he is not a meritocrat, decides to accommodate Archie.  He starts asking a truly unwieldy set of questions.  “What do you want in real life? What’s your secret passion or dream? Who is Archie Andrews?”    Julian pretends to be interested in Archie’s answer but actually he’s getting a kick out of Archie’s utterly overwhelmed silence. He is making the funniest faces of sarcastic faux concern as Archie gets totally freaked out by the onslaught of introspective prompts.   “Do you even know what you want?”  Kevin asks.  Clay asks which girl he wants to date.  Julian is smart  - catching on immediately, he continues the cross examination - “Do you want to be on the basketball team??”  “Write poetry?” Kevin finishes.

Archie  has no choice but  to say he doesn’t know.  Then he tries to say ‘all of them’ but that gets shut down by Kevin. The rules of dramaturgy, to borrow Veronica’s word, necessitate that the I Want song can only be about one thing, not multiple things.  Or else “you have a poorly defined main character.”

I mean.  Archie has been Barbie levels of flexible in terms of career (to borrow Cheryl Blossom’s spectacular summing up) on all previous seasons of Riverdale, so this is yet another juicy little meta self-commentary by the show.  Julian is very amused about Archie getting hoisted by his own petard, for one, and for another, he’s amused by Kevin being totally oblivious to the fact that it’s being confronted with Julian’s talent that is freaking Archie out first and foremost. 

Clay and Kevin promise that they’re going to write a different, more suitable I-want song for Archie, even though Archie is worried that they won’t be able to since he himself doesn’t know what he wants.

Done with the day, Kevin and Clay leave the music room, holding hands, being very lovey dovey.  Clay drops exposition about things going badly at home for Kevin.  Then they sing a pretty-enough duet about what they have being “no ordinary feeling” because “this is love, this is love.”  OK but it’s so castrated, boys.  So the Kevin performer has a beautiful voice, and he sings whatever he has to with resonance and conviction, but he’s a better singer than he’s an actor, because Kevin and Clay have absolutely no chemistry. I have zero sense that either one desires the other.   They’re two teenage boys engaging in what seems to be a very brave, out gay relationship at very high risk, crossing racial lines, even, and yet they have NO chemistry, NO yearning, and they make faces at each other of the type I make to fluffy dogs.  Like, they like each other, they want nice things for each other, but I don’t believe for a second that they’re attracted to each other.  So it’s really jarring, actually, and makes me hate Kevin even more.  He is worshipful of Clay for EXACTLY THE SAME REASONS that he was so shitty to Betty for - Betty gave AND STILL GIVES HIM understanding and support so he just trod all over her, lied to her, gaslit her, and was unabashedly blatant about his revulsion for her female body.    Kevin is with Clay not because he loves Clay or loves men, but because he is too insecure to be single and he hates women too much, so it’s men or nothing.  I hate Kevin.

We’re at the diner, and at first I am relieved to see Cheryl.  But then it’s a Kevin / Clay production number , this time written for women, so I know I’m in for a bad time.   Betty bursts into song about how the only girl for Archie is her.  She’s skippy and bouncy and I want to throw up.  This is how Kevin really sees her - as a boycrazy airhead.  Which she has never, ever been, not even in the 1950s AU. (How many times is too many times to say I hate Kevin in one post?)  Betty gets physically obnoxious with Veronica, kicking at her to move out of the booth.

Then Veronica sings her portion and does a thing nobody ever does.  She puts her hand right on her female rival’s cleavage, palm flat, while pushing her backwards to declare that she’s “not the kind of girl who comes in second place.”  Kevin thinks Veronica buys her boys with money (“I serve it up on a silver plate”).   He’s half right - she does, but not for the reasons he thinks.  Generosity is Veronica’s love language, and moreover, because she’s known to be rich, nobody ever refuses her extravagant gifts. 

Cheryl and Toni are forced to be the backup singers and co-occupiers of the same booth as Betty and Veronica sing this stupid song about how perfect each of them are for Archie.  Cheryl rolls her eyes so hard she almost has a stroke, and Toni looks done with life. 

We get a very very pinkish red sequence of the three of them - Veronica, Archie and Betty - playing in a band together.  Archie is silent so far, grinning at each in turn and the girls make very sweet faces at him before glowering at each other behind his (oblivious? fully aware?) back.  

Then the unexpected happens.  Toni starts singing about how Archie met her at Pop’s.  She took him for a spin on her motorcycle.  Archie rides behind Toni, who looks absolutely adorable with her huge wig and tiny biker’s outfit on her patently fake bike in front of the blue screen.   Then the nightmare continues.  Cheryl calls her “honey” in order to sing about her own sexcapade with Archie.  She puts on a non regulation siren-red Vixen cheerleader outfit, in front of a blazing fire AND  dozen candles at her house.  “Archie leaned in” apparently.

All four girls are in the band now, singing about how they each want Archie.  

Kevin really, really hates women.  He hates straight women for getting men,  but Kevin. KEVIN WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.  Also CLAY YOU ARE A PIECE OF SHIT YOU SMUG ASSHOLE.

The lyrics to this song are appalling;  “One boy plus four best friends/ Pretty girls getting ugly” “Best frenemies.”

“Bop on the head you twit” says Cheryl, immediately, as soon as Kevin is about to be overwhelmed with ecstasy at seeing his woman hating vision come to life.  Kevin invented the word ‘frenemies’ to be specifically shitty to women.  “Is this how you see us?” Betty finally asks.

Betty.

BETTY

YES.

YES HE DOES.

“Vapid khaki-wacky girls?”  NO. 

Oh she was so close.

No Betty. He thinks ALL STRAIGHT GIRLS ARE VAPID.  Also I have no idea what khaki-wacky means or if that’s even a real phrase, but I guess it means ‘airhead.’  Get it together girl.  He really did waste your time out of sheer contempt for you and you should be kicking him in the nuts every single time you see his stupid face.

Veronica says that she will get a better song written by someone else.   Because she knows actually talented songwriters - people who win Oscars and Tony awards.   She is thinking Cole Porter.    The lesbians add on the very valid comment that their parts seem especially tacked on.  Kevin very bitchily says that it’s because they wanted bigger parts - and this sort of airhead role is all either of them, and indeed all women, are good for.

Why does the show want me to hate Kevin so much by the way?  

Cheryl challenges the two misogynist gays to “write something truthful” and “more honest about you two.”  Kevin doesn’t like this idea,  but Clay nods at him because he wants some sort of show to exist.

The untalented woman hating gays  next approache Archie to let him know there’s a new I Want song.  They’ve decided to “focus on your quest for love.”  Archie is going to give this song a whirl because Julian isn’t there to show him up. 

The song is about choosing between Betty and Veronica. Which means the misogynist gay duo has completely not bothered listening to anything any of the girls said about how they object to misogyny in the musical.  They literally give Archie tickets with Veronica and Betty’s names printed on them, reducing both girls down to Socialite Queen and The Girl Next Door.   He does a little spin around a street lamp just outside the cinema where he’s about to watch ‘Choosing Between Betty and Veronica’ in a direct homage to Gene Kelly in Dancing in the Rain, except all I feel is sadness that I don’t get to watch Julian have a go at doing that. 

Apparently, Archie’s choices are between Wanting/ Needing,  Living/ Dreaming, and I’m not sure which one represents what.  Does he WANT Veronica and NEED Betty?  Or does Veronica represent ‘living” and Betty “dreaming”? 

So, according to the Misogynist Gay Duo, Veronica is Onion Rings and Betty is Cotton Candy.  Betty, seriously, kick them both in the nuts. 

But then the visuals in the song change and it gets suddenly very interesting.  When Betty is feeding Archie cotton candy on the school steps,  Archie turns his head away from her to take in the sight of Reggie practicing hoops, looking very handsome.  The lyrics are “They’re both delicious.”  We then cut to the diner, where Veronica is simpering at Archie, but Archie asks himself “How can I choose between two perfect things?” as he looks away from her to  look at Jughead moodily typing away in another booth. 

The posters he next sees show him the choice between basketball / athleticism and poetry.  Suuuure, looking at Reggie and Jughead are about career choices and not the boys themselves. Uh huh.  

Archie stops the song again, to confess that he’s been very bothered by the questions they peppered him with last time.  What does he really want?   Kevin freely admits that he didn’t actually care about this at all, he just wanted a song, so he wrote what for him is the most interesting thing about straight men - not their humanity, not their feelings, but their (to him) frustrating and bizarre need and desire to fuck women.  Archie tries to tell him that “that’s not really the big question that I’m wrestling with.”

Archie drops out of the musical because he has to figure some things out for himself.  Kevin is very annoyed, but Clay, because he’s more dishonest, pretends to wish Archie well on his quest for self discovery.  

I still think Archie is too freaked out by how good Julian is, and doesn’t want to hear Julian sing better than he does about Veronica and Betty. 

Veronica and Betty are hanging out at Veronica’s apartment.  Veronica says that Cole Porter has agreed to write her a little ditty so they can sing it at the musical.  Cole Porter was born 1891 so in ‘the present day’ of this AU, he’s sixty four. SIXTY FOUR.   Why did the show decide on Cole Porter???   Did they just want these girls to say COLE?? 

Anyway, Veronica confesses to Betty that she kissed Archie during the Red Scare.  Betty calmly asks her if she likes him, to which Veronica says that she does, but that she likes Betty more.   Veronica feels closer to Betty than anyone else in town, and Betty FEELS THE SAME WAY.   Betty suggests that they focus on their friendship.  And then they hold hands, because this is how heterosexual girls behave.

We cut to Kevin, who is having a halting, weird conversation with his dad.  His father seems to be sleeping at his office.  Is this why Sheriff Keller has been even more incompetent than he usually is??   He says that he wants to have his whole family together at the musical in the spring.  Kevin cannot get any information out of his dad about what’s going on with his parents’ estrangement.

The Misogynist Gay Duo have summoned the Skeptical Superfemme Dykes to say that they wrote them a better song, a truer song, like Cheryl commanded, because the two of them  heard the feedback and accepted the challenge.

This is a lie of course.  They lost their straight male lead, so now they are desperately scrambling to put some sort of show, any sort of show, together, so as to enjoy the ego high of having ‘their original work’ on stage.  They can’t even be honest about why they’re doing any of this.  And of course, of COURSE, OF COURSE, this song is actually the Misogynist Gay Duo praising themselves, with the valueless females’ participation only an afterthought.  

The song is fine.

Well, actually it’s not.

It’s deeply weird. 

“I know I’ll never find your loving in anyone else” is ordinary enough, but then comes the very next lyric, which is repeated several times: “Though I’ll try.”  Same goes for “I’ll never find your smile in anyone else” and then comes the damning “Though I’ll try.” 

???????????

This exhibits a huge amount of ambivalence - the point of reluctance - to being gay, of being in love with the person who ‘makes’ you gay. 

“I’d fight myself, you know I would/ If I thought it’d do any good.”

The Good here being, not being in love with the person who makes you - and marks you out as - gay.

This is not … a gay love song, though the gay-and-lesbian parallel love scene montage they play over it is an attempt to sell it as one.  It’s a I Wish I Wasn’t Gay song. It’s a, I’m going to Keep looking for someone who isn’t the same gender as me who will give me the same feeling, song, but then depressedly, defeatedly acquiescing to the fact that I am probably gay, for realsies, in the end.   They’re going to stay together because they don’t know how “Let go of your hand/ to start another life.”  This is the opposite of the celebration of discovering your own feelings.

Kevin and Clay are so fucked up and so shitty. 

They also are not going to come out, and will not include this in the musical.  This was a sort of bribe, to trick the Skeptical Superfemme Dykes into staying in the musical, but of course, this backfires.  Cheryl and Toni refuse to be in the musical and to lend their names to it, as long as they have to lie about being gay to participate. 

At the diner, any sort of decision making he has to do is freaking Archie out.  He can’t decide between soup or salad, even.  Jughead is there. OMG they know each other again!   Jughead says they’re both going to take BOTH the soup and the salad (Ooh?) then prompts Archie to continue what he was saying.  Archie says that KEVIN is writing a musical about him, and he doesn’t know why.  (RIP Clay, you don’t count). 

I do.  

Kevin is writing the musical about Archie because he wishes he wasn’t gay and he assumes Archie is entirely straight like he wishes he was.   Archie has the facts but not the insight - he says that Kevin is writing him as though the main decision in his life is about choosing between Betty and Veronica (which is to say, Kevin is deeply obsessed with heterosexuality of men but hates the women that are required to be a heterosexual man) but for Archie, the real Archie of S7, the thing that’s really tearing him apart is the choice between poetry and basketball, he says.

Jughead directly disagrees.  He says that Archie’s problem is the fear of making any sort of choice, that he thinks might ‘affect the rest of his life.’ He calls Archie a ‘cube.’ He also references Camus that Archie doesn’t understand.

Then, Archie suddenly bursts into non-diagetic song (or is it diagetic????) as Jughead smirks at him.  His song is about how he can’t pick two, he has to pick ONE and be a man. Pops is back with the soup, salad and sandwich, which the Archie promptly rejects.  He wants just the sandwich.  Jughead says he’s going to take soup and salad (Archie’s rejects).  Is Jughead starving in this universe?  No, right? Because he has a job that pays and stuff.  Is Betty soup (whom he got together with after Archie unequivocally rejected her in the OG time line the first time) and Veronica salad (whom he was briefly together with in this timeline after Archie rejected HER)?

Archie rushes home to tell Frank that he is going to choose poetry over basketball. He wants out of the basketball team.  Frank is furious, calling him “some kind of beatnik poet” then yelling about how HE needs Archie on the team and he won’t approve of it.  Then Uncle Fucking Frank threatens Archie - “You will regret it!” but Archie stands firm. He’s made his choice and is fine with regretting it.

Next morning at Kevin’s house, Kevin’s mom brings him a little something for breakfast because he overslept.  With Clay.  Clay departs out the window. 

WE FINALLY SEE KEVIN’S MOM. 

I don’t know that we’ve ever seen his mom, ever. She seems nice enough.  She proposes a family dinner.  I wish I cared more about her, but I don’t because she is Kevin’s mom.

Then comes the song that Cole Porter allegedly wrote for Veronica, as per whatever her instructions are.  

OK So.

I love Cole Porter. I know a lot of them by heart, especially off the Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book album, released in - guess when - 1956.

HOW DARE THEY TAKE COLE PORTER’S NAME IN VAIN. 

This song that Veronica and Betty sing together and for each other is absolutely nothing like any Cole Porter song whatsoever in any way. WHY REFERENCE COLE PORTER?  I really think they just wanted Camila Mendes to say “Cole” and have Lili Reinhart say “Cole” back to her on screen.  It could’ve literally been any other musical songwriter otherwise - Oscar Hammerstein was a contemporary of Cole Porter!  Richard Rodgers was a bit younger than both of them!  The Sherman brothers (who wrote Mary Poppins) may even have been the right age to plausibly be friends with Veronica!  Cole Porter was a really weird choice - so the only reason to choose him was this bizarre fan service.  If anything this song sounds like Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (of Frozen fame).

The song is pretty, and the two girls sing it pretty enough, but it’s trite as fuck and so are the visuals.  The Bee and Vee Bollywood timeout consists of their running for class president  on individual tickets at first, and then joining forces to be a co-headlining ticket.   Something about seeing the universe inside, being afraid to show your real self.  Veronica says she always needs to be the best, and Betty needs people to realize she’s more than her surface.  

 The show shows its true colors (and not the pretty lesbian ones of the balloons that the Bee and Vee ticket use at their school election campaign) in that it thinks the only valid liberation for women was getting the vote.  That’s the surface level injustice (not having suffrage) that the show can truly believe was gendered oppression.  Once that was solved, women should’ve just shut up.  Fuck off, show.

 The girls are so turned on by someone acknowledging that she might have depth that they apparate out to space to share a kiss as a comet falls.  

The Misogynist Gay Duo are completely confused by this song.  Kevin does not understand it whatsoever, because it doesn’t fit with his world view, that women can have anything other than disgusting vaginas that straight men are (to him) inexplicably obsessed with fucking.  Clay is a bit more with it - at least, he’s sensitive to the “energy exchange” as Veronica calls it, that occurred between them in the course of the song.  Kevin’s summing up of this song is SO WRONG.  He says he felt “the pain of your isolation” and even worse, the girls’ “desperate” (he really says, Desperate) “need to be seen.”  THAT ISN’T WHAT THEY SAID THOUGH, KEVIN.   They said that they saw a universe in each other.  You stupid woman hating piece of shit. I hope your mother calls you fat and ruins your confidence at the end of this episode.  For fuck’s sake.

Once more - WHYYYY are they doing this with Kevin’s character?  He did not hate women even when women were being kind of hateful to him (such as Betty outing him when he wasn’t ready to his dad).  Oh.  Is this why?  In S7 ,we get to see Toni being shitty to Cheryl in a reversal of Cheryl being problematic to Toni, so by the same token we get to see Kevin despise Betty as he should’ve done in earlier seasons??

Bee and Vee are shook, so they discuss the “primal” “charged and intense” connection they felt during the song.  Betty wants to climb Veronica’s emotionally complex mountain.

With absolutely perfect timing, Archie comes to tell the two pretty girls he’s kissed that he is choosing celibacy in order to discover himself, even though he’s fond of them.  They are so put out.  Like, dude get over yourself. 

Of course, Archie is behaving like this not least because he was infected with Kevin’s warped view of his life.

We cut to Kevin at his family dinner at the Diner. His mother is like four feet taller than his dad, which I like very much.   Kevin continues to be shit.  He is saying “The new Archie, Julian, he’s even better than the real Archie.”   This is accurate but he only came to this realization because Julian is literally the only person interested in performing his songs - THERE’S LITERALLY NO CAST LEFT because Kevin sucks.   

His parents tell him in a clumsy way that they are getting a divorce.  Kevin seems upset, but doesn’t lash out or anything, and says pompously that he has his ‘presentation’ of the musical tomorrow so he’s going to go home now.  He gets a bit sarcastic with them, I guess, but I don’t care. I hate Kevin.

Then we get to the presentation of the musical  Julian has been cast as Archie.  Clay is playing the part of Jughead. Midge and one other nameless girl have been shoehorned into the slot originally given to Cheryl and Toni (the foursome of bitches that want to fuck Archie).  Veronica and Betty are inexplicably willing to participate still, even though they were given a vastly superior song to sing that had them hallucinating space traveling lesbian sex.  The fact that the Misogynist Gay Duo are USING THE NAMES of Archie (no longer in the musical), Jughead (who hates both of them and the musical), Reggie (also out since day 1), for this show is HORRENDOUS.  Oh and fuck you Fangs, for playing Reggie. 

Veronica, I’m so disappointed in you.  You gave Jughead such hell for using your name and likeness in the genre fiction he writes, but you’re fine with Kevin doing this to everyone who explicitly said they DID NOT WANT to be involved in his stupid musical?

Anyway the chief pleasure of this number, is, of course, JULIAN.  The Riverdale MVP.  He is just so good at every part of this.  Wearing the Archie costume with the correct attitude for the way the character is set up in the musical. He’s so GREAT at theater dancing. Knows exactly how to place his weight, knows exactly how much to move, and the singing voice is just lovely!  He shows up everyone - Betty and Veronica look and sound like gifted amateurs trying to keep up with a professional.  

Featherhead applauds Julian, because he understands quality when he sees it, unlike Kevin.

Oh and Kevin and Clay hate Jughead too.  Jughead says in the musical, singing in the most obnoxious, unJughead preening way, that he’s going to be stuffing his face instead of going to Prom.  Then Julian as Archie bouncily invites him to prom (complete with titty slap).  Julian is SO CUTE. Why am I so into Julian? HELP ME.

He tells Kevin that they absolutely will not be producing the musical whatsoever.  “Original musicals are tough sells” and he’s worried that nobody will come for “Archie the Musical” but  Oklahoma will completely sell out. He has good taste, Featherhead.  Oklahoma is a gorgeous musical. 

Kevin is pissy as fuck when he comes to yell at his cast about not getting the musical that he wanted made. He’s so shit and I am enjoying his suffering.  He’s so stupid and untalented to the end - he says he is experiencing this failure because the others didn’t support him and his vision enough, and nitpicked his songs to death.  Actually no Kevin. Your songs are just shit, and your vision of other people are misogynist and reductive, plus you have absolutely no eye for performance talent.  You failed because you’re not talented enough, but sure have your violent temper tantrum.

After Kevin storms out, Clay explains to the cast that Kevin is upset about his parents getting a divorce. 

Kevin goes home and has some talk with his mom who says she loves him unconditionally and that the divorce between his parents is not his fault.  I wish I cared but I don’t. I am however annoyed that Kevin who so viciously hates women keeps having women be so kind and nice to him.

The next day, Archie approaches Kevin who is noodling around on the piano.  He thanks Kevin to thank him for forcing him to take a long hard look at himself, and says that it was useful.  Kevin says that he was practicing a song that he wrote.  I’m bracing for impact. 

It’s not horrible actually. It’s a bit confusing.  It starts out as diagetic - Kevin is playing the song with Archie.  Archie who can read music then sits next to him and reads along to the music on the page.  But then suddenly we shift into the Riverdale Musical Episode - this is not the in-universe Archie the Musical performances.  This is Betty the Riverdale Character singing the song that Kevin wrote back to him, so that he gets to have a consolation experience of directing his classmates in a song.   Betty is the first, the comes Veronica, then Choni, Clay, and then to my surprise, lots of unexpected couplings:

Midge and Fangs, singing a little duet portion and entering together are followed by Jughead and Ethel (ETHELHEAD! ETHELHEAD????)  singing as a duet who enter the music room together!    Reggie, Julian and Dilton are the next cluster.  Kevin starts weeping as all his classmates look fondly at him while they serenade him with his own song.  These are extremely kind people, to give Kevin this present though he has shown them that he thinks all of them are beneath him and was pretty shitty to them throughout the musical production process.  They even give him a group hug. 

Jughead is again the one that pops out. He’s sincerely singing this song to Kevin, along with everyone else, and his demeanor is full of sympathy.  He looks like a completely different person than the one maniacally, ragefully performing “Jughead as Written by the Misogynist Gay Duo” at the start of the show.

And may I just ask one question please - Why is Veronica able to forgive Kevin’s reductive view of all women and her in particular when she found it absolutely unacceptable in Jughead?  WHY?

Uhhh, can Julian please sing all the songs and dance every dance please from here on out?? 

I still hate Kevin, by the way, even though he’s in pain from his parents’ mysterious divorce.

And Julian Blossom singing Archie going Left/ Archie going right is A FUCKING EARWORM and it’s ringing in my head even now.

[riacte]

Been thinking about HC fan discussion shifting over the last few years to become more focused on individual creators, and I think the reduced prominence of the Recap could be a contributing factor?

Speaking from my own experience as having gotten into HC in Season 6 along with Grian, I started watching Recap from the S6 Day One video (I was already familiar with the concept thanks to Evo in a Nutshell, which was openly inspired by HC Recap, so it was easy for me to get into), and it was really formative for getting to know all the hermits and HC in general.

I think it ties into what you said about engaging with the server as a whole, because even if you don't watch every hermit, with Recap you get to learn their names, hear their voices, and get exposed to their personality, projects, interests, and running jokes. It presented HC as an interconnected community, where all the hermits came together to create a collective art piece (the server itself). That sense of community has always been one of my favourite things about HC tbh

Recap also made it much easier for me to get into new hermits throughout s6/s7, bc I was already loosely familiar with who they were and what they were doing, so I could jump in midway through their season, or watch a one-off episode, without being too lost!

Meanwhile, with lots of people getting into HC through Life Series (and likely not being exposed to Recap), I think it's easy for people to just... stick with people they already know? And I don't blame anyone for watching people they like (time/energy for videos is limited, and plenty of my favourites are in Life Series too), but it also feels bad to see the work of so many hermits go unappreciated in their own community, especially when there was more of an effort to include them in the past :(

We need a new wave of Recap appreciation posts I think

I think this is very true. Lots of people just regurgitate Life series povs to people asking on the Reddit who to watch when you could just do Recap and didn’t they make a whole flowchart of who to watch? (Outdated but still a useful reference)

Unironically we need to bring back 2021 level of propaganda. Like whole posts on Hermitcraft propaganda that introduce all the listed hermits and their uniqueness. Sure, everyone has preferences, but they brand themselves as a server, so we should also brand them as a server. I do find it realllyyyyy weird that this phenomenon got worse after HC9 when HC9 had TCG (includes all hermits and “quirks” about them) and Decked Out (huge event that involved many hermits, including non Lifers). The hermits are literally producing merch as a server. It’s a game that appreciates each of them. The audience loves TCG too so ?? ??????

Another thing is that for me, sometimes I feel like I’m yelling into the void with my posts so I end up in a circle of people who main the same people (since we interact and talk to each other) and I don’t have the energy to do more because again, yelling into the void sucks. So I’m also part of the “problem”.

[foundfam2754]

S18e3 live reactions!!

Spoilers…obviously

i have…frankly been avoiding thinking about this episode and the plot and the pain the entire week

i’m still so upset, I haven’t wrapped my head around it… not sure i want to watch the episode that’ll solidify it in my reality…

can’t believe will went through the s7 finale for this to happen….

here we go, gosh I’m going to cry, aren’t i?

oh man, they’re making us recap this??

oh fuck, this SONG???

they are doing flashbacks??? DAMN, this hurts

THIS IS NOT FAIR I ALREADY MADE IT THROUGH LISTENING TO THIS SONG THIS WEEK

and she has to parent alone :(

it does seem exactly like Tebecca to handle this in a funny, sarcastic, snarky way. Which is kinda comforting…

greenvez is helping a little

i kinda can’t believe that they have to work when Will was a best friend of them — Luke and Tara at least.

she lied, actually. she wasn’t in shock

also is it just me, or is this episode moving wayyy too quickly

honestly - to make Voit likeable, charming, charismatic is actually not a bad way to do this season

oh gosh, they’re making Rossi re live S16?? And that bunker?? Poor bb

yes, Elias, he’s mad at you. he’s been mad at you for about a year now

gosh, AJ, her voice when saying this quote makes this so much more powerful, her acting is going to be so good in this episode… so heartbreakingly good

it was a beautiful wedding - and literally one of my favourite episodes :((

she’s going to breakdown later this episode or something, isn’t she? She’s holding all of this in. Like the quote said, she’s holding everyone. And the girls are holding her.

lol JJ to Penelope, i love these women so much

oh god, I forgot it was Michael’s birthday :(

she has to re-live this every fucking second

can’t they….profile Will and find it? Not to seem clinical about it, but maybe that’ll help? Or maybe it’s too hard, and they were too close to him

gosh, even referring to him in the past tense is killing me

does Elias…know why they’re doing this and who they think he is?

I LOVE GREENVEZ SO FUCKING MUCH. I love this bromance

and of course, our penelope girl is there

i feel like penelope should NOT be on speaker

are you trying to make him jealous, penelope?

this love triangle is literally going to wear me out; i hope to goodness they’re not soft-launching greencia this season

Linda Lavin!!

ma’am, this is NOT what our Jaje needs right now

holy fuck lady, leave JJ ALONE

i hope and think this is just because she’s grieving and JJ’s the only person she can put her anger and sadness on

“agent tyler green” made me smile ngl

ty is the best person to support Ramona

oh goodness, JJ, please let them support you. i’m so sorry :(

damn, that scared me

“co-worker’s spouse” is diabolical

OH FUCK, THEY’RE GOING TO PUT JJ THROUGH IT…. S9 flashbacks anyone?

oh dang MAMA BEAR JJ

well…shit

why is that pan to penelope and em borderline comedic

no okay so what i find interesting here is that even, in this state, elias is still a fantastic reader of human behavior - that part of him hasn’t changed

aww, Auntie P is so cute

the more that they draw this out, the more i think elias is faking this…

yeah, because he was seeing sydney at the same time he was with ramona

well… he may be who he ‘used’ to be….i feel like we still don’t know yet tbh

zach’s acting is impressive in this episode, he is managing to make us feel bad for Elias

oh…heck, whoopsy ramona

no sir, they are not…, and yess… they are

i feel like… if this is real, this is what elias keeps hidden - esp in s16 and 17, the person he tries to be and the fear he has deep down that people are scared of him, oh who he is behind the facade and he was trying to avoid that AT ALL costs

i love papa pasta

ok i dreaded this episode, but it’s been my favourite so far, they’ve done it really well

yay hotch mention! derek mention! spence mention! can’t wait to see him soon!

WAIT SHUT UP IT’S MATTHEWWW, SPENCYYYYYYYYYYYYYY - i thought it was episode 4!! IMBD LIED TO ME SHUT THE FUCK UP

hi Spence <3 i think this is going to be healing for all of us ❤️‍🩹

wait it is this that might make me cry

i kinda love that he looks the EXACT same

i’m watching that again

he’s the one she’s going to breakdown in front of

the pan to lukey post garcia’s speech!

wait okay this episode is everything

no, jj, please don’t blame yourself

wait this may actually break me

she’s talking to him

oh my goodness, AJ is going to make me cry this is NOT OK

they’re not going to have spence for just these 2 minutes, right? please tell me not just these 2 minutes

yeah it happened - i’m officially crying

the camera shot of luke, penelope and tyler walking off together is diabolical

ok, Spence was the perfect person to hold her here

why are post-funeral soirées always held at penelope’s house

what is this soft-launching of penelope, and tyler

ohhhhh…this is emily’s house

i love that she’s being authentic with everyone, she’s being open and vulnerable

yeah, i still don’t understand killing off krystall

is it bad that i know every episode these quotes are coming from :( i miss you, will, so fucking much

oh god, poor henry

yeah, so that episode tore me apart into a million pieces

I’m still not happy that will is gone, but it was beautiful, it was done SO DAMN well, and AJ deserves everything

like i kinda almost understand why they wrote will’s death … it allows for SO MUCH character development, not ONLY for JJ but for penelope, penelope and tyler, penelope and luke, dave, tebecca

the only thing i’m mad about is that spence coming back was only for 2 minutes and MGG had like…2 lines lol, but idk maybe there’s reason

dang, okay but this was my favourite episode so far

and with that, sitting here with a wounded heart that’s on its way to healing, i’m signing off

see y’all next week for 18x4

[whateverisbeautiful]

♥️Reveling in Richonne - TOWL

#18: The Broken Bliss (1.03)

gif cred: @riickgrimes

“Bye” ended up being a fitting title for episode 3, both to complete the “Years Gone Bye” thing in homage to the TWD pilot "Days Gone Bye" and also because there were several shocking goodbyes in this episode. Including in this teaser where Rick is forced to kiss his hopes of escaping with Michonne goodbye 😢...

I really enjoy the ride of ep 3 and can now find the humor in things from this episode, but y’all, I wasn't as lighthearted when I first watched. I was so sad for both Michonne and Rick as they had to navigate both the elation and the complications that had come with finding each other again.

Like seeing the way crippling fear was fogging Rick’s perspective and the way Michonne was starting to feel like she’s gonna have to figure out how to bring her family back together all by herself. It was a lot. 🥺 But it was all very interesting. Also, even in an episode where Rick and Michonne spend a large chunk of it in a marital fight, I love that their love for each other is still extremely obvious. 

So first, in the episode one recap that played before episode 2 they start with Okafor talking about how As are sent away and killed and I know they included that because the Civic Republic has now just brought in the most A person that could ever A - Dana Bethune aka Michonne Grimes.

Then, the episode opens with a flashback from years ago as we see a line of consignees' shoes and then we know it’s Rick when we see his signature boots that are hanging on by a thread. That man is loyal to the core, even to his boots. 😋

gif cred: @perryabbott

The CRM says, “This is gonna be your home someday soon” but you know Rick knows this place will never be home.

He walks and takes in the place, turning around to observe some windmills and buildings. This shows how he's an A unlike the other consignees because he's assessing this place rather than just going along with things.

As he turns and walks alone past different booths, I remember just thinking how he would so much rather be walking hand in hand with Michonne and Judith right now. Or, if this wasn’t a place you can’t leave, he’d want to be enjoying this little farmers market cuteness with them. 

gif cred: @andy-clutterbuck

As he walks he hears Jadis ask for a napkin and he turns to her and it’s clear of all the familiar faces he could have been stuck with in the CRM Jadis is not one he’d ever choose.

She’s all smirking as she greets him and is just casually talking about the fries and I was so annoyed to see Jadis acting like she didn’t full-on pluck Rick away from his wife and daughter seemingly for good. Also, Jadis wasting those fries is added to the long list of why she's trifling. 😑 

Rick hesitantly walks with Jadis and she starts to explain how her Heapsters group from s7 would give lost souls who needed saving to the CRM and also they’d give people who are threats to the CRM in exchange for supplies. Jadis says she waited for Rick’s orientation so they could talk which I’m sure he prefers she didn’t lol.

She shares that the CRM keeps asking her what they should ask Rick and she hopes Rick will say he’s looking for someone to follow…but uh he already found someone with a sword to follow years ago at the prison. 😌

Jadis tries to be chummy with Rick saying he can talk to her because the CRM can’t surveil them here and Rick gets straight to addressing the audacity of the matter when he reminds Jadis, “You brought me somewhere I can’t leave.”

gif cred: @ricksmarlene

The way Rick says that first line, you know he feels this is the worst punishment keeping him away from his family. He does not view this as being saved but being trapped. 

(Side note: whatever that rebar recovery process was like for Rick leading up to this point treated him very kindly because they had him looking especially fine in this scene, just saying.😊 Also, for the longest time Season 8 Rick held the title of Rick's finest era to me, but Rick's TOWL era holds the title now without question 👌🏽)

Jadis says she could have chosen to let him die on the riverbed or told the CRM he was a threat. She notes how the CRM doesn’t take chances but she did because she owed him. At least she knows that much. 😒

Rick asks why she’s not also working consignment and idk why Jadis is all smirky but she is and Rick knows she doesn’t have to work consignment because she trafficked him. And they wonder why she’ll never be redeemable in my eyes. Like she basically sold Rick to this place as almost a currency to upgrade her life. Trash in all the ways. 😤🗑

gif cred: @clonecaptains

So Rick has one of those quick pissed smiles and walks away from Jadis but she follows after him to tell him that she’s enlisting in this place and she’s gonna sign up and move up the ranks because she believes in the CRM and its 500-year plan “to recreate the world as it was, better than it was.”

And while the way CRM folk buy into the 500-year plan definitely was giving cult vibes I can at the very least empathize with how they all might feel excited about the idea of the world potentially regaining normalcy after years of an apocalypse. However, their means of regaining normalcy through mass killings is atrocious.

Rick looks like he’s barely listening as Jadis tries to sell why this place is so great and why it’s the future. She says joining this place’s mission to change the world seems like a perfectly fine way to spend a life. But like girl, that may be the case if you didn't have a family and were community-less…but Rick has a whole wife and kid(s) at home and there’s no other way he’d rather spend his life than with them.

Jadis says, “The people that we left behind - their children’s children will have a world.” Can we start first with Rick even meeting his child RJ before people start recruiting him to a life of servitude for the children’s children?? And “people we left behind” is annoyingly phrased as if among those people isn’t Rick’s wife and daughter and as if he willingly left them behind. 😑

gif cred: @perryabbott

I love that Rick gets fed up and stops to look right at her with his steely eyes as he tells her point blank “I’m going home.” Now that was some signature Rick Grimes and I love it. 👏🏽

It makes me happy to see how absolutely determined he was to make it back home and also sad knowing that it would be so much harder than he could have ever expected at this moment.

But also I’m glad that he wanted to make this so clear to Jadis who really seemed to think Rick would just be cool with building some all-new life here. She tried it to capacity but I’d expect nothing less from her. 😪

Jadis knows Rick is serious and that she should back off when she just tells him, “Follow your bliss, Rick. But I did save your life. That is what happened” She really stays ticking me off with each thing she says and does and we haven’t even cut to the present yet where she pisses me off on another level. 🙃

Rick looks at her pissed too as he walks away from her because yes she kept him from dying that day of the bridge explosion but her actions ultimately led to Rick having to endure a far more painful death - the death where you’re still alive but a shell of who you once were, filled only with the ache from being torn from your loved ones. 

gif cred: @andy-clutterbuck

As Rick walks away, Jadis has to put the cherry on top of the tried-it sundae and tell Rick, “You’re welcome.” 🙄

There is a moment when Rick hears this and sorta tilts his head like he’s gonna turn around and say something back. And knowing how willingly petty Rick can be toward Jadis I’m sure he had something real slick and insulting to say. But he smartly decides not to cause a scene as he keeps walking forward.

They also have Rick stop for a moment as he seems to see something ahead and I’d like to think it’s the portraiture booth. After that frustrating encounter with Jadis, I know he could use a palette cleanser so I bet he went straight to that artist Benjiro for his first much-needed images of Michonne and Judith. 👌🏽

Then we cut to hours ago in the present as Rick knocks on Pearl’s door. (See how he actually knocks rather than barging in like some others 🙂) Pearl opens the door and she's been understandably crying over the death of their longtime leader Okafor and Rick is completely unconcerned about that at this moment lol.

While Pearl’s broken up and worried about if Rick’s okay after surviving a traumatic helicopter crash and attack, Rick is like...

Truly Rick's energy is like 'that crash stuff is all old news and there's something far more important on the agenda.'

He immediately and urgently gets into the Dana conversation telling Pearl, “Just listen to me. There’s a woman who saved me.” And I of course love the wording of that because it’s true in every way that Michonne saved and saves him. Also, if I were Pearl I’d be like so now when someone saves you you give them credit for it? 🙃

gif cred: @coolpartytimefan

Rick doesn’t look at Pearl as he speaks at first because I know he knows his face could give him away and reveal just how important this all is to him. He says this heroic mystery woman is in designation intake right now and then he does look right at Pearl to tell the truth that, “She’s an A.”

Then with too much passion in his eyes, Rick says, “And I don’t want them to send her away.” I was like now Rick, yes Michonne is supposed to be putting on an act in the CRM but you are too sir and for as long as Pearl has known you I don’t think she’s ever seen this much light and urgency behind your eyes about anything.

Like before this, Rick was the man who seemed like he didn’t give a damn about anything involving the CRM, and now all of a sudden he's fully activated over this new consignee. 🤭 This was one of the many moments where I was just looking at Rick like babe, change the plan cuz this 'undercover lovers' thing ain’t gonna work. 

Pearl says Rick doesn’t know for sure if this new girl is an A but he knows Michonne is an A more than he knows his own name lol. And I love how even despite years apart he still knows Michonne is an A++.

gif cred: @perryabbott

Rick maintains his urgency saying, “I’m making a call. But if I argue for her they’ll think I’m emotional, indebted.” Which again I know Rick is thinking 'And the CRM would be right in assessing that because I owe that woman everything.'

Then he passionately says, “You gotta make sure she stays.” And that was not an ask, that was an order Rick made because this is something he‘s gonna make sure happens at all costs.

Pearl looks at Rick and squints for a moment finally picking up on the fact that this man in front of her is a different and far more impassioned Grimes than she’s ever seen before as she asks, “Why?” validly wondering why it’s so important to Rick that this new lady stays in this city of thousands.

And the way Rick lays it on thick with the lie as he tries to say with conviction, “For Okafor. Because that’s what this has all been about.” He’s really trying to sell it. 🤭 And I feel bad because Rick thinks he can turn to Pearl as a fellow A but again I’m convinced Pearl is more of a B with a decent enough poker face to try and pretend she's an A, and so she’s not exactly cut from the same cloth as Rick and his wife.

gif cred: @perryabbott

Pearl says, “He’s dead” and again Rick tries to get into his persuasive acting bag as he passionately says, “No he’s not. Because we’re here.” I love seeing him willing to say and do anything to ensure Michonne is protected. Also, it hit me that Rick is using Okafor to help his case in getting Pearl to protect Michonne - the very woman who had a hand in Okafor dying. Rick really said bump Okafor and everyone else when it comes to my wife. 💯

Pearl asks, “Are you here, Rick?” And I was like baby, Rick has never been more here because this is the Rick Grimes I know and love, fighting like hell to protect his family. 👌🏽 But then she clarifies what she means by asking, “Are you a part of this?” Rick looks at her and says, “I understand now. I told him just before.” And he’s able to look her in the eye saying that because it is true that Rick told Okafor he was in just before his wife showed up.

And then Rick looks down when he says, “You were right” because that’s the lie part of it. Pearl asks who brings Michonne/Dana along and Rick says she should because the CRM and Okafor trust her more than him. Pearl is still unsure so Rick says, “Look it took me a long time. You helped me. I’m here. She should be too.”

While I absolutely loved seeing the passion here from Rick I unfortunately cannot give him an A letter grade for his performance as Man Who Is Not Madly In Love With The New Consignee lol. 😋

Like Rick had more energy in his behavior and urgency in his eyes than ever so he’s lucky Pearl didn’t pick up on it since she was still reeling from the Okafor loss and everything else going on. Otherwise, I just know she would've been closing her door like...

So while I thought he was being obvious, Rick did do a good enough job to convince Pearl to go along with his plan and stick her neck out for Michonne. So my baby Rick still gets at least a passing grade for his role as Man Who Is Not Madly In Love With The New Consignee. 😌👏🏽

Rick returns to his apartment and we pick up where we left off from the end of episode 2. Jadis knows Rick well enough to know the way he’s looking at her in this apartment means he's got murder on his mind as she says, “You’re thinking about killing me.”

And then she receives a signature Rick Grimes threat as he says with all the certainty in the world, “I will. But not today.” 👌🏽 And Jadis, girl...

I just know Rick feels like Jadis is overdue to be taken out for playing in his face for years. And if now she at all thinks she's going to mess with Michonne - that makes her death sentence signed sealed and delivered in Rick's book. 

Rick tells her, “It’s funny. I see it. I feel it. Throwing away everything you made happen for yourself. Because you needed to get in the middle of something you have nothing to do with.” I love him saying this. Jadis has tried to throw herself in the mix of Richonne for years and I love that Rick is like 'bowl-cut, you do not need to factor into this equation at all.' And if she doesn’t stay in her lane he’s going to end her and everything she’s worked towards 

Jadis self-centered behind begs to differ saying, “I have everything to do with it. Our fates are bound. You, Michonne, Me.” And y’all, I just happened to pause the scene for a sec and it was on Rick’s face and the way he is looking at Jadis…truly if looks could kill Jadis would be a goner in that very moment. 😬 As Okafor learned, an adversary having Michonne’s name in their mouth is going to get Rick heated like no other.

Jadis explains that if Rick and Michonne were the first two people to ever leave then the CRM would never stop looking for them ever and since Jadis would know where they were she’d be the one to have to destroy ASZ. And again as Rick listens to this he’s so viscerally pissed off and I 1000% get it.

Jadis says she’d have to kill everyone to make sure their arrangement was never discovered and again this woman always acts in self-interest. Rick scowls as he tells her the gospel truth, “This was your mess. This is you. This is you.”

This is all Jadis's doing so she really needed to stop acting like there’s anyone else to blame. Jadis is approaching this as if Rick went out of his way to complicate things by coming to the CRM as an A when she’s the one who roped him into her lies.

It’s hard because as Rick says this you can tell he’s thinking about how so much of his pain and problems trace back to trifling Jadis, like since season 7. 😪

Jadis is still so smug as she tells Rick, “In the event of my untimely demise, I just put a little file among my possessions telling them everything they need to know about you and all the people that you love. And I imagine that a CRM reclamation team would have everybody that you love dead within hours of that file's receipt”

Okay, first of all - Jadis, you beast. 😠 But it is fitting that Jadis has factored in a plan based on Rick taking her out because at least she knows how likely it is that he’ll kill her.

Second of all, this woman is just so cruel. Like she knows Rick has people he loves, not just community members or travel companions but like family family and she’s still so callous and cold when threatening him and them.

gif cred: @riickgrimes

Three; similar to the scene in ep 1 between Okafor and Rick when Rick realizes he really can’t risk going home anymore, this moment with Jadis is another one of those gut punches as he again realizes that he can’t break free with Michonne like he initially really hoped.

Like I truly think before this moment he did think he and Michonne would find a way out together but now he’s right back to feeling convinced that the CRM can’t be beaten and that he’s stuck here forever, which is why we see his mission change from getting them both out of here to just getting Michonne out of here. All that psychological warfare came right back to keep Rick in chains in this scene. 😢

As Jadis talks you can see it - you can see the hope Rick had of escaping with Michonne drain out. Before he was looking at Jadis angry and upset but upon hearing that their escape will get Michonne and their family killed he starts that labored breathing we’ll see much of the next episode, which is a clear indicator of his fear and panic.

Jadis says, “Because you and her leaving with the knowledge of that city and this force? You know that can’t be had.” I can’t believe Jadis is making me miss the days when she spoke in short broken sentences. Like plz...

It’s so hard seeing Rick look so distraught while he paces and gets sincerely emotional as the realization hits him that he might’ve just trapped his wife here along with him.

The way he walks toward the door then stops, it feels like he wants to sprint out of there and get to Michonne ASAP to wrap her in bubble wrap and shield her from everyone. Plus he needs the calmness Michonne provides back as he’s starting to unravel.

Then my heart always melts hearing Rick say with so much sincerity and emotion, “She doesn’t belong here.”

Again, this further cements that this has now become strictly a save-Michonne mission to him because he’s not making a case for the both of them, just her.

And the way he says it is just so extremely caring and protective. Like he is truly talking about his baby and feels utterly awful that Michonne is here because of him. 🥺

gif cred: @riickgrimes

It’s also sad that he only says Michonne doesn’t belong here because the CRM has convinced Rick that he is owned by them. And it’s like he’s accepting that harsh reality but still mustering the strength to at least argue that Michonne should not be stuck with the CRM like him. 

And then y’all, the line that’ll be having me want to swing every time is when Jadis responds to Rick’s heartfelt declaration about his wife not belonging here by saying in her best Karen voice, “Then she shouldn’t have come here.”

Like how much more patronizing and heartless can she be toward both Rick and Michonne. That line is gonna get me heated every time. 😑

Jadis says, “But that was her choice.” And you know hearing that hits Rick hard because he knows that it was not Michonne's choice but his that she’d come to the Civic Republic. Like Rick is already a man who feels so responsible for things and so you know he just feels responsible on another level for bringing her here knowing Michonne trusted to follow his lead. 

Jadis then asks Rick, “So what’s your choice?” And the way Rick looks at her I can literally hear the thought in his head - my wife is my choice. And while it will cause some issues, we do see him choose his wife in his actions that follow.

gif cred: @clonecaptains

Also what is with this CRM and all their dang choices that aren’t choices. 🙄 Like they’re obsessed with referring to things as choices when they are choices people basically have to make at gunpoint.

Rick is quietly seething as Jadis asks, “Will you tell me that you will not try to leave again? If you try with her everyone back home dies.” I do like how at least Jadis knows Michonne being here means Rick definitely got some newfound hope of breaking out of this place after giving up on the idea for a year or so. She knows Michonne would give Rick a renewed sense of strength and motivation that could lead to the two actually successfully escaping. 

And then Rick just breaks my heart yet again as he so emotionally and earnestly asks,“Why? why?” And I have the same question. As well as wanting to ask Jadis...

I was watching this scene just thinking after everything Rick's done for this selfish woman, WHY can’t she just leave him alone? If anything, had they let Rick go home, I think at least for a while he really would have left the CRM alone.

But the CRM done messed up keeping Rick here so long that now his baddie A wife had to show up because Michonne is the one who would be of the mindset they have to teach the CRM a lesson and expose this 'last light of the world'.

Jadis answers that she’s doing all this because of the CRM’s value of “Security and secrecy above all.” And Rick reacts like 'oh brother, not this damn CRM motto again.' Or maybe that was a direct quote from my mind lol.

Jadis again as self-centered as ever says she will not jeopardize everything she’s made happen for herself. She says, “I won’t wait for them to find you and they will find you- and it’ll all blow back on me.” Again, Jadis...

Rick tries to reason with Jadis asking if there’s a deal to be made and if she can clean it up. Hearing that I was like - nawt us still having storylines of making deals with Jadis in 2024. 🙃 Like we needed to stop making deals with Jadis in 2017. The woman is a snake point-blank and so any deal with her is truly pointless.

Jadis says there’s no deal and then she notes that Michonne is “very very lucky” because the CRM suspects that she’s an A but still let her in because Pearl stepped up. Lol, I’m not at all surprised they got the sense that Dana was an A. I thought Michonne actually gave a decent B performance during the vetting process but still, she radiates A energy as other consignees will soon note.

Jadis asks if Rick was behind Pearl advocating for Michonne and when he’s silent Jadis is like “Wow. You pulled that off.” And then she again tries it to capacity when she tells Rick, “So have your life together here.” Wth, Jadis?? 😠 I know she knows good and well Rick and Michonne have a daughter at home so just how ridiculous can she be suggesting they should just leave Judith behind and build a life here. I’d say dpmo but...

Then Jadis has more CRM propaganda to spew as she says, “We’re the last light of the world.” But me personally, I give that description to the Grimes family. 👌🏽

Jadis then stands up and gets in Rick's personal space as she again asks, “What’s your choice?” Rick is teary-eyed as he knows his choice is made. If it comes down to having Michonne with him stuck here or getting her out safe and back to Judith - He’s choosing his wife and daughter every time.

As he looks down defeated Jadis says, “You know I don’t need to hear it.” And it’s interesting because this scene really does a good job of depicting the massive shift in Rick from when he entered the apartment to when Jadis leaves.

At the end of ep 2 when Jadis was in Rick’s face he was lethally staring her down but now when she’s in his face he hangs his head down, beaten down by her threats toward his family. 😢

Rick then says, “You didn’t threaten me or the people I love before when I told you I was gonna get away.” And I’ll say this, Pollyanna very much understood the assignment knowing how infuriating Jadis was meant to be because she again uses a tone that makes me irate as she just smugly tells Rick, “That’s cuz I knew you couldn’t.”

gif cred: @likeafantasy

Honestly, I see why Rick cherishes so much that Michonne believes in him because unfortunately, so many others underestimate him.

However, without his family by his side, Rick was in fact sadly made to feel like he couldn’t fend off the CRM’s oppression forever. 

gif cred: @likeafantasy

Rick asks, “What changed?” and Jadis turns around, sounding oddly enough like she’s a fellow Richonne stan, as she says, “You two together? You can do anything.”

gif cred: @likeafantasy

It’s at least fitting that Jadis knows Rick and Michonne were going to try to be the first two to escape this place and that if anyone could pull it off they could. From the moment she met Richonne in season 7 she saw firsthand that they could do anything together.

And while dialogue-wise I think there perhaps could have been a way to say Richonne can do anything without saying it as on-the-nose, I don’t mind hearing it because it’s an utterly true statement. And I do like hearing this belief in Richonne’s abilities together even if it had to come from the most trifling of mouths.

gif cred: @likeafantasy

I so badly wanted Rick to see that Jadis saying this is her basically admitting she’s scared of him and his wife together. But Rick is understandably scared that any of his next moves could get the woman he loves most harmed and so this moment with Jadis instead effectively deflates his hope of escaping with Michonne. Now Rick is determined simply to get Michonne out of here alive. 

Rick watches the door as Jadis exits and you can see in his face that there’s so much running through his mind. As much as he wants to believe that he and Michonne can do anything he’s also not willing to risk losing Michonne in the process of trying to escape together.

So by the end of this teaser - TOWL's lengthiest teaser, I believe - we know that this whole get-home thing just got a lot messier and a lot harder.

Going home is still the mission but thanks to the evil snake that is Jadis, the “together” part of “going home together” has now changed.

gif cred: @likeafantasy

I called this post The Broken Bliss because Rick felt more hopeful than ever that this would be the time he finally broke out since now his wife is here, but then Jadis shattered the bliss he was trying to follow. 😞 And now when Rick thinks about his wife being here it strictly overwhelms him with fear. 

So with this teaser, we saw a very pivotal development for Rick, and next it was time for us to check in on Michonne. And now, y'all know Michonne has always been a true source of peace for Rick...but that Ms. Dana Bethune on the other hand - she's about to have this man stressing. 😅👌🏽

[do-androids-dream-ao3acc]

2024 creativity recap

I've seen a couple of people do things like this, and I'd love to join in and also tag all of my mutuals (of which I'll only name some because you know me, I love you but I forget your names): tell us of your fics, gifsets and whatnots in 2024! So, here's my recap:

I published 147,786 words in 26 works on AO3; 2,680 words on Tumblr only, and I think I deleted one or two works. 21 of the 26 are BuckTommy – the s7 kiss broke my writer's block :)

In chronological order:

3 Times Buck's Date With Tommy Went Awry – And The One Time It Didn't  // Fluff, Crack Desert Dreams // Hurt/Comfort (Tommy) Set It Off Tonight, Baby, Just Like Fire And Gasoline // Fluff, Smut And How My Heart Sang True That Day // Character Study (Buck) I'll Be Your Hero  // Fluff, Shovel Talk Watch Me Burn // Fluff, Smut In The Dark // Angst, Hurt/Comfort Lass uns n Wunder sein (Let's Be a Miracle) // First Time, Ficlet Whisper Your Desires, And I'll Teach You How To Feel // Smut Has Anybody Noticed That The Sky Is Falling? // Hurt/Comfort (Buck has Anosmia in this one) Am Tag als Conny Kramer starb (The Day Conny Kramer Died) // Crack, Murder Mystery Come and Let the Storm Bring Us to Life // Smut, Helicopter Sex I Am The Broken, I Am The Wound // Emotional Hurt/Comfort (Tommy) Wann? (When?) // Fluff All the Pain // Angst, Hurt/Comfort Simply the Best, Reprise (Simply the Beast) // Smut "We're doomed." // Season opening disaster Remember Everything // Hurt/Comfort (Tommy) It Hurts to Feel, to Think, to Know I May Be Nothing // Fix-it Starts With a Spark, Then It's a Wildfire // Angst, Hurt/Comfort Love Can Only Heal [BuckTommy Tumblr Prompts] // 15 individual fics and ficlets I also did 2 fics for 911 Lone Star: My Melancholy Angel // Addiction, Sex (TK/Buck) Scars That I'm Hiding // Carlos's Murder Mystery AU Also, I did 3 Witcher fics: Lass es Liebe sein (Let It Be Love) // Fluff, Humor (Emhyr/Geralt) At Night // Smut (Emhyr/Impera) Center of the Universe // Smut (Emhyr/Impera)

From the Tumblr-only-fics, 4 are also BuckTommy: Before The Ashes Hit The Ground // Episode speculations BuckTommy Drabbles // 100 word mini fics Blue Hoodie Lightsabers And I filled 2 whump meme prompts:

"Stop crying and listen to me" with Omega (The Bad Batch) "That's not supposed to bend like that" with Gale/Astarion (Baldur's Gate 3)

I also did this very stupid video edit:

What a year, huh? It definitely was the BuckTommy year!

Tagging everybody to show off their creations, naming only a few, meaning everybody who wants to! @nine-one-wanton, @sunnywithachanceofbi, @cull3nblaze, @judymarch15, @typicalopposite, @cappuccinoandglitter