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riverdale-retread · 2 years

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Riverdale S6 Ep 22 (#117: Night of the Comet)

Here we are at the Season 6 Finale which is fittingly also the apocalypse!

Jughead is at “ground zero of an extinction level event” looking irritated and nothing else. This is highly entertaining to me. He died in a demon plague while his other dimension self looked on in interest (probably thinking- Ooh more material for the STORY!), was perfectly content in heaven and then got yakked out of it by Cheryl Blossom (whom he does not like). So his casual, I Am So Tired That I am Bored By My Exhaustion approach to this latest disaster in his disaster-filled life just fits.

So everyone is assembled in Archie’s house. Shout out to Cheryl and Heather for sitting with the exact same leg crossed pose. Tabitha looks very much like a Mater Dolorosa statuary.

Toni and Fangs, still looking like Minnie and Micky Mouse, report that the Serpents have been testing the weird magic dome into which they are sealed (Simpsons Did It First). Betty says a version of fandom commentary that has been making the rounds - that Riverdale the town itself is a character, whose sole motivation is to hoard all these people and keep them trapped within itself. Betty describes it as “a roach motel” because you can come in, but you can’t leave.

Veronica asks Jughead about his portal powers, but even those are limited by Percival’s magic dome. Archie asks Tabitha about her time travel, and Tabitha says the comet is their inevitable future no matter what. Kevin is confused about why someone else isn’t doing something, which is a very Kevin thing to ask, to which Heather patiently explains that Percival’s spell was very well wrought because he even took care of what the outside world thinks is happening with the comet. Moose, who was called in to help Kevin with Kevin’s issues, is now also doomed to die but he is being a perfect saint and not spending his time screaming at Kevin about how he’s ruined his life.

Archie, being invulnerable, and Not Baby Anthony, being immortal, are the only two who are going to survive being hammered directly by a comet. Toni mentions that she’s suggested to Archie that he take Not Baby Anthony into the Bunker when the comet hits.

Archie is determined to not be beaten by Percival. He’s so fascinating and kind of horrible. Archie is so focused on WINNING that even the prospect of everyone he knows being obliterated doesn’t affect his emotions. Heather and Cheryl offer to do consult other, more knowledgeable arcane powers to see what can be done, but Cheryl doesn’t believe this will work. She’s the only one who has the honest reaction - scoffing - when Archie says he’s going to try to find a way to dig their way underground out of Riverdale.

Alice and her two daughters are in their house having a lovely heart to heart. I’m sorry but I hate it. Alice is making her daughters parent her. Betty is being a total angel here. She looks at her weepy useless mother who has been such an agent of pain and terror in her life with kindness and understanding. Betty Cooper gives her mother the absolution and healing that woman does not deserve. By the way, this has been bugging me - did Polly ever show herself to Juniper?? Does Juniper know her brother and mom AND DAD that she never met and her grandgrandma are all alive again? Where is Juniper?

At the Babylonium, apparently all or most is forgiven between Reggie and Veronica. She’s head honcho and he’s her henchman again. He says he saved the giant portrait of Hiram from the fire at Percival’s. When confronted with it, Veronica’s very kind reaction is to smile about it, instead of chucking a shoe at him. She even thanks Reggie. The show misses Hiram, I guess, and maybe the Hiram actor has more power than the Jason actor, so he’s saved the indignity of a doll bearing his likeness being hauled around on set.

Next morning at the Diner, Jughead and Tabitha are sharing a basket of fries. This is how you know Jabitha has to be endgame. Jughead to my knowledge has never, ever shared a plate of food. Taken things off of other people’s plates, yes. SHARED? No. Jughead is chipper about being ‘taken out’ by a ‘magic asteroid.’ He was destined to die anyway so he is trying to find the good in having the end not be ‘banal.’ He also says that he’s accomplished almost everything on his bucket list, but before Tabitha can ask what that is, in comes trouble.

Alexandra Cabot wearing an outfit that takes body consciousness to a whole ‘nother level has a magically easy sounding (!) way for Tabitha to realize her long held dream of making Pop’s a franchise (that she alluded to when Veronica was in doldrums about her stalled life). Jughead prevents Tabitha from both outright refusing and spilling the beans about how they literally only have like, 12 hours left until the comet hits. Alexandra is going to be in town for another 10 hrs, which means she will die with them if nothing else changes.

Then we cut to Fangs giving a very unsanitary looking Serpent tattoo to the Not Baby Anthony at the Whyte Whyrm as Toni looks on. He hasn’t had to do the gauntlet, or the thing about shouting the rules at Tall Boy or getting bit by a defanged snake (WHY DID THEY MAKE JUGHEAD DO ANY OF THIS) so Anthony sounds uncertain when he asks if he’s really a Serpent now. His parents (who both look younger and less physically mature than he does) tell him he’s the hereditary Serpent King because of what they are. Everyone in this creepy little family is teary eyed, the show is playing sad music over it but none of this is earned and I want the comet to kill these three off specifically, please.

Heather and Cheryl summon Abigail Blossom, currently trapped in a doll trapped in a cabinet. The sheer number of candles that are lit can only be explained by the phoenix powers Cheryl has because I think even with two people working fast with a mechanical lighter, the first-lit candle would burnout by the time the final candle is lit. In any case, Abigail has a solution to the comet that Cheryl (and the Riverdale writers?) finds “Basic, but also Genius.” You’re a fire starter so just MELT it, because it’s ice. As to whether she can undo the binding spell trapping them all in Riverdale, Abigail says that she needs something more than freedom from the doll.

Cheryl goes to collect the “underworlders” trying to dig their way out of town using the mining tunnels and everyone is gathered now at Thornhill. “I may have divined a pathway through our little conundrum.” I love Cheryl’s syntax.

I am horrified and intrigued by the gloves that are attached to Chery’s long sleeved turtleneck. It looks so extra, which is very Cheryl. It also makes me wonder if she finally cut those nails, being a lesbian and all. Cheryl says that she needs something special from Toni later, to which she gets a very reluctant response.

And then we learn that essentially, Cheryl is a species of god. She’s the one that is keeping all the resurrected Riverdalers alive. It’s HER POWERS that is keeping their bodies on earth rather than in heaven. So when she uses all her phoenix powers to melt the comet, one or more or all of them might also throw off the mortal coil once more. (She doesn’t say this exactly but she should’ve.)

When Cheryl and Toni have their tete-a-tete in the sitting room, we are treated to the view of an overhang wall full of very weird art that I am hopeful a more hawk-eyed, technologically competent and knowledgeable fan will one day explain to me. One of the paintings is what looks like a giant black crow with a crown menacing a little redhead boy and girl pair. Cheryl explains to an increasingly speechless Toni that she and Toni are going to be sex vessels for Abigail and Thomasina whlie Heather will keep each of their souls safe in a jar. Cheryl wants to vomit every time she has to say the name FANGS (girl, SAME) but does point out this interesting technicality that it’s ‘not cheating’ if their souls are not in the bodies that are engaging in the sex. This is a metaphysical version of the bullshit “I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doing” argument but okay sure.

Archie comes home all dusty from digging in the tunnels all morning, followed by being told that he was being kept alive by Cheryl’s God Powers to discover even worse news: Mary Andrews has stopped by unannounced for a visit. Over pizza and beer, Mary says one of the reasons she came to visit was to tell her son she’s getting a divorce from her wife. It sounds amicable enough. I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life with Mary Andrews either. When Mary says that life is precious and so not to be wasted, Archie looks thoughtful.

Veronica’s absinthe absolutely looks poisonous, don’t you think? She’s talking to her dad’s portrait while day drinking, which is an interesting way to spend your last day on earth. Veronica is still quite Catholic. After expressing a sensible sentiment - she hopes she and her father that she murdered don’t cross paths in the afterlife - she feels guilty, so she gives the portrait a kiss. Veronica’s kiss is so toxic it literally burns an entire layer of paint with a sizzle. Damn. Then Archie fucking shows up and in his customarily brutal manner he asks Veronica to give (?) or sell (?) him a diamond ring with which he’s going to propose to Betty.

How can people like Archie when he does this sort of thing to people? Veronica looks miserable as soon as her back is turned, poor thing. The thing is, half of this situation is on her, isn’t it? Why not just say what she’s feeling - if not a full on confession, then pointing out that asking your ex girlfriend that you cheated on back in the day who has had to bury two male partners AND CAN NEVER KISS ANYONE EVER AGAIN for a WEDDING RING when she’s obviously alone one day of the apocalypse is something that is a terrible thing to do and send him packing? Why pretend you’re fine when you’re not? (Uh, self reveal.)

Thankfully the show is merciful and treats me with Jabitha cuteness immediately after. In the bright light of the diner as they clear a table, Jughead is trying to talk Tabitha into accepting the franchise offer, come hell or high water. Or comet. Tabitha isn’t sure. Then she says he’s trying to be Jack to her Rose and Jughead - of course- says he has never seen Titanic because he’s partial to “early James Cameron.” Such growth he has had, our boy, no? He doesn’t say it’s because he’s a weird weirdo! He also just says ‘early James Cameron’ rather than drop words like oeuvre. Tabitha’s favorite movie of all time is the Titanic. They HAVE to watch it, she says, and he looks so cute and adoring as he mimics her tone - “We *have* to?”

At Thornhill the ceremony is afoot! Souls look like glowing jellyfish. Heather really does trap them in a big jar. Thomasina and Cheryl get it on, complete with Kissing With Tongue! I don’t like Toni but I really do like the idea of someone like Thomasina even if she feels historically kind of impossible. They look very happy and very beautiful together. Heather, though, is having qualms about this.

Archie’s campaign to be my least liked character continues to succeed. After springing on the rightly alarmed Betty that Mary Andrews is continuing her path as Terrible Parent by suddenly appearing right this day to unload her issues on to her son, he suddenly proposes. Way to set the mood, dude.

Betty is startled, but apparently what Betty wants to be on her last day on earth is kind to everyone she loves. So she is that for Archie - understanding, helpful, hopeful, loving. Betty tries to relieve Archie of his Rescuing Hero complex. She also straight out refuses to marry him. Whatever Betty wants to do with life, it’s not being married to Archie. That’s interesting. Because she doesn’t say I Will Marry You When Everything Works Out (If It Does). What she says is, in the nicest way possible, This is a Shitty Time to Be Asking This You Piece of Shit. It comes out like this: “Ask me again after Cheryl melts that comet, and you and me and everyone else survives. Or we find another way out from Riverdale.” I mean, for Archie and Betty to get married all that really is required is for the two of them to survive, you know? But she is predicating it on everyone ELSE surviving.

In short, she is saying no, and forever.

Archie refuses to take the hint. Or maybe he’s just too dumb to pick up on an bald statement. He runs out of there saying, in a terrifying way, “I’m going to break through that barrier so I can marry you, Betty Cooper.” His eyes are blank, his face is empty and his voice is devoid of hope or romance or even much emotion. Archie has just decided this is what the next step is, so he’s committed to it, without joy.

Cheryl and Toni wake up in bed post coitus in underwear that’s very different from what Thomasina and Cheryl were wearing. Cheryl thanks Toni, and Toni says it was just to save the town. Cheryl has yearnings.

When Cheryl checks in with Abigail, Abigail is very happy, and shows her a pile of knots which have to be untied to undo the spell.

Drake has called Betty! She has wonderful news - or so she thinks. Director Wilcox wants the two of them - Drake and Cooper - to HEAD UP the Serial Killer division. Betty refuses this offer too. Drake insightfully asks if this is about Archie or because of her bad experiences with TBK. Betty says it’s neither. She is ‘moving to the light.’ She doesn’t want to be a hunter of hunters anymore. That’s very… interesting. Did Betty meet her DNA quota of killings or something? Is that why she doesn’t feel drawn to crime solving anymore?

Reggie and Veronica are making nice. Poor Reggie. His pattern of always being a step behind Archie after Archie has done his damage to Veronica continues into this last day on planet Earth. Veronica is so sick of everything that she’s decided to work on friendship skills, i.e. being friends with exes like a good lesbian, ‘dating a lot’ without getting into relationships which has been her pattern her whole life, and focus on her absinthe business (much like her first true love, the Rum business). She hands the casino over to Reggie, and offers to keep him company during the apocalypse. As friends. He agrees. Reggie is so cute though. He still finds Veronica hot and would so want to rekindle any sort of sexual connection, even if he is officially fine with being friendzoned by her. His shifty eyes over his teacup as he covers up his disappointment at being rejected was marvelous.

Even nicer, we are treated to Jughead getting weepy over Titanic. Oh they are so adorable, with their his n hers cozy blankets, and a well established movie watching set up (her head in his lap, all snuggled up). He loved it, which is good, but then Tabitha says to Cole Sprouse, who has done at least one photoshoot where he was styled specifically to highlight his physical resemblance to Leo Di Caprio that the character Jughead Jones is “cuter than Leo” and it’s kind of a lot and I’m both giggly and embarrassed for everyone at the same time.

Jughead says that he can’t die OR live with himself if Tabitha doesn’t make a grab for her big opportunity to take Pop’s into the franchise business, so without saying it in so many words, she agrees that she’ll try.

As a reward and a gift to them both, Tabitha takes Jughead with her on a time traveler’s epic date where she takes him through a timeline in which they both live into old age, happily married to each other, with a son that takes after him and a daughter that takes after her. Pop’s stays in business forever, they run it together into their old age, and I guess they just grow old in Riverdale in this blameless lovely life. They’re both crying at the end of the minute long experience. I love them. They kiss tenderly.

Meanwhile, Archie is bashing a barrier with a hammer while his mom comes to yell at him. Which is about the right speed for Archie. Betty told on him to his mom. This is very Archie, to be unable to accept or give tenderness to anyone OR THE TRUTH TO HIS MOM until he’s done a spot of useless violence. Mary calls it straight - “It’s not ok to be out here hiding from the world.”

Mary thinks that Fred would’ve fought to the end too, but adds that Fred (because he was smarter than Archie) would’ve come home to spend time with his beloved.

Veronica is talking to her Daddy’s ruined portrait and drinking alone. Her nonstop alcohol consumption concerns me because I’m a prissy puritan. But I am wrong and she is right apparently because Veronica sudden has a brainwave. She’s a dialysis machine (says Drake)! She stayed in Riverdale for a reason (says Tabitha)! She’s gonna go “save her friends!”

At the Diner, under Pop’s and Jughead’s proud gaze, Tabitha signs the documents to take Pop’s national. Alexandra is thrilled, but when she says they start ‘tomorrow’ all the Riverdalers simultaneously get sad . She asks what’s wrong, but before they can drop the bad news on her head belatedly like a ton of bricks they are all summoned to Veronica’s apartment.

Heather is such a good soul (and also has no choice at this point I guess, but no matter) because she is helping Cheryl untie all the knots to undo the magic holding the town hostage. With much sadness (for me especially, because I like Heather a lot, and I love how she calms Cheryl the fuck down at all times), Heather says that she’s going to be leaving after it’s all over. She says Toni and Cheryl are “Forever Soulmates.” Heather “saw” something and says Choni are “written in the stars.” In the middle of this sad moment, their phones chime, summoning them.

Betty has Archie in bed with her, which is the only place he really listens to women at all. Betty’s egotism can’t help but come through though, when she tries to reassure Archie that his long dead father (the one he betrayed and hurt all the time) would be proud of him. Fred would be super proud of Archie, according to Betty, because he “supported me, comforted me, loved me unconditionally.” I’d rather think that Fred who wanted his son to get out to the big world away from Riverdale by earning a football scholarship to university wanted something different from his son than being a good man to just one woman but sure. OK.

Archie FINALLY takes back his fail proposal, promising not to pressure her ever again. Betty for her part says that what she wants is to marry Archie after all, and he accepts her proposal. This is SO MUCH NICER than how Archie did it. They too are summoned by Veronica.

Veronica has a plan! There’s a way to ‘augment Chery’s phoenix energies so no one has to die,’ she says. She’s going to absorb everyone’s powers to give them to Cheryl. Poison = Strength = Superpowers are all the same, according to Veronica and Riverdale. Powers combine! She says she needs to share blood, “wound to wound, blood to blood.” She even has Percival dagger to stab Archie with (she thought this through). Does this mean the general concern about AIDS has died for good? I remember reading materials for a research paper once where a scientist at the height of the AIDS crisis, which is when they figured out that straight people could get and give AIDS to each other (before then it wasn’t treated like a worldwide crisis, yay straight people!), that children would never again be doing thumb-pricked blood oaths. Well we’re doing them again!

Cheryl refuses to be cut for any reason whatsoever (she must have keloid tendencies like me) and Veronica has thought of that too! She will transfer the collective powers to Cheryl with a kiss.

I mean.

I’ve said this several times before so I might as well repeat it. VERONICA LODGE WILL ALWAYS CREATE A PARTY EVERY SEASON IN WHICH SHE INTERACTS SEXUALLY WITH A PRETTY GIRL.

So we’re ticking that box in Season 6! Yay!

The in-universe justification for these shenanigans is (a) it’s not queer baiting if it’s saving the world and (b) fire trumps poison (this must be rock paper scissors logic).

WHO are they queer baiting by the way? Do they know they’re on a tv show? Because nobody present wants Veronica to get together with Cheryl, or for Veronica to be gay.

Jughead narration breaks in right as they’re all painfully cutting their palms to voice his worry that doing any of this might make it all go terribly badly. Invulnerability, aura-vision, mind reading, portal opening, and time travel powers get absorbed by Veronica.

When Veronica approaches Cheryl for her kiss, Cheryl looks EXTREMELY excited. I thought you said this was Queer Baiting, Cheryl! Did she literally mean I’m Queer and You’re Baiting Me? OH! Maybe she did! The way Cheryl smiles delightedly into the kiss confirms my suspicions. As I knew she must be, Veronica is a wonderful kisser. Cheryl looks high.

THEN THE BEST TURN HAPPENS.

Betty, who has also kissed Veronica (and in a different world and time also Cheryl but not in this universe), asks if it worked.

Veronica thought of this too. She points a gun at Cheryl, to everyone’s alarm. (Jughead the most). Cheryl can see her ‘threatening’ aura! Then Veronica, who apparently is a crack shot, shoots Cheryl right above her right breast. The bullet didn’t penetrate! Jughead’s the MOST REASONABLE PERSON: “Veronica is nuts! What if that hadn’t worked!!??”

Tabitha and Archie think about themselves - “I should’ve stayed in Chicago!” and “I guess that means I’m not [invulnerable].”

I love Cheryl Goddess so much. She opens a big portal to go confront the comet, and her exit line is TOODLES. Cheryl, please restart your cult!

Cheryl puts on a super hero costume change to confront the comet. She looks awesome.

And then, everything is ruined because we join the Fogarties in the Bunker and Toni starts singing at her scared son whose developmental status irritates the fuck out of me. Why is he so childlike in his fully grown man self body that looks like he could be Toni’s mom? They’ve lit too many candles.

Wonderfully, we don’t have to spend a lot of time with them. We jump to Jabitha’s apartment, where they sit as a family unit with Pop’s, having had their final diner meal, hands held together in prayer. Tabitha has a wonderful singing voice.

Barchie are in bed post-coitus. They call each other primal animals, which is not wrong at all. I hate this song though.

Veronica and Reggie are sad together, as friends. Kevin and Moose are holding hands, Kevin asking if he could make Moose happy, through song. Probably not Kevin. You suck.

And Cheryl is all alone, facing the terror by herself. This is a burden. So straight (ahem) dude Archie expended a huge amount of time and energy coming up with very upper-body dependant solutions, but two women are the solution: Veronica with her strategic thinking and capacity to synthesize everyone’s abilities into a joint solution, and Cheryl with her lesbian courage and fortitude. This tracks.

Cheryl is apparently thinking about Toni, and Heather is shown alone in the Thornhill house.

I really hate this song. It’s really very terrible and cheesy. JUST IN TIME, Nana Blossom, Heather and Britta (summoned for this purpose??) untie all the knots, to a gratifying WHOOSH sound as the dome is lifted.

So in the last few minutes some questions that I had are answered.

They show Polly with Dagwood AND Juniper. I guess they never told Juniper about her dad who was resurrected and then died again because he was killed by Aunt Cheryl. And Polly never grieved the second death of Jason, maybe? I don’t know.

The Andrews and the Coopers meet the apocalypse in the living room together. Jughead closes his eyes to the incoming comet while turning his face up to it, while Tabitha glares at it directly. Reggie and Veronica hold hands in her apartment, refusing to look at what’s coming. Kevin and Tom Keller hold hands with Moose in the Champagne Suite (I think?) to meditate their way through it. Cheryl can fly while she fights the comet. She’s frantic and weepy.

So what happened next? Jughead asks, flat and unamused.

We’re shown a goldfish in a bowl.

The last minute plan that Veronica put together and executed together with Cheryl worked, he tells us, but things look weird.

All of that did something “wholly unexpected and yet also utterly inevitable.” Calling it inevitable is the Riverdale writing staff telling the audience to shut up, as though that’s ever worked. Nice try, Jughead.

It’s looking very 1950s. Archie puts on a letter jacket, looks into Betty’s window, and she’s weeping under a poster of James Dean while Alice comforts her.

Jughead tells us they are in a “simpler time” before Jason Blossom’s murder, before the Black Hood. “Back to a truly innocent time.”

When Archie bounds down the stairs, the homosexual Mary Andrews is in pearls in a 1950s kitchen also weeping over the death of James Dean. For women like her the 1950s was absolutely not a truly innocent or simpler time.

“Somehow the year is 1955.” Jughead is in the Ye Olde Blue & Gold offices, wearing his crown-and-sweater costume from that 1950s style nightmare he had a while ago. He angrily operates a very old school typewriter.

“And I’m the only one who remembers what our lives were like BC. Before the Comet.”

Jughead looks pissed.

Dun dun dun! I’m very excited for what’s going to happen in S7, assuming this ending is supposed to be an indication of what comes next, like all their season finales have always been.

#archie andrews negativity #betty cooper negatitivy #anti barchie kinda #except i also think barchie are right for each other #jabitha #anti fangs fogarty #anti tangs #anti toni topaz #wow i am being negative as fuck #riverdale opinion #riverdale 117 #riverdale season 6 #Riverdale s6 #riverdale recap #riverdale episode recap

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meatycatastrophe · 2 years

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Why are there men in the wilds?

#what happened? weren’t the girls in a facility and shelby was bald?#i really need to see the recap of s1 #it went shoosh in my head #the wilds #amazon prime #personal #shoni #shelby x toni #leah x fatin #leah #fatin #rachel #i forgot the name of the others

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oflgtfol · 2 years

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WAIT TONY FJCKING STARK IS IN THIS COMIC??

#I DIDNT EVEN RECOGNIZE HIM . AGRGHFHG #biting killing #is tony stark noir also a war profiteer?? does he fucking profit off ww2????#i need venom noir for real now EAT HIS HEAD OFF !!!#brot reads marvel comics #spiderman noir (2020) 4 #literally didnt even realize that was tony in the last issue until i read the recap at the beginning of this issue LMAO

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dovebuffy92 · 2 years

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In The Staircase Episode Eight,” America’s Sweetheart or: Time Over Time,” directed by co-creator Antonio Campos, Sophie Brunet (Juliette Binchoe), and Michael Peterson’s (Colin Firth) adult children let go of their fantasy of him. On February 24, 2017, Jean-Xavier Lestrade (Vincent Vermignon) conducts an interview with Michael that he promises to show Sophie sometime in the future. Afterward, the author officially pleads guilty in court via the Alford Plea. Candace Hunt Zamperini (Rosemarie DeWitt) reads a victim impact statement revealing that she still holds anger toward Michael. The only person there to support Michael outside of his defense lawyer David Rudolf (Michael Stuhlbarg), is his French editor girlfriend Sophie, who’s excited to start their new life in Paris. All the adult children check in with each other through text.

During Michael’s Alford Plea, His eldest son Clayton Peterson (Dane DeHaan) spends the day with his family. Next, Margaret Ratliff (Sophie Turner) works on the pre-production of her documentary, then flies in to watch the dance performance her little sister Martha Ratliff (Odessa Young) choreographed. Finally, Todd Peterson (Patrick Schwarzenegger) spends the evening with his mother, Patty Peterson (Trini Alvarado).

Meanwhile, Sophie packs up the Durham apartment while Michael watches himself on the television. They start fighting when the author says he doesn’t want to move to Paris. Sophie sees through Michael the minute he brings up needing to be there for his absent children. The French editor leaves the apartment forever when Michael reveals that he never loved her. Back in the hotel, Jean-Xavier plays his last interview with the author to Sophie. Sophie realizes she never knew Michael.

During the December 2011 pre-trial hearing, David successfully argues that Michael deserves a re-trial because the prosecution used misleading evidence to convict him. Michael’s big brother Bill Peterson (Tim Guinee), ex-wife Patty, Sophie, and all the adult children come to Durham to support him. The author is freed from prison until the new trial date. Unfortunately, the holes in the supposed “ideal” family come out during their celebratory night. Todd is now the family screw-up, and Michael relies on Clayton for anything he needs. During the dinner, the author feels overwhelmed eating in a Mexican restaurant for the first time in ten years. Michael emotionally withdraws from Martha after she brings up a queer character from one of his novels. He snaps at birthday girl Margaret, who picks a cheesecake for dessert in a Mexican restaurant.

On December 7, 2001, miserable Kathleen Peterson (Toni Collette) reaches out to her sister Candace for help though sadly, they don’t really “hear” each other. Michael emails Kathleen a peace offering, including tickets to a sold-out Christmas ball. Later, he comes home to a happy Kathleen dressing in a ball gown to loud cheerful music. The two of them make love on her dressing room table. During the ball, Michael and Kathleen drink, dance, and enjoy each other’s company all evening.

Hours before Kathleen’s death, Michael rents America’s Sweetheart, directed by Joe Roth from Blockbuster, then checks on her soaking in the bath. She laments that they can’t afford to travel to Aruba or Paris. Michael half-jokes that they can afford pasta and Blockbuster. About an hour later, Kathleen laughs joyfully as she and Michael watch the hokey romantic comedy. Todd checks in on them before heading out to a party with a friend. After the movie, Kathleen listens to some voicemails, including one from an employee named Helen. She needs to check a presentation before her trip to Toronto.

Kathleen calls Helen, then realizes she left her work laptop at the offices. She asks Helen to email the presentation to Michael. He comes into their kitchen. Kathleen tells Michael that she needs to check his email for the presentation. Michael talks her out of reviewing the presentation into the morning. The sequence appears to re-tell the murder until Kathleen and Michael lounge next to the pool. Kathleen talks to Michael about what is happening in their adult children’s lives in 2017, including how Caitlin has a baby. Kathleen emotionally tortures Michael in his fantasies. The Staircase Miniseries ends with Michael sitting up in bed alone in 2017.

SOPHIE’S RECKONING

Michael reveals part of his true self to Jean-Xavier and Sophie through a recorded video interview. The sequence starts with a crying Sophie walking to her car in a dark parking lot. Jean-Xavier’s recorded voice asks Michael why he wanted to talk to him. Michael’s voice-over says ‘baseball.’ Then a cut to a lit-up hotel hallway with Jean-Xavier’s voice repeating the word baseball. He tells Michael not to worry about the time. Finally, cut to Jean-Xavier and Sophie watching the interview on his laptop in a hotel room. Michael speaks about how as a young boy, he fantasized about a neighborhood girl and one of his little league teammates. These sexual dreams made Michael realize that he was attracted to both genders.

The future author knew he had to hide his bisexuality based on his father’s horrific reaction to his sexuality. First, Michael’s father caught him and his teammate experimenting. The author tears up on camera as he talks about his father’s violent response to his queerness. Then, Michael returns to the story about listening to classical music with his mother alone in his father’s car. Though now Michaels reveals he had a black eye when he first discovered the power of classical music. After that, the author knew it was safer to lie, perhaps explaining why he hides significant facets of his life from everybody who cares about him.

Jean-Xavier turns the volume up on his laptop. Sophie lounges on the couch with a guarded expression on her face. Recorded Jean-Xavier asks about what Michael has been holding back all this time. There is a close-up on Michael’s face as he blinks back tears. He never told Kathleen about his bisexuality. This revelation contradicts what Michael said during the filming of the documentary. Sophie shakes her head in frustration. Tears slide down Michael’s face when he explains that he could never fully reveal himself to Kathleen. Sophie’s face withers in pain when he talks about how lying seems okay if you get away with it. Recorded Jean-Xavier asks Michael if he killed Kathleen. The author denies murdering her.

When Jean-Xavier presses pause on the interview, Sophie turns away from the screen in disgust. The characters speak French for the rest of the scene. Finally, the editor sputters out that Michael lied about everything. Sophie looks puzzled as she slowly realizes that she doesn’t know Michael. Jean-Xavier tries to excuse the author’s behavior by saying maybe he is trying to stop deceiving everybody. Sophie stands up, moving away from the couch. She faces Jean-Xavier from across the table. Sophie breaths in and out, trying not to cry. The director explains that he doesn’t know how to react to the interview. Jean-Xavier stares into Sophie’s eyes when he says that she will be happier without Michael in her life.

Sophie cries as she tries to get her friend to say that her ex-boyfriend couldn’t have killed Kathleen. She couldn’t live with herself if she helped get a murderer out of prison. Jean-Xavier muffles back tears as he shakes his head. He can’t reassure Sophie because he doesn’t know the truth. So, they must sit with the fact that Michael may have murdered Kathleen.

LAST THOUGHTS

The Staircase miniseries ends with more questions than answers. Michael’s innocence or guilt regarding Kathleen’s murder remains a mystery. Everybody involved in the case has their own story, but we don’t know the truth. However, we know that Michael’s lies and manipulations isolate him from those who love him. Perhaps the best punishment is that the author lives alone in Durham, surrounded by questions about what happened to Kathleen on December 9, 2001. Let us know what you think of the miniseries in the comments below.

#the staircase hbo #the staircase #miniseries #tv recap #tv blogger #michael peterson #kathleen peterson #sophie brunet #juliette binoche #colin firth #toni collette

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hanzi83 · 4 months

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Episode 551-Not Reaching my Deadlines

Katt Williams, Epstein Client List, wrestling discourse, Palestine/Israel discourse and recaps of last week's shows in wrestling

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carsonian · 2 months

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February ‘24 SteveTony Fics Recap

This month was a bitch. I wrote a total of 11,091 words. "Vorspiel" was my fiftieth fic. So I guess that's something. It's also my first attempt at Marvel 616 SteveTony so that's another thing. Two things. Whoop.

Fics Ahead ➡️

“A Thousand Rainy Days Since We First Met” | M | Chapters 4 & 5 of 7

Chapter 5: "Some Old-Fashioned Way" | 4,241 words | 13 Feb

Chapter 6: "Every Little Thing" | 3,933 words | 26 Feb

Fic Summary:

Following the unfortunate death of her Secretary of State, Peggy Carter, Steve’s former mentor and current POTUS, convinces him to accept the role. Five months later, Steve finds himself juggling an already impossible role with newfound feelings for the grumpy, intelligent and impossible White House Chief of Staff, Tony Stark. (A.K.A. Madam Secretary!AU where Steve’s Secretary of State, Tony’s White House Chief of Staff, and every time they butt heads, pining!Steve is convinced they’re getting closer to kissing.)

"Vorspiel" | 2,917 words | E | 29 Jan

Tony's having a rough go of it, so he goes to the only person he trusts to bring him some much-needed relief. Steve's been waiting for him.

#my fics #my writing #stevetony #fic writing #stevetony fics #fic recap #stevetony fanfic #stevetony fanfiction #stony fic #steve x tony #eh whatever im not tagging more

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xxxprettydeadgirlxxx · 2 years

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“What the hell did I miss?” Bruce walked in slowly, removing his glasses. “Should I even be in here right now, with all the anger brewing?”

“Clint - the genius, thought it would be a good idea to make his move on Ragni. Snowflake came back and caught him in the act, so he broke the floor using Clint as a hammer.” Tony spoke up, walking back into the room.

“I forgot my drink.” He grabbed his glass and walked back out without another word.

Bruce's mouth dropped open as he stared at Clint in shock. “If you had a death wish, you could have just asked.”

He didn't say anymore and left them to continue arguing amongst themselves, wanting nothing more than to escape the drama; he knew he should have just stayed in the lab.

#xxxprettydeadgirlxxx #loki #loki fic #lokific #loki laufeyson #iplaydeadao3 #dangerous love #chapter 17 #recap #funny moments #bruce banner #tony stark #funny #Spotify

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yeetwinchester2 · 11 months

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Skipping

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x f!reader

Summary: Y/N had been struggling with her ED lately, but the team doesn't know that. Sent on a mission, and her partner doesn't know that it's been two days since she's eaten.

Warnings: Eating Disorder(s), passing out, angst

---------------------------------------

"C'mon Steve! Seriously? What else do you want me to do? She's been on every mission with me! I'm tired of her!" Throwing his hands in the air out of frustration. Bucky has had a hatred for Y/N for as long as anyone can remember. She's a former Hyrda experiment such as himself, yet they're polar opposites. Bucky is harsh, brutal, dark, seemling always seeing the negative. Yet, Y/N is kind, caring, light, and always positive. Everyone liked her. except Bucky. But she never let that get in the way of things. She treated him just the same as she did everyone else.

"She's one of our best, and so are you. I'm sorry Buck, but you need to get over it. You can out up with her for just a little while longer. You know how these things go. We get the best of the best. That's you two. We need both of you for this one. We can't have either of you back out."

"Fine. But this is the last mission with her. After this, I'm done. I can't take it anymore. Just something about her I can't stand."

"I'm sure you'll be fine. Go get ready. We leave in the morning. Carrier 0430 sharp. We leave at 0500."

‐----------------------------

The morning comes, 0430 and the team has met at the carrier. Everyone but Y/N. Which is odd, considering Y/N is almost always one of the first to arrive, prepared and full of energy. The first to notice was Nat. Once it was mentioned, Everyone followed suit with confusion.

0440 and she still hasn't shown up.

0445 and still no word from her.

0455. Nothing.

Just as they were about to call over the comms, she appears, running up to the carrier, duffle bag in hand. Immediately blurring out an apology.

"Sorry guys! I got caught up in something. But I'm here now and I've got everything, I'm good to go."

"You sure? We were getting worried." Clint said unsure of what had happened.

"Yeah, I'm good."

Everyone just brushed it off and assumed she must've slept in or missed her alarm or something of the sort. But Bucky could tell something wasn't right. He didn't know what or why, but he knew something was off. He didn't say anything, though. It's not his business, why should he care?

Steve stood, getting everyone's attention. He pulled a small map from his pocket and laid it out for the team to see. "Alright, I know we already went over the mission, but here's a recap. Nat and Clint will take the guards at the right rear entrance, me and Tony at the left rear. Y/N and Bucky will talk the center. The main objective is to retrieve the hard drive from their maim computer system. They're smart, which means this won't be easy. Stay with your partner. Watch out for each other. If you get separated, you get hurt. Six of us exiting the carrier, six of us returning, understood?"

"Aye Aye, Captain." Bucky joking saluted.

‐----------------------------

The mission went as expected, until it didn't. You and Bucky broke through the center entrance doors and took down the first set of guards without any problems. It was cold, and the alarms seemed louder than usual. Everything seemed fine, maybe feeling a little weaker than usual, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Bucky was busy with several guards on his own, while you were lucky enough to handle them one at a time. You only had one or two more to take down, Bucky had a few more. You began to feel weaker and weaker by the second. The last guard put up a tough fight, eventually winning against you. Fighting with all you had, but it wasn't enough. You took hit after hit, in the face, the gut, the side, until all you saw was black.

‐----------------------------

Bucky sent bullets through one guard after another until he no longer had anything to shoot with. So, he turned to his trusty knives and combat boots. Kicking, punching, and slashing all that comes his way. He was pleased with his completion of his portion of the mission, that is until he saw you on the ground, beat. He didn't hesitate to rush to your side. For a moment, forgetting how much he hated you.

"It's clear over here, but Y/N is down." He says over the coms, letting the rest of the team know his plan.

"On it. How bad is she?" replies Nat, her voice laced with concern.

"Not sure. I'm gonna take her back to the jet and do what I can from there." He brings your unconscious body up into his arms and carries you towards the exit and back into the jet.

‐----------------------------

You slowly try to open your eyes, bringing up a hand to block out the bright light hovering above you. Suddenly, it dissappears.

"Hey, hey, lay back down. Y/N, it's Bucky. You went down during the mission and we are in the jet. We need to figure out what happened with you. What hurts?"

"Nothing much right now, I'm fine. Just got a headache," you say, swinging your legs across the side of the bed, attempting to brush off the embarrassment. Hoping and praying that he doesn't try to investigate any further, knowing it'll be 10x more embarrassing than what he's already witnessed.

"What happened out there? I've never seen you go down that quick."

"The guy just got to me and he was stronger than I must've realized. I'm fine though. Just drop it, please." You didn't want to seem rude, but more importantly, you didn't want him knowing.

With perfect timing, Steve calls over the coms, "Good work, team. We're done here. See ya at the jet."

‐----------------------------

Everyone else boards the jet, each one asking some version of "you ok?" And you just nod with a smile and hid it all the best you can. God, you're starving. It been two days since you've had a meal. You knew it wasn't good for you. You would've eaten before the mission, but you felt fine before. More importantly, you looked fine, so there was no need.

You had struggled with an eating disorder for a few years now. It had calmed down and you had almost forgotten about it for a while. One bad instagram post from a model or the wrong word being said or one bad joke about your body. That's all it took to trigger your ED.

You had started living with the team while it was getting better, so you never told them about it. You worked out with them, ate with them, appeared healthy around them. But when you were alone, it was quite the opposite. Doing anything to keep yourself from eating, doing extra workouts to burn the calories. The team never found out, but it has been getting worse and you're worried some of the team may have noticed something was wrong. They've said you look tired, or maybe even smaller than usual. All that last comment did was encourage you even further. So, you kept going, letting it get worse. Skipping more meals, avoiding the team as much as possible, working out every chance you get.

‐----------------------------

You were sent the the med bay as soon as the jet touched the base. You were checked over and over. Turn out, you only had a concussion and broken nose. It could have, probably should have, been much worse. You have Bucky to thank for saving you. From the med bay, you were released and headed straight to your room.

You walk down the hall towards your room, the one just before Bucky's. You want to thank him, but now's not the time.

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

this is is definitely a part 1. but I get on Tumblr like once every 6 months so who knows if there will ever be a part 2.

#bucky barnes #marvel #bucky barnes x reader #bucky fic #bucky x reader #disordered eating in tags

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kingoftieland · 1 year

Video

youtube

Some people haven’t seen the first film in the MCU since its original release in 2008, so here it is recapped in animated form! Follow Tony Stark as he becomes Iron Man & parties from dusk till dawn! 📀

#iron man #tony stark #marvel #marvel comics #marvel comic books #marvel characters #marvel superheroes #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #marvel movies #marvel studios #iron man movie #recap #movie recap #animated #animation #youtube #movie #movies

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riverdale-retread · 2 years

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Riverdale S6 Ep 18 (#113) Biblical

So Riverdale, a formerly pretty, now busted up looking town where a series of unfortunate events have occurred without break, is so desensitized to disaster that they all just calmly invented silly explanation for signs of the apocalypse and went on with their days!

Frogs ‘escaped the biology lab,” flies, lice! Ew! Ack!

The most unrealistic part of this for me, the true sign of the end times, was that they somehow got Cheryl Blossom washing lice out of her niece’s hair. She looks like she wants to vomit and she roped the hapless Heather into it, but still she does it. With her own luxuriant mane down.

There is a completely bonkers transition by the way. The camera zooms in on the foaming lice killer on Juniper’s head which I was terrified was going to show me a big dead lice but then it did something worse - the lice killer shampoo TURNED INTO CAPPUCCINO that Veronica Lodge directly sipped from. WHY?

And there is an answer, actually! Veronica Lodge is about to get news and receive a request that is exactly as palatable as sipping poison foam flecked with dead lice:

Toni tells her that she and Fangs are getting married (siiiiiighhhhhh)

AND

that she is not going to be bringing money and profit to Veronica by renting a champagne suite (Did the Five Seasons get run out of business? I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve heard about the hotel.)

AND

that she is being asked to be a wedding planner.

Veronica is the nicest of the OGs. She really is. She is clearly a bit disheartened by this request, but she keeps the smile on and says only the most perfect, kind, appropriate things.

We cut to Betty and Archie in their nice cozy home.

Betty looks very pretty despite a very loud stripey cardigan made of bath towels, and Archie has surreal brassy reddish orange hair that clashes with his very depressive blue flannel.

Archie says he agreed to be a groomsman for Fangs as long as he doesn’t have to make any effort. I’ll say this for Archie - he always says exactly how much of a limited person and unabashed asshole he really is. It’s not his problem that everyone around him refuses to actually listen to him.

Betty for her part is looking forward to a happy event to dress up for after her difficulties at SlaughterCon. They kiss sweetly and are nice to each other. I agree with them that all of them “need something good to celebrate,” as Archie says.

But a fucking wedding between Toni and Fangs cannot POSSIBLY be a good thing. No.

Another fun shift as we burst through the wall of the Barchie residence to Jughead typing away on the typerwriter Betty got him back in the day. The last word he types is ‘Boys.’ Jughead is in the Bunker with Tabitha. Jughead ropes in all his girlfriends to be his beta readers (unless he’s writing about them directly, maybe) so Tabitha is standing there reading the pages hot off the presses. Tabitha says she loves the La Llorona story he wrote. When asked how he’s suddenly so prolific after suffering long bouts of writer’s block, Jughead says that he’s been ‘riffing off’ of the voices he has been forced to contend with (from Percival’s violating his mind’s boundaries). She is so gentle with Jughead, Tabitha is, so she asks him in the least pressured, most calm way whether he can consider coming out of the goddamn bunker and join normal life. I find it distressing how the bunker behind Jughead looks more and more like his home with her - the bric-a-brac in the green shelf in the corner, the Jughead Jones candle fetish out in full force, his penchant for creating bulletin boards on the fridge.

Tabitha tries to draw Jughead out of the bunker for the (I’m sure it’s cursed) cursed Foni wedding but Jughead says that while writing (by riffing off the voices) does make them subside, he just isn’t ready to go back out into society. Then he says he doesn’t want Tabitha to go alone to a wedding ,and she very gently says she just wants him to be OK. I just love Tabitha so much, and really, after all his troubles, it’s so wonderful to me that Jughead has someone who looks out for him consistently.

In his magic shop, Percival is muttering magic spells (which subtitles are telling me is Latin), bringing on more plague events. There’s a very convenient hole in the brick wall through which Kevin peers in on Percival, and watching him drop something in a bowl of water while muttering makes Kevin freak out quite a lot.

Tabitha is on a tour of good cheer because the next sad person she visits is Veronica. Unlike Toni, Tabitha picks up on the sadness that Veronica feels about her present situation in life, and what Veronica lays out highlights all the ways she’s the Jughead Girl Version. Veronica is mopey because she had a brief but glorious “Dreams Comes True” time in NYC (her as a Wall St. hotshot, him as a hotshot new writer) which then went terribly wrong, replete with a toxic partner, which landed them back in Riverdale under much less fun and thriving circumstances. For his part, Jughead really lucked out in terms of starting a relationship with Tabitha, but Veronica hasn’t had good luck in that area of her life.

Which makes me circle back to Toni. I agree with her that if I wanted something big done right one should go to Veronica Lodge, but she’s asking the woman who had to shoot her husband dead in self defense to plan her wedding. It’s bizarrely cruel.

Tabitha tells Veronica that her five year plan’s also gone to shit, leading to these two brilliant, beautiful, energetic young women having a moment of grief for their aspirations. It was a little bit too real.

Just as Veronica gets done saying she has a lot of love to give and wants to share her heart with someone, she gets an intercom message saying “There’s something wrong with the plumbing.” So I think this must be of a piece with her drinking the lice shampoo cappuccino - her heart is plumbing, and her actual building plumbing is spewing blood.

Everyone’s water is blood - Archie doing his dishes, Britta trying to get a gulp at the fountain, Toni and Fangs’ sink. Kevin chooses this time to visit to make a big announcement: He will no longer be seeking custody of Baby Anthony! So, while Kevin’s custody-stealing arc has come to a pretty OK resolution with his seeking forgiveness, I do find it a little dispiriting that he does it with these words: “You’re his mother, Toni” and also “You’re his REAL father, Fangs, not me.”

This seems exceptionally retrograde for this nonsexual throuple family - a gay couple and their best girl friend and the ambiguous baby daddy / sperm donor / who cares about the paternity had a breakup and now we have a straight-looking couple with their bio baby who are getting straight married with the gay guy on the outs seeking forgiveness for disrupting their nuclear family peace.

Bisexuals in a straight coupling don’t stop being bisexual OBVIOUSLY but this is a weirdly conservative way for the show to drive these relationships. The Foni relationship looks straight and now Baby Anthony’s biological provenance is important. What the fuck.

Oh and also.

FANGS. STILL. HAS NOT. TOUCHED. BABY ANTHONY.

The extremely sad look that Fangs gives Kevin is a tiny nugget they threw my way, I guess.

Archie is trying to mess around with his plumbing. While he’s down there Percival gives a call, demanding that Archie call off the strike. The difference between American TV Villain Brit cadences (so very sing song and high pitched) and All American Hero speech (vocal fry, growly, low, curt, almost monotone) is a fun contrast. Being ominously poetic at Archie Andrews might be fun to do but is ultimately useless, so after flapping his yap about God’s Lowliest Creatures and so forth, Percival is left with no choice but to tell Archie to watch the news which is so lame. Archie Andrews’ density does come in very handy quite a lot of the time.

Right on cue comes Alice Smith Cooper on the news, and she hilariously describes Sweetwater River as having turned ‘blood red.’ Uh, whether a fluid is actually blood or not is actually testable, you know? But the apparently incompetent “scientists” of Riverdale, who are “at a loss to explain this stunning, apocalyptic development” are unable to test whether the fluid in the river is blood, and will only concede that it is red of a bloody hue. It’s up to Alice Cooper to editorialize and put words into people’s mouths (“dare *I* say”) like the trash tabloidist she is at heart.

It’s only after having his girlfriend’s mom tell him through the television that it’s APOCALYPSE NOW that Archie looks concerned and freaked out. His eyebrows are black and his hair is a terrifyingly unnatural color.

Percival “insinuated that he was responsible” for the water going weird, is what Archie tells the assembled Riverdale Avengers (minus Jughead). It surprises me that Archie uses words like ‘insinuated.’ I like that the Riverdale Avengers is this collection of very pretty, extremely strange women. Cheryl (no explanation needed), Betty (ultraweird), Veronica (poisonous murderous party planner) and Tabitha who fits in like she grew up with these people. Tabitha thinks Percival is boasting. Cheryl concedes that powerful sorcerers exist but is not willing to give that crown to Percival just yet.

Cheryl has been all about the low cut top with the push up bra these past episodes and I don’t know, do people get desensitized to such magnificence? I find it so distracting.

Anyway, Cheryl says that she is an awesome Devil’s Advocate, Veronica gives a very funny nod-nod of agreement. Cutting right to the chase, Cheryl suggests that they just kill Percival. She delivers this suggestion with a bright smile, and very responsibly offers to do the deed herself. Tabitha looks not alarmed but rather skeptical, Veronica is stressed, Betty just looks at Cheryl like she’s told a bad joke, Archie puts a hand over his eyes. Cheryl’s exasperated, sotto voce, “Oh my god” before she points out that they have all thought about it is both true and very amusing. I love Cheryl.

Archie as the leader (?) kiboshes the murder plot by saying that in the fight between good and evil you cannot choose the ways of evil. Cheryl rolls her eyes, and so did I. I don’t know about you, but using evil’s tools to dismantle evil looks really good to me in real life right now. Good keeps losing and maybe we need to get our hands dirty?

Whatever. SO anyway, continuing on with the very bizarre retrograde values kick the show is on by forcing this marriage between Toni and Fangs, Archie says that the wedding should not be rescheduled (as per Veronica’s very sensible suggestion) because a wedding will remind everyone about what they’re fighting for, because a wedding is a symbol of a better tomorrow for our families. Right. But that’s so cursed, because this quickie shotgun wedding between the Serpent King and Queen was originally manipulated out of Fangs by Toni under false pretenses (she wanted to marry him to win the custody war), the need for which has now dissipated.

Betty, who has just recently told Archie that getting married, being a mom, and living in a white picket type situation may not be for her, casts a very worried look at Archie as he delivers this speech about Family Values, essentially, being paramount to well being. Oh dear.

Jughead in the bunker is visited by La Llorona complete with water drip and squish sound effects.

The ventilation, plumbing and other issues with this bunker fascinate me all the time. Jug is burning candles in votive cups and bottles all night apparently, because I guess he’s scared of the dark while he sleeps? But doesn’t that do weird things to the air quality, to burn so very many candles like this in a closed space? Also does he LOCK the bunker at night?

Jughead narration says immediately after that he had “vivid nightmare.” It’s not clear what time it is or how soon after that La Llorona visitation (or dream). He asks “Can someone have snuck into the bunker and stolen it?” about the missing La Llorona manuscript. Well I don’t know Jughead! Can you lock the bunker?? The fact that he still makes these single hard-copy drafts of his works even after Jess made off with an entire (cringey, drug-induced) book length manuscript is amazing to me. Get it together, sis.

Meanwhile at the diner the striking workers are chafing at the bit, because having no income (supplemented by whatever per diem the union is able to provide and free meals at Pop’s) is not enough. Tabitha (who has her own business) exhorts everyone to hang on ‘for the future.’ This is the key weakness shared by movements like this, I guess. The present is such a terrible burden, so the endurance necessary for something to be realized “for the future” cannot be sustained.

At the FBI office, Betty asks Agent Lin to get her bibles and texts about apocalypses. The response is highly weird, because Lin immediately assumes that Betty is asking for these things for her personal needs. (“I didn’t know you were such a religious person”). Is this how Riverdale thinks the FBI works, that Betty as the senior ranking (somehow?) agent can make Lin do her personal shopping? Betty explicitly explains that she needs it for a case.

Veronica and Tabitha are spending a lot of time together, which is soothing to me and grounding for the show which is doing a lot of audacious things (La Llorona wetly jumping universes from Vale to Dale; Biblical plague brought on by a black magic sorcerer, Toni and Fangs getting fucking married etc). Veronica is not wearing her very questionable 1980s first lady type skirtsuit with big buttons, for which I am relieved. I love her in polka dots.

Veronica lays the stakes full out:

Tabitha is fighting for Jughead. (WHICH NOBODY HAS EVER DONE BEFORE EVER, NOT ONCE NOT EVER, OMG THIS IS HUGE. ahem). (Betty would have fought for Jughead, in theory, but in actuality did not.)

Betty and Archie are fighting for each other. (Is this right, though? I feel like Archie is fighting against Percival. Archie doesn’t seem like someone who fights FOR things. And Betty is along for the ride, but as always Betty is primarily grappling with the problem of herself.)

Toni and Fangs are fighting for Baby Anthony (So, Veronica the smart one knows that Toni and Fangs are not marrying for love. They’re marrying so they don’t lose their son or risk losing him to Kevin Keller, because Kevin is just that untrustworthy and unreliable. She knows what this is.)

Veronica doesn’t know what she’s fighting for, which is interesting. Most of her teen life she was either actually fighting with her dad or with her idea of her dad and how it affected her. Now he’s dead (at her hands) and she’s feeling adrift, rather than liberated. Tabitha is very tactful and doesn’t try to suggest things that Veronica can feel attached to. Instead she invites Veronica to find out, for herself, her reason for staying in Riverdale.

Except, uh oh, Veronica looks very called out.

At Thornhill (does Heather just live here now?), Cheryl tells Heather that she agreed, at Toni’s request, to officiate the Toni/ Fangs nuptials.

I -

OK So.

The deliberate, unthinking violence that Toni seems to keep doing to her friends (Veronica first, now Cheryl) as she marries the baby daddy that she tricked into marrying her, who really wasn’t that into it, is awful. Cheryl was fortunately wearing her version of Veronica’s 1980s political candidate wife skirtsuit (with the same round brass buttons), and it gives her the affect of a Jackie O post-assassination.

Fittingly, having this act of aggression inflicted on her while she doesn’t have the coldness that I have to just refuse to participate drives Cheryl into deciding to commit homicide as a present for Toni.

Cheryl is all Id. She wants to kill Toni for this cruel, careless, self serving request, so she channels that and wants to give a marriage she disapproves of a charred corpse as a ‘gift.’ Nice.

Percival in the meantime lovingly puts together an altar of food, beautifully lit like a classical still life, before doing some Latin magic spell to do with making things putrid. It rots the food on his tableau but it also rots all the food set out for the Toni/ Fangs wedding.

This is when both My Five Year Plan Failed Tabby Tate and Nothing To Fight For Veronica Lodge both get pissed, but for very different reasons. Tabitha, as a food purveyor, is very annoyed at the ruination of perfectly good, edible food. Veronica, as a very uptight person who used to get a lot of her sense of self from doing and achieving things, is FURIOUS that the thing that she recently put a lot of energy into has been rendered for naught. To fulfill her own ego needs, Veronica insists that the wedding and the rehearsal dinner must go on, in the face of Toni’s very reasonable conclusion that it should be put off.

Meanwhile, Jughead is typing away in his bunker when he get a supernatural delivery of burger, fries and a cup of coffee, which came along with some watery sounds that apparently he can’t hear. He recognizes the scent. Jughead apparently never got over his intense food insecurity, but the scene that happens is extremely funny. Jug sees the clearly NOT NATURAL burger, but only says it’s weird, rather than, I am losing my mind. He says, I shouldn’t touch it, and then touches it. He says, I definitely shouldn’t eat it, then takes the hugest possible bite out of the potentially poisonous burger.

Cheryl in her blue suit and Heather in her Little House on the Prairie pajama dress have made a huge salt pentacle lined with red candles. This is to project Cheryl’s power to burn Percival by burning his poppet. The extremely childish way they recite the common language incantation is a big warning that this is not going to work, because in evil and magic Latin trumps everything. They even wrote it into a little ditty. The fire projection DOES hurt Percival for a bit, which was very fun to watch. But he defeats it, as expected, with Latin.

Nana Rose is set on fire! Cheryl comes in and screams her head off.

Cheryl is not at the rehearsal dinner.

Veronica is not ok. She ends up dissing Pop’s in favor of complimenting Toni (“she elevates everything to five stars” which means Pops isn’t, which, true, but still). Tabitha is shown not to mind.

Then she bursts into song. She sings a song to single girls at a wedding rehearsal dinner. Her eyes did dim watching Archie and Betty kiss just then, but this song has been preplanned. Britta is having a good time because the beautiful Ms Lodge comes to sit on her lap (uhh) but all the adults are increasingly scared at Veronica’s rendition and the pointed delivery of these already sharp lyrics.

I mean, Toni, you brought this on yourself.

You asked Cheryl to officiate, and you forced Veronica to do this, which is only half a step better than asking KEVIN to be your wedding planner. I already didn’t like Fangs this season and now they’ve taken Toni away from me. The bastards!

Veronica takes a glass off the Barchie table, GLARES at them, and then smashes the full glass on the floor. Betty checks to see nobody got stabbed by flying glass while Archie blanks out. Veronica then yanks Fangs out of his chair to violently fling him against the bar, sits on him as the lights turn an evil red, before slamming his head down on the bar top. She hollers “dieeees” as this happens.

She looks insane. She starts shouting at people to rise. Rise! RISE! And nobody does, because they’re too scared, so she points at individuals who have no choice but to comply

Some of the attendees at this thing just think she gave a rousing (if inexplicable) performance because you can hear some dude going Woah! Yeah!!! but Toni, Fangs, Archie Betty, even little Britta - people who all know Veronica when she’s well, are worried, scared, confused, concerned.

So - I am not the hugest fan of Broadway musicals (or West End musicals either, tbh) but I will say that Veronica doesn’t sound bad at all and doesn’t falter in what sounds like a big belting number that has lots of pitfalls for the vocalist.

Afterwards, Veronica is sitting alone at the bar quaffing alcohol. Betty is the only person brave enough to approach her at this juncture. Is this what hell looks like for Veronica? To be weirdly (in)famous in a little town, too rich, too fancy, too successful, too beautiful to be approachable? Betty says something that could be read either way - “That was quite the performance, V” and henceforth I am going to take after Veronica when interpreting statements of this kind. I will simply assume they are praise so that I can respond accordingly.

Betty asks if Veronica has a date to the Foni wedding, knowing the answer is no, so that she can suggest that Veronica third wheel Barchie.

I retract my question - this IS hell for Veronica. I did like the mutual sarcasm of the two girls calling themselves ‘badass’ about their distinctly very lame adventures in being the two girldates of Archie Andrews all the way back as sophomores in high school. This trip down memory lane appears to lead Veronica to conclude that what she’s fighting for is “her friends.” But actually, Veronica just wanted to make this conversation end. Betty did make the right gesture in asking her to talk, but said a series of useless things. That’s kind of a cause for despair, isn’t it? When your female friends can’t come up with the salve for the wound.

Just then, Tabitha and Archie tell B&V about the summons to Thornhill. Cheryl says that HEATHER is rubbing a salve on Nana Rose’s burn wounds, which - why is this? Shouldn’t Cheryl be doing this? It’s HER grandmother. Or maybe this is my not-American credentials coming out. The gang - Archie, Betty, Veronica, Cheryl and Tabitha (as Jughead proxy?) put all the pieces together:

Percival is a powerful sorcerer

He is bringing all the plagues

They must call off the strike and try for subterfuge of the Ghost Train rail construction instead.

Betty wishes they had someone on the inside. Veronica says Kevin might be coming around to the light, so Betty says she will speak to Kevin. Is this wise? Betty and Kevin’s relationship is really actually kind of terrible.

Meanwhile, in the bunker, the magic burger is disagreeing violently with Jughead, who vomits, and then has to lie down.

In the depressing forest greens of the Andrews house interior, Kevin is making a confession to Betty, who absolves him (“I went along with it like a fool” - “You weren’t the only one.”). I see now why it had to be Betty that had this conversation with Kevin. Betty, sensible and practical, has to be the one to bring the audience along to accept the magic /supernatural turn that this story is continuing to take. Tabitha and Cheryl are already too involved in the magic, and Archie and Veronica do not have enough of a connection to Kevin. Percival is officially confirmed as A Magic Man Who Performs Spells. Kevin is given the mission of trying to steal Percival’s book of spells.

At the relocated diner, Fangs is leading The Guys with his tits out to go play basketball. (He touches the basketball, and does not hold his son. Yeah I am fixated on this. Maybe I have daddy issues. What about it?) Archie does forthrightly bring up the topic of calling off the strike to negotiate better working conditions terms with Percival.

HE DOESN’T TELL THEM ABOUT THE FUCKING PLAGUES AND THE UPCOMING APOCALYPSE.

When the very dim Fangs says, without the necessary information that would allow him to make an INFORMED decision, that he wants to do ‘what is right,’ Archie grins and says “Screw it” to unilaterally alter the plan.

Betty has put up a Plague Board in her office. Boils are next. And right on cue, Percival starts ‘boiling’ little men figurines. This is not what boils mean. Archie runs over to Percival, and as he plays around with the chess pieces, Archie asks “What the HELL are you PLAYING at?” Masterpieces.

Percival doesn’t care about the strike. He now just wants Archie’s submission. “Work for me” often means slave labor in Riverdale.

Jughead is visited in the bunker by Cheryl looking fucking amazing in her Rivervale Midsommar get up. She says, “Sweet Forsythe, what ails you?” which is AN AMAZING LINE. He still has his tummy ache. Cheryl stabs him to make it all better. Jughead wakes up , freaked out, only to discover that there’s an actual knife stabbed on his desk. To someone (himself? us?), Jughead narration asks, “How much do you want to bet another one of my stories was stolen!”

Kevin has entered Percival’s lair to enact his mission. He gets caught IMMEDIATELY. Very cleverly, Kevin plays the sad low-self esteem man which disarms Percival.

Betty’s sifting through Bibles when she finds a really well done plate of the Whore of Babylon. Flashback to TBK calling Betty that, which she takes very seriously.

From here we directly cut to Archie Jesus carrying the cross on Riverdale Golgotha. The Jughead narration intones, AND LO IT CAME TO PASS, ON THE THIRD DAY WHILE ARCHIE ANDREWS WORKED THE RAILWAY TO SPARE HIS CREW ANY MORE SUFFERING,

I just basically lost consciousness.

I was so scared I was going to get struck by lightening. Like that time I watched The Last Temptation of Christ scene where Christ walks off the cross led by an androgynous angel to Mary Magdalene’s house to fuck her while she asks if they’re gonna have babies.

Fortunately, the scene is short and we move on to everyone else: Veronica is busily setting up the wedding, FONI are putting their wedding vows together, while a solar eclipse happens which Alice Cooper didn’t make any sort of announcement about.

Betty, as the voice of reason whose job it is to take us all along on this journey, sounds exceptionally beleaguered as she says something literally impossible: “And now SURPRISE ECLIPSES ARE HAPPENING IN RIVERDALE.”

This sounds like something someone who watches a TV show called Riverdale might write into a snarky episode summary, doesn’t it?

Kevin is there to tell her that Percival is buying weapons. “Stockade for the Harlot of Babylon” is the one that really captures Betty’s attention. So Betty goes charging to Percival. She keeps speaking for the viewers (“I don’t understand it. I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND IT”) but charges ahead to say that she knows she’s the Whore of Babylon and Percival’s war is the only war (on the planet?) that she is “aware of, currently,” a phrase that sounds like it was put together by a legal team. She offers to put herself in the stockade in exchange for a stopping of the plagues. Percival tells her what he really wants.

Cut to!

The Blossom residence which is massively done up in candles again (Cheryl and Jughead decorating soulmates). Turns out what Percival wants is Baby Anthony. Earthquakes, Fire from the Sky, Pestilence, Hail and Death of the First Born are next.

Heather has a huge reaction to the word “stockade.” She knows what this is and Cheryl and Heather read the witchy gobbledygook at the group. Two witches, a woman who travels through time, an FBI agent, a mob princess, a cult follower and a Fail Serpent Queen decide to invade Percival’s lair. This is to me strongly reminiscent of True Blood, except nobody is a vampire. (Can Kevin be a vampire, please?).

While they’re doing this, Jughead is talking to a deep dark hole. “Who are you?” and “What are you?” and “What do you want from me?” and “Why are you stealing My Work?”

I really adore Jughead for the way he talks about His Work all capitalized like that.

The dark hole sends him a message in a bottle, that says, Keep Writing, type written. He has a flashback (forward?) to Vale’s Jughead with his ships in a bottle that made Vale Tabitha finally break down and want to kill him.

At his shop, Percival is cooing at a pestilent insect perched on his hand. Betty enters carrying a baby shaped thing in her hands. She even dandles the baby, but it’s a big doll. She is wearing a very interesting outfit for this - a lowcut red dress and purple blazer that doesn’t go with it at all. She summons all the other ones who approached invisibly using Cheryl’s witchcraft that they all accepted and acted as though it totally worked.

Um. OK so - I know JKR is persona non grata to a lot of people so Harry Potter Reference TW (Skip to after the second ***)

****

Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley showed MUCH MORE surprise at the functioning of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak and they went to Hogwarts, than the librarian, the former banker, the diner owner and the sheriff’s son do that Hold Your Breath and Think of Cheryl rendered them invisible to the local wizard sorcerer.

****

Cheryl knocks Percival out with the blow-in-your-face powder that functions like whatever it is Donna Sweett used on Betty back in the day.

Cut to Archie, shirtlessly building the railway, Surprise Eclipse or no. He looks marvelous, all rippling muscles and sweaty skin in the red glow of doom. Jughead is having a wonderful time continuing to use Ye Old Biblical Speeche that I haven’t ever seen in a Bible in our post Vatican II era. Or maybe this is how he actually feels any time he sees Archie without his shirt on - he wants to shout : AND LO!

Percival is captured which brings the sun back. Or rather, the capture of The Mad Monk is what does it. This is what Jughead calls him because I guess Jughead doesn’t realize that Percival and Kevin have fucked. Or maybe he does that on purpose. Oh.

Veronica in a very interesting checkboard green knit outfit, takes the time to taunt Percival, locked up on the very stockade that freaked out Heather so much, in the dungeon she’s rigged up for him in the basement of her establishment (Her vault).

We skip over to the Foni residence where the queers are reconciling. Toni and Fangs tell Kevin that he’s invited to their wedding (which is very not straight, at all, nope) and Kevin excitedly asks of Moose can come too, to which Fangs says yes. Fangs and Kevin and Moose have all fucked each other. This could be so bohemian and out there, but I just hate it.

The Toni/Fangs wedding cake IS A MONSTROSITY.

WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME IT WAS LIKE THIS?

It looks like a pile of rubber tyres wound through with rose petals on thorny vines topped by what looks like a big bloody turd but turns out to be an intertwined pair of a red and green snake forming a heart as the green snake kisses the red snake on its head.

You mean to tell me Veronica Lodge ordered this cake. On purpose? She’s secretly anti-Tangs, anti Foni. Veronica is on my side. I know she is. Because nobody but an anti-fan could order this cake. oH No.

The aesthetics of this wedding horrify me. Cheryl has dusted off her red Serpent jacket to wear over what look like bedazzled matador pants. Toni is wearing a wedding dress that doesn’t flatter her with weird lace cut outs at the sides, Fangs has YELLOW ROSES in his lapel while dressed for a funeral, wearing a terrible fail beard.

Fangs and Toni also got INITIATED into the Serpents. Did they get punched in the face too? I thought they were BORN Serpents? (Goes off into the distance to pitch my usual fit about how I wish they wouldn’t bring up Serpent lore if they’re going to fuck around with it this much).

The speech Fangs gives is mostly fine, except it’s terrible. He says he loves her and their family, but he doesn’t say he’s in love with her. He says it’s us against the world and Toni looks very neutral. Why are they going through with this?

Her speech is even worse. "I love how unconventional, surprising and beautiful our relationship is.” Then she lies. “You’re an amazing father.” No he isn’t. He’s just the sperm donor and has acted like it all season. She says, “You make Baby Anthony and I very very proud.” She does not mention the word love once to speak about Fangs. This is the most damning wedding speech of all time.

I am very appeased by how the writers are making it very clear that Toni knows exactly why she’s getting married. She has realized that she needs to grab as much privilege for herself as she can in order to protect herself and her needs and heteronormativity is one of the few that are available to her. Fangs being queer is helpful because she wouldn’t be able to breathe in a marriage of convenience with a completely straight man (that’s why she loves how ‘unconventional’ their relationship is).

While this bullshit is going on upstairs, Percival hums Flight of the Valkyries to himself to summon the pestilential insects.

Fangs and Toni kiss and everyone is completely BEAMING for unknown reasons (like why is POP’s so happy about this? Or Principal Weatherbee??) but Kevin and Moose are merely being polite. They are correct.

Kevin sings a song with Moose on keyboard at this wedding. Britta has a girlfriend! They’re so excited to be dancing. Britta & girlfriend are the only people that are making me happy during this number. That and the fact that Moose apparently plays keyboard. This makes me like Moose even more.

Percival has broken out of the vault with the help of insects. The first place he goes to is Thornhill, where he murders Nana Rose. She’s the eldest living first born child of Riverdale and he kills her. As the Eldest Daughter I am deeply offended that they’re altering the plague to be First Born CHILDREN and not First born SONS as in the original.

Listen.

LISTEN.

FIRST BORN DAUGHTERS HAVE IT HARD ENOUGH OK? Even Yaweh understood this and gave us a pass that time. Fuck you Percival!

Nana Rose RIP. Her last exhaled breath is red.

At the wedding, Veronica is very upset, watching Barchie dance. Tabitha approaches to comfort her. Veronica asks WHO IS ENDGAME. I’m shocked that she asks Archie And Me as an option for Endgame. Veronica actually tried to make the Endgame with Archie happen, but she couldn’t stand it. Why girl, WHY?

Tabitha knows! And is about to tell her!

But Archie dies.

Then die all the First Borns. Fangs (yay!). Toni (yay!). Unknown Serpents 1.2.3. Cheryl runs directly to Toni.

At the Bunker, Jughead wakes up. I love Jughead wakes up scenes, he’s so great at these. This is again a different variation from what he’s done before. This is being woken up after falling asleep expecting to be woken up by an unwelcome visitor. Jughead has flashlight at the ready (for some reason he didn’t light all his usual candles!).

His unwelcome visitor is HIMSELF! He shouts at himself to turn around. Other Jughead glares meanly at him, but our Jughead starts to expire, under the curious and not very concerned gaze of Other Jughead.

At the cursed wedding where both Toni and Fangs are dead, Betty weeps over only Archie, and nobody went to Sunday school because they all forget that it was THE FIRSTBORN SONS that died, and shouldn’t have affected the women, but I suppose Percival hates women and he upgraded just for us. (I am taking this very personally.)

Everyone names their older sibling (Hermosa for Veronica, Jason for Cheryl) but nobody cares about Heather so she doesn’t say anything. Kevin doesn’t say who his older sibling is and nobody asks about that either. Or Moose. And Baby Anthony is still alive somehow.

The only person who gives a care about Jughead is Tabitha, who runs as fast as she can on super high heels and a tight dress. Betty, Cheryl, and Kevin all simply absolutely utterly do not give a shit. Wow. This is a truly lonely life that Jughead Jones lives. Goddamn.

Heather mentions that they should call on Sabrina the necromancer.

#tw harry potter mention #riverdale is the most catholic show on television #jabitha #anti tangs #anti toni topaz #riverdale season 6 #riverdale opinion #Riverdale s6 #riverdale recap #riverdale episode recap

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