#jughead's the narrator but tabitha is the author of riverdale | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

raymondebidochonlifechoices · 2 years

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I posted 2,560 times in 2022

148 posts created (6%)

2,412 posts reblogged (94%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@stillhidden

@sullypants

@lucivar

@edgarsabandonedrocketship

@lurker-no-more

I tagged 2,421 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#riverdale season 6 spoilers - 485 posts

#bughead fanfiction - 182 posts

#riverdale - 150 posts

#asdfghjkl - 147 posts

#riverdale season 6 - 140 posts

#😂😂😂 - 133 posts

#bughead fanart - 106 posts

#bughead - 103 posts

#art - 95 posts

#decyFanarts - 84 posts

Longest Tag: 109 characters

#and now jughead has hearing loss and that's not really a great time to try and slide your way into a throuple

My Top Posts in 2022:

No but hear me out ...

S6a!Vale!Jughead was able to know about the parallel universes thanks to comics. What if these comics have been (are being) written by S6b!Dale!Jughead?

I’m not saying this is what is going to happen but what a nice little loop would that be!

Vale!Jughead helps Dale!Jughead & co escape Hiram’s bomb and Dale!Jughead helps Vale!Jughead & co discover the truth and save their world.

82 notes - Posted April 7, 2022

My emotions! My emotions!

6x14

1x10

See the full post

82 notes - Posted May 16, 2022

To summarise:

“A new age of wonderment is upon us.”

Cheryl Blossom, 2021(possibly)

6x06 is called Unbelievable. For once, the title is apt.

It’s all about superpowers in the Dale. But don’t be fooled: it’s not an au. Even Jughead couldn’t be bothered to narrate this one.

Other people’s bombs merely explode. Hiram’s also gives you superpowers. A true legend.

All the characters of the show (core and secondary) are informed about the bomb in separate scenes because this episode is 42 min long and has no discernible plot.

Archie’s superpower is becoming dens(er than usual). We’ve been knew.

Betty’s super power is adding visual effects to her already established knack of sensing danger/serial killers.

Jughead’s superpower is suffering. He’s an author after all, and the only artist worth his salt, is the tortured one.

You know you’re down on your luck when your girlfriend didn’t pay her business insurance to take care of her employees but you had already quit working at Pop’s, so now you don’t have health insurance.

Tabitha’s super power is not being given her own plot line. She was, however, briefly shown without her Pop’s uniform, so points for that at least.

Ironically, Bingo’s superpower is getting a plot line. More trauma for Bingo-of-the-illegal-dog-fighting-ring.

“What is happening to us, Betty?”, asks Archie. “What is happening to me?” he soon after corrects. To the woman with the two cracked ribs spending the night in the hospital for observation. So thoughtful, that Archie lad.

Only Cheryl can string together the phrases “scholarly research” and “for realsies”. And because she can, she does.

She persists that she put Abigail’s curse on her “school chums” *insert eyeroll* although it is clear from the curse’s wording that it pertained to all descendants of Jedediah & co. That is so season 5 though: in season 6 Nana Rose burnt the og curse, so now the wording is open to interpretation.

Kevin takes his remaining kidney to Broadway: part deux. Kevin is flabbergasted by Tangs getting together, probably because this means even less screen time for him.

He later decides to postpone his musical career to play Mrs Doubtfire to baby Anthony. He will guard the baby with his life, says the man who 2 episodes ago was not ready to have a baby at all. Kevin’s superpower is flightiness.

Betty and Veronica talk. It’s not about Archie but it’s about Hiram, so they still don’t pass the Bechdel test.

The FBI is making Hiram’s capture an immediate priority, says Betty i.e. the FBI agent who let Hiram walk away in the previous episode in spite of having condemning evidence of him committing a murder.

Betty acts as if she’s in charge of Riverdale’s F.B.I. office. Having read Glen’s dissertation on the “Varying displays of the serial killer gene in the Cooper family tree”, the rest of the agents decide to play along.

Veronica’s casino must be doing really well in the newly reinstated town of Riverdale. Babylonium opened its doors the previous(?) week and Veronica already has 2 million dollars, that she invests in paying an assassin to off her father. That she let walk away in the previous episode in spite of having condemning evidence of him committing a murder.

Veronica also has a little neon sign spelling “casino” over the wall at her office at the casino. So as not to forget she is at the casino, one presumes?

FP II and FP III might have been Serpent Kings but the real heart of the gangs were the women: Penny, Gladys and, now, Twyla Twist. Did Toni get pregnant solely to join the Milf Club of Southside Gang Wars?

Hospital orderly Trevor Collins, who has been moving around the country, has done time at Shawshank. There IS really only one prison in Riverdale! (well, technically two: there’s Hiram’s prison too – unless they merged behind the scenes?)

Archie takes justice in his own hands, vol. 6.347.289.273. He intervenes at a gang war and makes things worse for the Serpents: A Fresh Story.

When Britta is not playing football, she becomes a whole different person. No, really. She’s now Abigail.

Nana Rose’s superpower is getting up from her wheelchair. You can’t do a banishment sitting down. It lacks gravitas.

Cheryl’s superpower is being possessed.

Percival Pickens, exuding really strong Patrick Bateman vibes and rocking a similar haircut and wardrobe, wants to buy Archie’s blown-up house. He’s offering good money, which is highly suspicious.

See the full post

86 notes - Posted March 23, 2022

Things in Yellowjackets that don’t make sense

-Natalie’s roots not showing after all that time in the wilderness

-no wound getting an infection ever (Van, I’m looking especially at you)

-Van miraculously growing facial muscles (the before and after the wolf attack are just ... no)

-everyone’s clothes being absolutely clean (what are they washing them with besides water? ash? that 10lt bottle of hair shampoo they packed for nationals?)

-their clothes being ironed! (where are the wrinkles?! WHERE?!)

-their clothes fitting them perfectly even after what is several months of malnutrition

-the football team’s notion of having fun in the wilderness never involving a game of football

92 notes - Posted January 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

To summarise:

FBI agent Betty Cooper takes one day off and shit hits the fan.

Jughead publishes an anonymous article that exposes all of Riverdale’s problems. Archie, who, as a teenager, had never bothered to read Jughead’s own articles for the Blue and Gold (likewise exposing all of Riverdale’s problems), is furious.

In fact, the whole town is abuzz because of this article. Published by Jughead. In the school newspaper. Which is now the town’s official source of information.

Never underestimate the power of high school journalism.

Having failed his SAT, Archie does not know what backstabbing means. This doesn’t stop him from trying to use the word in a sentence.

With Archie so engrossed in saving Riverdale, there’s been no time for Bulldogs practice. At least Cheryl let Britta do some workout in the mines. To pass the time, Britta decides to walk the dreamscape to communicate with Cheryl, who is imprisoned there.

Cheryl is trapped in her worst nightmare i.e. with her mother. Jason is also present. Unlike Trevor Stines, Barcley Hope must have been unavailable, so no daddy Clifford in this dreamscape. Hang it!

During the first of many town meetings (#adultstories), Percival Pickens reveals he’s the writer of the article. He’s mostly concerned about the homeless people of Riverdale, whom he proposes to move out of town. Archie disagrees. “Riverdale takes care of their own” says the man who didn’t seem to think the homeless were an actual problem before Pickens pointed that out.

Jughead Jones, who -as a junior- lived most of the year in the cupboard under the stairs in a janitor’s closet, believes an eight-feet-wide one-room wooden cabin with no heating is an acceptable solution to homelessness. Precious blorbo, no.

Archie Andrews, who never had to go without his two-story Northside house, agrees. In order to demonstrate that he now does know the meaning of the word backstabbing, Archie passes his friend’s idea off as his own.

What the “good liberal” people of Riverdale really want, says Pickens, is for the poor, destitute and smelly to go away, without compromising their own comfort. I’m a little bit perplexed, because last time we saw the Dale, it seemed that everyone *cough!Polly!cough!* was a bit poor, destitute and smelly. #GhouliesHeadquartersOnElmStreet

Archie calling the diner owner who couldn’t pay her business insurance (Tabitha) and the gang bar owner (Toni) “two of the most prominent business owners in Riverdale” kind of further proves this point but whatever!

Archie, who hasn’t worked in construction for quite some time, comes up with a design that doesn’t meet half of the Residential Occupancy Basic Standards. The four council members, who also don’t meet half of the requirements for becoming a city council member, naturally approve of his idea.

We should cut him some slack though: Archie has changed so many professions. He can’t be really expected to remember what he did before the time jump. Not even the writers remember what happened before the time jump.

Case in point: Abigail Blossom, resident of Riverdale in the 1890s (s5 canon) retreats to her bedroom to acquaint herself with the role Pickens played in the shaping of Riverdale i.e killing the Uktena on her family’s money and founding the town she had been living in (s2 canon), which was also founded in 1942 (s1 canon). It’s time for a new origin story, I guess.

Veggie, who have assumed that their casino business would be as crooked as the streets of Riverdale, decide to operate legally. This lasts for all of 10 mins before they realise they cannot turn any profit that way. Instead of finding another business venture, Veronica decides to embrace the legacy of daddykins, which (legacy) -by the way- was the reason she ordered his assassination on the previous episode.

A man is found hanged in Babylonium. Reggie still doesn’t know how to dispose of a body, so Veronica calls Heraldo.

Kevin greets Doc and gets bashed in the head, since his quota of lines for the episode has been met.

In spite of having his brains bashed, Kevin is rapidly recovering, which only proves that he had no brains to begin with.

Guest star Bingo makes another appearance.

Outside Pop’s someone has graffitied the new micro-house. Archie is incensed. Instead of repainting the walls, he punches his truck. He leaves his uncle, the friend who came up with the og idea and his two investors to do the rest of the work.

Pickens has the superpower of persuasion or maybe it’s the power of superpersuasion. Instead of making his main adversaries (town council/core four) capitulate to his demands, and be done with it, he prefers to manipulate everybody else. Got to fill those episodes!

He has convinced the homeless of Sketch Alley to move elsewhere. He invites Archie, uncle Frank, Jughead, Tabitha and Toni to go see for themselves. Our heroes do so but only after the sun has set, for aesthetic reasons.

If Pickens had done this from the beginning, we would have been spared this episode. Alas, it was not meant to be …

It’s the third town meeting this week in the town-that-used-to-hold-no-town-meetings and people are probably beginning to lose patience with Archie. Unlike him, they do have real jobs to tend to. They decide to side with Pickens.

The Lodge name is synonymous with crime and corruption says Alice Smith-Cooper, wife of serial killer Hal Cooper, mother of serial killer Charles Smith and mother-in-law of just killer Chick Smith.

Betty gets back from Maine, where she lost TBK. She reveals that she still sees auras but the light gives her severe headaches. Archie reveals that Jughead can read thoughts. I’m still astounded by the fact that Archie had any thoughts to begin with.

Toffee is on a ladder in front of Archie’s house with a can of spray.

Toffee Wuz Here, M***** F***** !!!

92 notes - Posted April 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #so many tags ...#side-effects of too much referencing irl #asdfghjkl sounds right #it was the best of times #it was the worst of times #cheers!

16 notes · View notes

campgender · 1 year

Note

6, 10, 12, and 20 :-) i'm soooo curious for your rvd fic recs if you have any

6) Which musical episode is your favorite?

while i really love when they do something about a fucked-up town (17 at the end of the heathers ep was particularly poignant) i’ve gotta go with my bestie s7e14 Chapter One Hundred Thirty-One: Archie the Musical!! probably my favorite episode of s7 so far (although i wish tabitha was in it but that’s me about all of this season 😔) & it gave us archie going left archie going right + beronica cosmic destiny kiss + more layers of meta about being trapped in the narrative than you can shake a stick at which is what riverdale does best

10) Which episode is your favorite? Why?

s3e05 Chapter Forty the Great Escape!!!!! absolutely no contest she is everything to me. everyone is at their height: archie tragic hero, veronica confident shenanigans, jughead crazed narration, betty on a motorcycle the Suspense the THEMES i’m stimming just thinking about it

12) If you read fanfiction, recommend a fic you love.

i am always happy to receive more riverdale fic recs bc it is a heterosexual wasteland in the tags but here are my favs!

was that us or was that a movie? by HaHaHaHaWhat

meta commentary on the meta show, an absolutely delicious premise. i’ve reread the first chapter several times

Shall the water not remember by ForsythiaRising

been steadily making my way through this author’s catalog & they never miss! loved this perspective & ofc i adore TABITHA <333

loving is easy by ohmygodwhy

another staple author, they do really good slice of life

no one in the world by watchriverdale

quintessential s3 jarchie run away with me

20) What is your favorite quote?

oh god so many, but i’ll highlight this one from the end of 2x17: Well, as far as the lead role's concerned, cancel them. I'm obviously Riverdale High's Carrie White. And this school's gonna burn.

#ask meme #mothmanchronicler #mac watches riverdale

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riverdale-retread · 2 years

Text

Riverdale S6B Ep. #106 (“Angels in America”)

“Every town has that place that the community comes together” is how Jughead Jones opens the narration for this episode. A lot of what Jughead says about Pop’s over the years could sort of amount to a college application essay opener. He also calls it “Home away from Home.” Since he doesn’t qualify it with pablum about the community and so on, he’s really speaking for himself, with this one. Home in place of home, more like, for him.

Pop Tate, Tabitha and Jughead, during what must be an exceptionally slow day at the diner, are watching Alice Cooper’s TV show - “Riverdale Today,” and today’s special guest is Percival Pickens. Alice Cooper giggles at him because he’s given her head (my headcanon, pun fully intended, ignore me, sorry).

Alice Cooper’s career cracks me up. How is she this untouchable? She has the most Teflon of reputations and careers. Granted, she has a valid-seeming, patiently-built up journalism career. She ran the Riverdale Register for a long time, transitioned successfully into tv journalism, and now she’s this major (small town) authority with her own talk show kinda like the Fox News desk anchors who walk the line between reading the news and proselytizing their own opinions. On the other hand, she was too dumb and self absorbed to realize that her husband was a (very underperforming) serial killer, that Gladys Jones’ daughter who lived with her at the time was the one making and leaving terrorizing VHS movies, not to mention that time she fully became inculcated into a cult despite the intensive efforts of Betty Cooper. Unobservant, dense, and of poor judgment, but full of ambition and delusional righteousness = TV journalists, according to Riverdale.

Percival announces that he’s going to build a railway ‘through the heart of Riverdale’ which puts Tabitha immediately on alert but Jughead doesn’t immediately catch on. “Progress demands” that Pop’s be replaced with a train station which will bring revenue and tourism and etc. This entire proposal was also very funny. In the indeterminate forever 2020 but not really time that Riverdale exists in, they have / had smartphones with apps which to me implies uber/lyfts and by long-distance association, eventually self-driving cars, but A TRAIN STATION is Percival’s idea of progress.

Tabitha moves fast. She literally runs over to Percival’s residence inside Babylonium (I assume?) with her black leather biker jacket thrown on over her cute Pop’s uniform, to declare her firm intention to never sell the diner. He’s very sneery about the diner (“past its heyday”) and his way of being smarmy, like continually calling Riverdale “our town,” is laid on very thick, so I admire Tabitha not getting sidetracked with irritation. He tries using “the voice” on her but she doesn’t even seem to feel it. First (and) un-PC thought - Does British mind-control intimidation only work on white people?

Tabitha’s tries to rally the troops, in a very curious order and in a way that shows what she thinks are that person’s biggest priorities. And their responses reveal something terribly unflattering about each of them.

The sequence is Archie → Betty → Toni → Veronica → Cheryl before giving up and talking to Jughead.

Tabitha thinks this is what the others care about the most.

- Archie: Family legacy & Important Riverdale landmarks (first black owned business in Riverdale).

- Betty: ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION and it’s not clear that Tabitha actually gets to say anything before Betty rudely interrupts to say what she says to Tabitha.

- Toni: The Whyte Wyrm.

- Veronica: No direct dialogue is heard but given context clues it appears that Tabitha went with an ‘entrepreneur -to- entrepreneur’ heart to heart approach with Veronica.

- Cheryl: Longstanding blood-feuds of a historic nature.

- Jughead: He loves the diner possibly a bit more than Tabitha herself does, so she can take his support for granted.

And this is what we learn about each “main” Riverdale person:

- Archie is not the heroic brave person that Jughead Jones keeps making him out to be. He’s cowering because he is not physically invulnerable anymore. Oh, and Archie is a terrible boxer. (Personally I’m starting to think they picked this activity for him because it’s one of the sports where the male torso is routinely revealed.) He’s willing to go punch the Ghoulies bloody when he has superpowers, but without them he is going to hide. Aren’t these the basic instincts of a bully??

- Betty projects all her issues on to other people. She can’t imagine that someone else doesn’t have a weakness she absolutely does. Tabitha was just now safely in a room with Percival, but Betty doesn’t actually care to ask about that. She just says no person should EVER be alone in a room with Pickens because Betty Cooper has no capacity to resist his mind control and she must perforce assume nobody else can withstand it either. Oh and whenever Betty is caught in a weakness she lies by omission, compulsively. Very consistent.

- Toni is a person of limited vision and not a leader. As long as her little business is fine, as assured to her by a person who successfully engineered a near massacre against her, she is not going to stand with Tabitha. This may appear to be inconsistent writing as the characters of Riverdale often don’t remember what happened in the previous episode any more than I do, but it isn’t. Toni is someone who will talk about her individual accomplishments and awesomeness when her identity as a Serpent is denigrated. She tends to miss the point, you see.

- Veronica says the right things (“I’ll support you in whatever way you need”) but in essence she’s a true daughter of capitalism. She has no time or room for sentiment. The Pop’s brand and formula works in more than one location, so Veronica doesn’t see how Tabitha’s business is threatened so much as the location that she’s sentimentally attached to. One can always make a venture newer, bigger, improved. Like a lot of us half-assed/ former Catholics, Veronica is uninterested in the spiritual side of things.

- Cheryl is without obvious flaws beyond going through uncontrollable hot flashes that force her to keep her home icy cold. Why Riverdale is making menopause jokes like this is beyond me, but I am actually having the best time. If my menopause is going to be anything like my mother’s, I will be uncontrollably melting down with no warning (yay?) so I am taking notes about how I’m going to wander around my house in a red bathing suit with a gauzy white robe, wielding a fan. I guess if I had to reach for it, Cheryl’s flaw is that she has such a hard time escaping her childhood home.

- Jughead’s flaw is that he’s loyal to Barchie beyond all reason, prioritizing their needs to have their weaknesses covered up above all other priorities. He will lie to Tabitha to protect Archie and Betty, even though they have not been shown to make a priority of Jughead whatsoever since they all returned to Riverdale.

By the way, Kevin is working for Percival as his spy and really, Kevin can catch no breaks on this show. Why is he like this?

Jughead slips up in his conversation with Tabitha, answering her thought (“how can I fight him if I don’t have anyone’s support?”) out loud. I suppose you could read the exchange they have - she says she doesn’t have anyone’s support and Jughead insisting that he supports her - in a negative way towards their relationship: Why doesn’t Jughead count as anyone? Or you can read it in a way that condemns Archie & Betty, Toni & Veronica for the way they treat Jughead as being so very unimportant. That is to say, the people who have known Jughead the longest and deepest that Tabitha knows about treat him so poorly that she has no recourse but to assume Jughead Jones is not (ahem) an influencer.

Once Jughead has explained the recent developments that have happened to the survivors of the explosion plus Cheryl, Tabitha summarizes for those of us in the back, and to her left on the wall is an interesting painting of a black woman shedding a single tear into her palm. Is this a well known painting? I laughed because it just looked to me like a comment that went something like: Oh These White People.

By the way: IS JUGHEAD STILL DEAF? Or did his deafness just ‘go away’ like some alleged doctor allegedly told him a couple episodes back?

In any case, Jughead wants to try to get a place he loves declared a historic landmark, and hence untouchable, recalling that he had been unable to do this with the Drive-In back in the day. And it turns out that Pop Tate has a box filled with historic memorabilia about the diner!

Oh Jabitha are so cute, doing a little research project together, going from afternoon to evening. Pop’s was in the Green Book! The box contains a photo of Eisenhower at the counter (I guess if Nixon or Reagan ate there, it would be a no no?) as well as the diner being transformed into a polio vaccine distribution center. Jughead is so excited to realize that the place he loves for personal reasons (granted, important ones - he may have literally starved to death without Pop’s) is also historically significant. He’s composing the application he’s going to draft out loud (“Moral crises, national tragedies, they all took place inside these booths!”) when some blank faced white man comes in and shoots Tabitha.

Tabitha comes to on X-mas Eve, 1944, standing in the same place (behind the counter at Pop’s) wearing almost the same uniform but with very different hair, and someone calls her Teresa. She’s shown the same issue of the Green Book she and Jughead found in the ‘historic items’ box, except it’s fresh off the press this time.

When she sees Jughead in a booth, Tabitha runs over to ask him what is going on. And Jughead explains, then says:

“Also, I’m not Jughead. I’m an angel. Your guardian angel.”

Turns out, Tabitha is in a coma at the hospital, with Jughead at her side. According to Raphael-as-Jughead, guardian angels are always nearby but only show themselves for cataclysmic or cosmic events. He gives her a book that might explain things - Milan Elliott’s “The Enigma of Time Travel” (quick google reveals an actual book exists called The Enigma of Time, published in 1983). Through it, Tabitha figures out that she’s a ‘chrono kinetic’ - a time traveler. She speculates that this ability may be trauma-triggered like her boyfriend’s and the other’s special powers.

“Why to 1944?” she asks, which made me blurt out, very rudely, ‘Cuz you’re not white? I mean, if I had time travel abilities, I’m not sure I’d go to any time before 1980 for various reasons.

Raphael thinks she has a mission, but Tabitha is really only interested in finding a totem (an item of “symbolic, mythic or religious power”) so she can return to her immediate present. Raphael seems to get the upper hand because Titus invites Tabitha to a very important meeting, about whether to turn Riverdale into a “Sundown Town.’

A Keller ancestor is Mayor, with a very strange way of doing air-quotes: palm to the ceiling, fingers curling towards his face. Is this historical accuracy? Tabitha is alarmed to discover that a Perkins is Sheriff, who very much wants this Sundown Town ordinance. Artie (not Archie!) Andrews stands up as the lone white voice against this discrimination right on the heels of Tabitha’s fearless objection and confronts Sheriff Perkins. Thanks to their efforts, the attempt to railroad (ahem) this ordinance does not pass and will be reconsidered in the new year.

In the middle of Tabitha talking over the events of the evening with Angel Jughead, Toni and Fang’s 1944 versions come banging at the door for help, their car having run out of gas just as they are passing through Centerville, a Sundown town. I need to do more research about this because I just don’t know a lot about it - but would a POC family with a little baby actually run out of gas traveling through an area they know are Sundown Towns without vigilantly checking the gas nonstop? This seems more like, We got hunted down by white supremacists. So if that’s what happened, why would Fangs & Toni tell their story in this way to Tabitha of all people? In any case, ‘44 Toni begs refuge from Tabitha-Teresa. She says of course they can stay.

Sheriff Perkins and Kevin Keller ‘44 (Oh heavens, baby, WHY?) as his deputy (once a deputy, always a deputy?) show up to arrest the ‘trespassers.’ When the Tates put up a brave and united front, Sheriff Perkins opts to get a warrant sent from Centerville. Any plan to go on a run for it is impossible with the baby. When Titus Tate says they need a miracle, Tabitha gets a great brainwave and gets Angel Jughead to agree to show his true form to the villains, which causes both eye-rupture and brain-breakage while a heavenly chorus sings Amen Amen.

Then we never see Angel Jughead for the rest of the episode, which means that the ‘revelation’ of the true form of Raphael results in the total destruction (through immolation?) of the Jughead body. So, basically, Jughead even in an embodied angel form dies to fulfill someone else’s needs once again?

Tabitha then summons Artie Andrews to go with her, to make the impassioned case to Mayor Keller that he should reject the Sundown Law, because it would “cost Riverdale its soul.” And miraculously (this is the real miracle), this works!

Percival Pickens will not give up though, so just as Tabitha is trying to wrap up this story with Titus he bursts in, having escaped from the insane asylum (complete with frayed strait-jacket) to shoot her himself, this time making her push herself into April 3, 1968. She tries to stop MLK’s assassination, starting with directly going to Memphis herself. (So sorry to be shallow about this but her 1960s coat with the big black buttons is gorgeous and I love it). The bus breaks down just outside the city limits.

In the form of Toni, Angel Raphael tries to talk her out of it. Tabitha runs to the FBI office (her knowledge of exact dates and memory for stray bits of information astounds me) but it’s manned by a Percival and a Kevin Keller, so she leaves immediately. MLK’s assassination is a fixed event that can never, ever be changed, by any time traveler trying anything. Angel Toni says she will keep Tabitha company as she waits for the terrible news. They hear RFK make the announcement, making Pop Tate collapse. (I love young Pop Tate.) They decide to keep the diner open to give people a place to go.

FBI Perkins and FBI Kevin show up to tell her to clear out the diner at 6 p.m. because of riots in the three nearby towns. So there are actual Black Panther looking people in the Diner, which makes me wonder if the one guy in just the black jacket is supposed to be a Southside Serpent of this era? (I really want better lore for the Southside Serpents, who are implied to have had a long history). Tabitha calls - and reaches! - J Edgar Hoover to threaten him with blackmail, and uses the force of all this to muzzle FBI Percival. Operation Turkey Shoot was canceled in addition to firing FBI Percival for good measure.

They play Mahalia Jackson over the segment where Tabitha grieves MLK. That asshole FBI Percival does a very scary drive by because he just can’t let it go. In fact, he planted a BOMB. Tabitha takes it outside and lets it blow her into the future.

November 1999 is the new time. A white kid was caught spray painting hate symbols on the diner. He did it for a baseball card depicting Riverdale’s only major league player. The kid got it at the new shop that opened on the outskirts of town, owned by one Paul Prince, who is Percival, of course. She goes to the “Curious Items” shop, where she’s visited by Raphael Betty. Raphael Betty is the most activist and criminal minded (Go Betty!) so she just hands Tabitha the key to break into Percival’s shop.

Tabitha relying on intuition and an apparently vast knowledge of history, takes polaroids of items that look significant to her. Back at the diner, Angel Betty tells her that one of these things is the Spear of Longinus, “said to have pierced the side of Jesus at his crucifixion.” Oh and Percival also has the Holy Grail. Just, casually, he just does. So naturally Angel Betty tells Tabitha to go get the Holy Grail.

What follows is a really AMAZING segment that I wish was both longer and brighter lit. Percival creepily dresses up in one of his items for sale, an old military uniform (blue coats are Union, though, right?) to assault Tabitha with a saber. Tabitha engages in a sword fight (using the Spear of Longinus) with the (a??) devil, which doesn’t faze her one bit, handily winning based on college Varsity fencing skills. Percival just poofs out of existence. Later, Tabitha tells Angel Betty that she then burned the whole shop down, because she shares this arsonist tendency with Jughead.

OK so this is awesome, like I said, that Tabitha gets to win this fight against Evil / Darkness Incarnate. But now I’m wondering if this is really Riverdale. This seems so like the kind of twisted Valentine that Jughead would write for his girlfriend, don’t you think? The Holy Grail may be her talisman so she drinks a milkshake from it, hoping to get back to her real timeline.

Except with all the knowledge she now has! So Tabitha alters her future by chucking the giant can of tomato soup at the would-be assailant with deadly accuracy, knocking him out cold in front of the big yellow Dead End sign affixed to the counter.

Tabitha then gives Jughead an exposition dump, saying they need to gather everyone with powers to fight against Percival Pickens, who is continually obsessed with destroying Riverdale in a very Hiram-Lodge fashion in every major era. Jughead wants to know why he didn’t get an angel, which I thought was very cute of him. (Your angel, if you got one, would probably tell you that you have to die, Jughead.).

When the Riverdale Powers Gang has assembled, Tabitha announces that she has seen the future. Riverdale is currently destined to be decimated, and ground zero is Pop’s Chocklit Shoppe, which is also her talisman through time (not the Holy Grail). So wow Riverdale the Show has some ego - the 24 hr diner > The Holy Grail. All righty! The railroad is still being pushed forward, and Tabitha gets the final close up of determination.

#riverdale #riverdale episode 6.11 #riverdale episode 106 #tabitha tate #jughead jones #pop's chocklit shoppe #riverdale opinion #Riverdale s6 #riverdale recap #riverdale episode recap

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alaffy · 3 years

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Riverdale 5x14 - Midnight Gallery (Spoilers)

During one of his interviews, Roberto said that this season is about trauma and tonight they really doubled down on it. Three horrific stories: Archie; Betty; and Jughead. I think that the reason why Veronica was left out of this is because, while she also has experienced trauma, her’s was a story that was more easily explained. Also, they probably didn’t want to deal with faking a helicopter crash.

Spoilers

Archie’s story starts with him actually getting some help (maybe). Also, Archie is contacted by Cheryl to start digging up the Palladium under her property (because it’s not like mining takes any sort of professional crew or anything). The thing is Archie is starting to see dead people and while that may seem like a joke, it’s not. Turns out Bingo isn’t the only man Archie lost and his mind is no loner suppressing that information. So, look, clearly Archie is not ok and clearly being in this mine is setting off some of his issues (something Frank seemed to realize). Archie asks his therapist for medication, but it seems to make things worse. And Archie barges into her office, claiming she’s working for Hiram. She denies knowing who that is (which is hard to believe) and Archie is told to leave. Archie stops taking the medication and tells Jackson to also stop seeing the therapist. However, a few days later, all of the miners start acting crazy and they realize that the tunnel is filling with carbon monoxide (why you need professionals). Archie goes back to the therapist and explains about the carbon monoxide and the fact he’s seeing more dead officers. She says she’s afraid to be alone with him and thinks he’s not safe around anyone. Honestly, I don’t know if I trust this therapist. Is she military? And does she work at that base that Hiram is also working with?

Also, I think Cheryl might be becoming a villain.

Betty is seen at the beginning of her story talking to Tabitha. Tabitha is trying to get Betty to turn the trucker over to the authorities. Betty refuses, but also tells Tabitha that Tabitha should no longer be involved. So, Betty tries to get the trucker to talk and it’s obvious he’s a murder, but other then that she’s getting nothing from him. Except one PTSD flashback to being in the hole. She even tries to humanize the victims, by having Alice talk to the killer about Polly (Betty may be good at finding killers, not so great with interrogations). Of course that fails and the trucker says horrible things about Polly’s death, which sets Alice off. Later, Betty tells her mom that she’s going to try something else, but Alice is just like, nah, kill him. And on the one hand, I can understand a grieving mother wanting the man she believes to have killed her daughter dead, on the other hand…is she trying to loose all her children? I mean, why tell Betty to kill him? Anyway, Betty goes back and threatens to torcher him with a chainsaw. And she goes into this very creepy explanation of what she plans to do to him. At this point, he gives very specific information about Polly and then pretends he doesn’t know anything about her. Betty goes to get the chainsaw. Here’s the thing, as she gets the chainsaw, she flashes back to being in the hole. And the thing she told the trucker? Apparently, she was quoting TBK. That’s what TBK told her as she was begging him to kill her. Somebody who cares about Betty needs to find out about her capture! Anyway, she returns to the trucker with the chainsaw and finds him dead. He had bitten through and swallowed his tongue. Now, was Betty really going to kill him? Eh, they leave it pretty ambiguous. You’re supposed to question. Although, when Alice made it clear she was glad the trucker was dead, Betty says that she’s fine with it, but it’s obvious she’s not. But one thing is clear now, from what the trucker said, there isn’t just one killer.

And then we have Jughead’s story. Think Hunter S. Thompson. The fact is, Jughead’s story is well, it shows the story of the human condition. And it is tragic, but…look, people want to make Jughead’s story all about Betty. She’s a part of it, but she’s not the reason. In fact, it turns out they were on, what seems to be, good speaking terms. The reality is, Jughead had a hard time transitioning from his life from Riverdale out into the real world. He went to Iowa, but he didn’t make any friends and he started drinking. Then, he sent part of his book off and got himself an agent. The first thing he does is call Betty. Betty makes a comment about hoping his Iowa friends take him out that night and…he lies and tells her they will. However, what happens is Jughead leaves school and moves to New York. At some point he meets Jessica, who becomes his girlfriend. But it sounds like, I don’t know how to say it, his interest in Jessica was more about what she could get him. Like she had access to the drugs that helped him do his writing and that’s why they became a couple. Anyway, what is made clear is that while he was with Jessica, he was also in contact with Betty (and it is heavily implied that he was contacting Betty behind Jessica’s back). It should be said if your significant other is contacting his ex behind your back, they aren’t your significant other. Meanwhile, it sounds like when he talks to Betty he’s telling her his life if great, when it’s not. So, it is easy to see that maybe Betty thinks he’s moving on in his life, when in fact he’s not. Also, what is interesting is that there are two flashbacks to Betty in this. However, this is in Jughead’s narration. So, are those scenes actual flashback or what he thinks Betty’s life is like at the time? I guess will find out. Anyway, it turns out that he does invite her to the book launch and she says she’ll go. However, she cancels at the last minute (at the moment we don’t know why). Jughead, drunk and on the way to his party, calls her and leaves the message. And why did he leave that message? Because the reality is, he knows deep down inside that (if Betty were at the party), she would be the only one there who actually cared. And the fact she couldn't make it, sets him off. So, does Betty deserve the message? No. The fact is, Jughead is upset with the way his life has turned out and is taking it out on her. And there was no way for her to have known how important it was for her to be there, because she was under the impression that things where going good for Jughead. Anyway, right after the call he falls into a hole and is trapped for underground for a few days with rats crawling all over him. During those days, Jughead learns during his trip to New York, he had a bunch of hallucinations (also he got rabies) of a Rat King who wanted him to stay in the tunnels. However, Jughead is rescued by a hallucination of Betty, who gets him out of the tunnels. But learning what happened to him in New York has made him realize how alone he is in his life and he wants to get better. Again, quick warning, not interested in fighting about ships, just discussing the show. Look, the fact that it’s Betty “saving” him, the fact that she’s the first person he calls about the book…he’s not over her. Does that mean they’ll get back together? Well, at the moment, Betty thinks he doesn’t want her in his life and she’s got her own issues. So, that may be where they're heading, maybe not. After all, seven years have passed. But we'll see. At the very least, it looks like Jughead is starting to work through his problems.

Quick edit: One other thing I forgot to mention, I like the fact this it is Jughead himself that decided to get help. So many stories have the trope that if the emo boy just falls for the right girl...nope. Sorry. People can help you get better, but only you can choose to get help.

#Riverdale #riverdale spoilers #Archie Andrews #Jughead Jones #Betty Cooper #cheryl blossom #Bughead

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arsenicpanda · 3 years

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Hey! You seem to ship fairly similar Riverdale pairings to me, so do you have any fanfic ideas? Unfortunately, I have writers block and I don't have access to any maple mushrooms to get through this one.

So, I do have a few that don't fall under "I actually want to write this myself", you are correct, and I am a wordy bitch, so let's put this under a cut

-Jabitha + Jughead and Veronica friendship post-college au: so, we diverge from canon in 5x03. Betty still leaves Riverdale, but Veronica stays, and she and Jughead slowly bond over film, pretentious references, criminal fathers, and the whole getting cheated on thing. Maybe throw in Reggie and the other Serpents too if you want to. When Jughead becomes homeless (again), Veronica eventually notices and invites him to stay with her, and it's awkward at first, but then they get used to it. They develop a brother-sister bond. So, then when they go off to college, they keep in touch and stay friends. Their friendship keeps Jughead from being supes lonely at college, which means he stays and learns how to actually fucking write, so his book is actually good and not just successful, and also he doesn't take up drinking and drugs. And their friendship also keeps Veronica from dating assholes like Chad, so she never even gets close to that terrible marriage. But after they graduate, Jughead moves to NYC and they live together and she becomes the she-wolf of Wall Street and he becomes a successful author (genre undetermined) and maybe also journalist (look, I am just too fond of this headcanon, and most authors need second jobs anyway), and neither of them pine over their exes. Veronica can settle down with Reggie, Josie, Katy Keene, or someone else or no one else, but she is successful and happy. Also, Tabitha goes to school in NYC, settles down there, works a six-figure job for a while, and then opens a Pop's franchise. Now, it can go two ways from here:

Veronica and Tabitha become friends in college. Veronica keeps trying to set Jughead and Tabitha up with different people she knows to no success (she keeps trying to set both of them up with intimidating women (partial success and bi Tabitha 4 life) and himbos (zero success, they both prefer smart people, and also bi Jughead 4 life), until one day she's complaining about it to Katy Keene or Reggie or Josie or someone and the other person is like "V, why don't you just set them up with each other?" And she's like "ohhhhh" and she does, and they either hit it off pretty quickly or Tabitha is like "wait, are you the guy who mooched off my grandpa for years??" And he's like "pardon??" And she dislikes him until he proves himself/Veronica explains the situation (Jughead was neglected and poor and Pop helped him out). But then they get along and swap stories about Pop and fall into some weird investigation and fall in love, and Veronica is like "Victory is mine!"

Tabitha starts franchising Pop's in NYC, and when Jughead finds out he's like "sus, very sus" and goes there and eats and is like ".....this is actually pretty spot-on". And he becomes a regular (who actually orders food and pays because he can now), and Tabitha is supervising the diner for a time, and they start to chat on late nights when he's the only customer left but the diner isn't scheduled to close for another two hours, so Tabitha could use the company. Jughead doesn't realize she's Pop's granddaughter, and Tabitha doesn't realize he's her grandpa's favorite customer (and known moocher, in her opinion), and when they find out, they're both very shocked. They clear up the moocher thing and keep falling in love, and it's beautiful, and Veronica spends some her spare time prying into Jughead's newest late-night haunt and then teasing him about his crush on the owner and later "of course you fell for Pop's granddaughter, of course".

-Jabitha or bugabitha: Jughead cooks his tired (future?) girlfriend(s) dinner because yes, he does know how to cook because he loves food, so obviously he learned how to cook, and also he notices how much his girlfriend(s) work and wants to take care of them.

-Jabitha: Tabitha teaching Jughead how to cook some of Pop's recipes one late, slow night, and yes, they kiss at the end and/or when he makes her something on another late, slow night or slow afternoon or one morning when he opens and she shows up later

-Bugabitha: Tabitha needs help with a mystery/situation and goes to Betty and Jughead's PI agency to hire them (whether Betty and Jughead are together is up for grabs), and they are both charmed as fuck by her, and Tabitha tags along on the investigation for idk reasons, and they all fall in love and also solve a mystery

-Jabitha: smut/pwp of Jughead eating Tabitha out in Pop's while they're both still in uniform

-Jabith or Bugabith: like three students trip and fall into being way too invested in their teacher's/teachers' love life/lives and become convinced that something is going on between Jughead and Tabitha (and maybe also Betty) and start snooping while also documenting it on a popular "my English teacher is dating his other boss (and also my shop teacher)" or "my English teacher is two-timing his boss with my shop teacher" TikTok series that Jughead and Tabitha (and Betty) don't know about it until it goes viral after the kids finally get proof they're together / find out that it's not that Jughead's cheating with Betty and/or Tabitha's cheating with Betty but that the three of them are dating (see: that one fanart I commissioned of the Elite meme). Told from the kids' pov, very comedy-heavy (more comedy than ship fluff, tbh), includes replies to the TikToks and other social media stuff. Still considering writing this myself, but I don't know if I'm funny enough, tbh

-Bugabitha: how they do or do not celebrate holidays and birthdays, especially if the holidays involving shuffling between/avoiding their families and Betty recounts the disaster that was Jughead's birthday in 1x10, right down to (lovingly) roasting him for the "I'm weird, I'm a weirdo" speech (she will be kind by including how sweet he was in the diner, of course)

-Bugabitha: Alice finally finds out that Betty, Jughead, and Tabitha are all dating when Betty moves out of the Cooper house and into an apartment with Jughead and Tabitha. It includes something like the following exchange, Alice's last-ditch effort to convince Betty not to do this:

"Elizabeth, you cannot think that moving in with your ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend is wise."

"Mom, I'm not moving in with my ex and his girlfriend, I'm moving in with my boyfriend and my girlfriend, and you're making me late for lunch with them, bye." And then Betty leaves before Alice can respond

And then it's very important that Alice freaks out. If you want, you can also include FP and Gladys finding out (v chill) and Pop finding out (the most wholesome and supportive)

-Jabitha: Pop playing matchmaker with Jughead and Tabitha at any age, could be in an au where Tabitha comes to visit Pop every summer and Jughead kinda falls for her from afar as a teen, could be Jughead gets a job post-senior year at Pop’s during the summer when Tabitha is working there that summer, could be during the canon s5 or an au s5, could be any time, idk

- Jabitha, bughead, or bugabitha: Jughead's editor says that his novel needs a sex scene for whatever reason, idk, idc, but his POV character/narrator is a woman, and he's like "how do I write this without finding myself on one of those lists of 'men who can't write women?'" and bemoans this one day, and, idk, somehow his friend(s) Tabitha and/or Betty trip and fall into ~helping~ him by being very explicit and descriptive of how it feels while they bone

I think that’s it? Let’s say that’s it for now.

#asks #polaroid-fangirl13 #Riverdale #Riverdale season 5 #jabitha #bugabitha #fic ideas #fic ideas for sale #my thoughts on Riverdale let me show you them #I guess?

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joneswuzhere · 3 years

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hello join me in thinking about some books and authors that are, or might be, part of s5′s intertextuality

5.10 in particular offered specific shout outs, and also u know i’m always wondering what might be ahead so i have some ideas on that:

- first, as mentioned in a previous ask post, i know i wasn’t alone in keeping an eye out for 5.10 parallels to the lost weekend (1945) the film that gave episode 1.10 its name and several themes - or to the 1944 book by charles r jackson which the film is based on

- s5 has not been shy about revisiting earlier seasons, especially s1. altho i feel that 1.10′s parallels to the lost weekend centered characters other than jughead (mostly betty), a 1.10-5.10 connection involving jughead and themes from jackson’s story (addiction, writers block, self reflection) seemed v possible if not inevitable

- but like,, , for a hot minute after the ep, i was really stumped on understanding how anything from the book or film could apply, even tho the pieces were almost all there

- jackson’s protagonist don birnam goes thru and comes out the other side of a harrowing days-long drinking binge that could be compared to jughead’s one-night hallucinogenic writing retreat

- but jughead is struggling primarily with traumatic memories, not addiction and self control like birnam. and tho drinking activates birnam’s creativity, it paralyzes his writing as he gets lost in fantasies; he’s never published anything. jughead’s drug trip recreates circumstances that already helped him write one successful book. even the rat that startles him mid-high doesn’t line up with birnam’s withdrawal vision of a dying mouse, symbolic of his horror at his own self-destruction thru alcohol

- and maybe the most visible discordance: in the film there’s a romantic motif around a typewriter. first it’s an object of shame; birnam’s failure to write, tied up with his drinking, makes him flee his relationship. he tries to pawn the typewriter for booze money and finally a gun when shooting himself feels easier than getting sober. but with the help of relentless encouragement from girlfriend helen, he quits drinking, commits to her, and focuses on typing out the story he’s dreamt of writing. rd goes so far to avoid setting any comparable scenario that jughead has brought a wholeass printer into the bunker so there can still be a physical manuscript to cover in blood by the end, even without his own typewriter. the subtle detail of his laptop bg image is a little less noticeable than his avoidance of betty’s gift

- tabitha might be closer to a parallel than jughead is, but she’s still no helen. both refuse to take advantage of the inebriated men in their care, but birnam takes advantage of helen, financially and emotionally. jughead refused a loan from the tate family and now has resolved to deal with his shit before he considers a relationship with tabitha. instead of helen’s relentless and unwelcomed attempts to get birnam sober, tabitha reluctantly agrees to help jughead trip safely bondage escape notwithstanding. she even helps him get the drugs.

- whatever potentials exist for parallels to jackson’s story, they were not explored for this episode. ok so why tf am i even talking about this? what was there instead?

- i have arrived at the point

- s5 has been revisiting s1, not directly but with a twist. and jughead’s agent samm pansky is back. u may recall, pansky is named for sam lansky

- jughead’s trip-thru-trauma is a story device tapped straight from lansky’s book ‘broken people’

- lansky is like if a millenial john rechy wrote extremely LA-flavored meta but just about himself no jk very like a modern successor to charles r jackson. both play with the boundary between memoir and fiction. lansky is gay; jackson wrote his lost weekend counterpart as closeted and remained closeted himself until only a few years before his death. both write with emotional clarity and self-scrutiny on the experiences of addiction, sobriety, and the surrounding issues of shame and self worth

- i feel like a fool bc after this ep i had been thinking about de quincey and his early writings on addiction (c.1800s), but i failed to carry the thought in the other direction, to contemporary writers in the genre, to make this connection sooner

- lansky’s second book, broken people, follows narrator ‘sam’, mid-20s, super depressed, hastled by his agent to write a decent follow-up to his first book, but too busy struggling with his self-worth and baggage from several past relationships. desperate, he takes up an offer to visit a new age shaman who promises to fix everything wrong with him in a matter of days. not to over simplify it but he literally spends a weekend doing psychedelics and hallucinating about his exes. jughead took note

- unless u want me to hurl myself into yet another dissertation about queer jughead, i think his parallel to sam - who, unlike jughead, has considerable financial privilege and whose anxieties center on body dysmorphia, hiv scares, and his own self-centeredness - pretty much ends there

- But,, the gist of the book could not be more harmonius with a major theme shared by the 2 films that inform the actual hallucination part of jughead’s bunker scene: mentally reframing past relationships to get closure + confronting trauma head-on in order to move forward

- so that’s neat. what other book and author stuff was in 5.10?

- stephen king and raymond carver get name dropped. i’m passingly familiar with them both but u bet i just skimmed their wiki bios in case anything relevant jumped out

- like jughead, carver was a student (later a lecturer) at the iowa writers workshop. also the son of an alcoholic and one himself

- i recall carver’s ‘what we talk about when we talk about love’ is what jughead was reading in 2.14 ‘the hills have eyes’ after he finds out about the first time betty kissed archie (at that time he does not respond as would any of carver’s characters)

- this collection of carver stories deals especially with infidelity, failings of communication, and the complexities and destructiveness of love. to unashamedly quote the resource that is course hero, ‘carver renders love as an experience that is inherently violent bc it produces psychic and emotional wounds.’ very fun to wonder about the significance of this collection within the s2 episode and in jughead’s thoughts. and maybe now in the context of the s5 state of relationships. or, at least, the state of jughead’s writing as seen by his agent

- anyway pansky doesn’t want carver, he wants stephen king

- i have too much to say about gerald’s game in 5.10, that’s getting its own post someday soon

- lol wait king’s wife is named tabitha uhhh king’s wiki reminded me of his childhood experience that possibly inspired his short story ‘the body’ (+1986 movie ‘stand by me’) when he ‘apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train tho he has no memory of the event’

- no mention of that in this rd episode but memories of a train could be interesting to consider with the imagery that intrudes on jughead’s hallucination. i still feel like it was a truck but the lights and sounds he experiences may be a train

- ok now we’re in the speculation part of today’s segment

- if jughead’s traumatic memory involves trains, then it’s possible this plot will take influence from la bête humaine <- this 1938 movie is based on the 1890 novel by french writer émile zola. this story deals with alcoholism and possessive jealousy in relationships, sometimes leading to murder. huh, kind of like carver. zola def comes down on the nature side of the nature-vs-nuture bad seed question (tho i should say he approaches this with great or maybe just v french compassion). also i can’t tell if this is me reaching but, something about la bête humaine reminds me of king’s ‘secret window’ which we’ve observed to be at least a style influence on jughead post time jump

- but wow a late-19th century french writer would be a random thing to drop into this season, right? then again zola also wrote about miners, which we’ve learned are an important part of this town’s history + whatever hiram is up to this time. and most notably, zola wrote ‘j’accuse...!’ an open letter in defense of a soldier falsely accused and unlawfully jailed for treason: alfred dreyfus. archie’s recent army trouble comes to mind.

- since the introduction of old man dreyfuss (plausibly Just a nod to close encounters actor richard dreyfuss, but also when is anything in this show Just one thing) i’ve been wondering if these little things could add up to a season-long reference to zola’s writings. but i had doubts and didn’t want to speak on it too soon bc, u know, it’s weird but is it weird enough for riverdale??

- however,,,

- (come on, u knew where i was going with this)

- a24′s film zola just came out. absolutely no relation to the french writer, it’s not based on a book but an insane and explicit twitter thread by aziah ‘zola’ wells about stripping and? human trafficking?? this feels ripe for rd even outside the potentials here for the lonely highway/missing girls plot.

- that would add up to a combination of homage that feels natural to this show

- anyway pls understand i’m just having fun speculating, most of this is based on nothing more concrete than the torturous mental tendril ras has hooked into my skull pls let go ras pls let go

#accompanying image has no meaningful organization it's just there to make me look insane. enjoy #riverdale speculation #filmref #but books #adhd has me like. this is Not the post i've been trying to write for weeks but my brain gave me no choice

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Josie and The Pussycats is the Spinoff Riverdale Deserves

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This RIVERDALE review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 15

“Our story is about three young women bursting with talent.”

When last we saw Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray), she was in New York City trying to make her dreams come true on the ill-fated (and gone-too-soon) Riverdale spin-off Katy Keene. Often when characters are spun-off and their subsequent shows fail, they vanish into the pop culture ether — The Ropers from Three’s Company being the textbook case of this phenomenon. But not so for Josie. This latest episode debuts a new iteration of the character, one who has achieved her dreams but still finds herself wanting more. It is a decidedly more mature take on the previously underwritten character, and one that allows Murray’s considerable acting and musical abilities to shine.

In short, it is the Josie that fans have always wanted to see.

But what good is the character without the backing of her Pussycats? Drummer Melody Valentine (Asha Bromfield) and multi-instrumentalist Valerie Brown (Hayley Law) have been estranged from Josie since she blew off the Pussycats for a solo career when they were in high school. Seven years later and the wounds are still raw, even though Melody has since become a renowned author with movie rights optioned by Tyler Perry, and Valerie is a talented artist and actress.

When Josie returns to Riverdale to take stock following the sudden death of her father, she finds herself coming to terms with her past. More than that though, she has found her voice in every sense of the word. She dismisses Mr. Lodge, the show’s big bad in a hilarious kiss off that sums up many viewers’ opinions on the often irksome character. Better still, the episode allows her to get meta to discuss how Riverdale often sidelined the Josie character in her previous iteration on the series. “I didn’t have much to say in old times,” she plaintively declares, commenting on the problem that Riverdale had with diversity in its early seasons. She then accurately dismisses Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead not as old friends but as acquaintances. It’s a bold and surprising scene that takes responsibility for past sins that the series committed, further illustrating that it is aware that it can do better and has been attempting to do so.

After a steamy reunion with old flame Sweet Pea (Jordan Connor), Josie begins the work of reaching out to Valerie and Melody. It is here that the episode goes from great to an all-timer. The chemistry that Murray, Bromfield and Law possess is lightning in a bottle. As old injustices are aired and attempts to repair wounded hearts and egos are undertaken, these actresses embody the old friends they portray fully. But this backdoor pilot, fortunately, has zero interest in having its women of color tear each other down. The characters candidly discuss their shared past, and begin to repair the rift that will — if The Pussycats goes to series — lead them to becoming the global superstars they are destined to be.

Josie, Melody and Valerie are icons. They know it, and the world will soon follow.

Inspired by her renewed friendship with her once and future bandmates, Josie decides to do a concert with the Pussycats that will raise money to help reincorporate the town of Riverdale. It is a performance that highlights each of the women’s musical strengths, even if Josie does steal the spotlight for an emotional rendition of Nina Simone’s “Stars.” Despite being cut short when Toni goes into labor, the concert is enough of a success for The Pussycats to agree to go on the road together — playing in towns where Josie’s late father wanted his ashes scattered. The women consider themselves to be equals now, thus the “Josie and” is jettisoned from the band name. This still being Riverdale, a friend of Josie’s dad appears moments before she leaves town to tell her that her father may have been murdered in New Orleans, and that voodoo might be involved.

With this incredible/ridiculous plot development thrown at us, the full image of what The Pussycats will be as a series comes into view: A mixture of Fame and 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo that celebrates these characters and their comic/cartoon legacy in an unexpected way. (As an Archie comics historian even I was taken off guard by the last-minute introduction of the potential show’s mystery angle, and my mind reels at the possibilities).

Hopefully sooner rather than later a series order for The Pussycats will be announced. There is so much potential here to tell exciting, fun, music-packed stories featuring strong women of color that it feels like a surefire hit. “The Return of the Pussycats” is not only the best episode of Riverdale this season, but a perfect pilot episode. There desperately needs to be lots more long tails and ears for hats in our future, for these are the Pussycats we’ve been waiting for.

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Riverdale Rundown

While nothing has been officially announced as of yet, it feels ridiculous for The CW to not do a full series of The Pussycats, yes? This logo appearing at the end of the episode instead of the usual Riverdale bumper bodes well for things to come. Fingers crossed…

My guess is that this episode didn’t have Alexandra and Josie cross paths due to their Katy Keene past, which had the characters begin as enemies who were slowly forming a friendship before that series was cancelled. By not having them interact, the writers didn’t have to figure out where their relationship currently is — making this a narrative thread that The Pussycats could potentially pull on down the line.

The character of Alan M. briefly appears as Melody’s love interest, which indeed he is in the comics and fondly remembered 2001 movie.

Speaking of the Josie and the Pussycats movie, that film’s ever-growing cult continues to delight me. Thanks to multiverses, there’s no reason why that version of these characters and the ones of The Pussycats can’t co-exist in the same pop culture landscape.

Let’s give a special shoutout to Robin Givens, who not only reprises her role as Sierra McCoy here but also did a terrific job directing this installment.

Melody narrates this episode a la Jughead, except that her writing is bright and full of hope, a sharp and intentional contrast to her brooding counterpoint.

If you didn’t cheer when Josie and the Pussycats took the stage to their cartoon theme song, you are dead inside.

“Entertainment Tomorrow” enters the Riverdale fake product lexicon in this episode (which also includes the returning chestnut “Vanity Flair”).

Toni gives birth to a boy, Anthony.

Expect to see more about the franchising of Pop’s in upcoming restaurants, and Tabitha’s speech about the importance of the Chok’lit Shoppe being a black-owned restaurant in a time when Riverdale had no other such establishments was one of the most powerful scenes this series has ever done.

It’s worth noting that a franchise for real-life Archie restaurants did exist in the early 1970s. However the idea never really took off, and pictures of the three diners that were opened have never surfaced online.

What the hell was up with the Old Navy product placement in this episode, which felt like it was ripped from the Josie and the Pussycats movie, minus the irony.

Kevin’s dancing during the Little Shop of Horrors musical number was, unsurprisingly, everything.

Melody’s book being named Summer Storm is a sly reference to actress Asha Bromfield having a newly released novel called Hurricane Summer that was released in May.

Josie uses the alias Ms. Newmar to check into hotels. Julie Newmar famously portrayed Catwoman on the Batman TV series, which not only plays into Josie’s feline motif, but also is yet another of the show’s near-constant DC Comics references of late.

Mr. Lodge being called a “little bitch” was so unbelievably pleasing to watch. Josie is just SO OVER Riverdale’s bullshit.

In a nice character moment, Cheryl immediately leaps into action to help deliver ex-lover Toni’s baby.

Dr. Curdle Jr. being a Josie and the Pussycats superfan is comedic brilliance (as is the fact that nobody trusts him enough to have him anywhere near Toni’s delivery.

The post Josie and The Pussycats is the Spinoff Riverdale Deserves appeared first on Den of Geek.

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raymondebidochonlifechoices · 3 years