#bughead diner

[bughead-in-the-comics]

Betty and Jughead share a booth at Pop's diner on the cover of Reggie's Wise Guy Jokes #33 (1975).

#bughead #jughead jones #betty cooper #reggie mantle #veronica lodge #pop tate #old comics #comics cover #reggie's wise guy jokes #bughead high school #bughead diner #bughead laughing

[bleachersgirl]

i do think it’s so awesome that they didn’t cave and make bughead or varchie or barchie endgame. the person you date in high school will NOT be the person you end up with even if you live in riverdale!! you will be trapped in with them and all your other classmates forever in a diner in the afterlife though.

#and if you are a lesbian well you will be with your first girlfriend forever i guess but at least you’ll be hippies! good for choni! #riverdale #riverdale spoilers

[imreallyloveleee]

Where do you think it all went wrong with Riverdale?

honestly, part of me is like, the show's over and nothing but fandom matters. so who cares?

the other part of me loves to complain about Riverdale and will continue to do so until the day I die in the parking lot of Michael's Diner in Montgomeryville, PA at the age of 86. so, long-winded answer under the cut

I'm tempted to say it's the s4 b*rchie kiss. It was so wildly out of character for both Betty and Archie that it's laughable. You know how you can tell when something is just blatantly OOC with no justification? They...don't justify it. They find ways to dance around any interaction that might offer clarification. They mute the reactions of the characters who should be devastated by it. And then they jump ahead 7 years so it's easier to just handwave it away as something that happened a long time ago.

but the thing is, I did keep watching after that. I thought: okay, at least we should get an exes-to-lovers arc out of this, which is one of my favorite tropes. there is no way they would spend 4 seasons developing Bughead as this loving, supportive, communicative, sexy, and almost-unbelievably-compatible couple just to tear them apart and never do anything with that dynamic again. maybe it'll be even sweeter seeing them come back together after so much hurt and longing.

boy was i wrong!!!!!!!!!

so, the episode that actually made me stop watching for good, with the exception of some standalones like The Jughead Paradox and the finale, was the s5 musical. that was when i realized that this team of writers was 100% willing, maybe even eager, to completely drop storylines they themselves had been building over the course of a season - do a 180 with all of the characterization and relationships - and then act as though the buildup they wrote never even happened.

in this case, i'm specifically talking about the Bughead reunion storyline they dropped in s5. i'm not going to pretend like it was a GREAT buildup - and it was mostly on Jughead's side, Betty's character in s5 was basically an emotionless misery bot that had sex sometimes - but it was there. Jughead told Tabitha he had unresolved feelings around Betty. that's followed by an entire episode that lays out Betty & Jug's time jump relationship, and how Jughead still believes she's the one who saves him from himself. they work on a case together, they start opening up to one another. Jughead's so worried about her he can't eat.

and then...you know what happens.

(i'll also note here that there was random bts stuff that strongly indicated the musical ep storyline had a drastic last-minute rewrite: lili tweeted a blue dress, suggesting the song with that line was meant for her character; RAS said cole had to do last-minute recording sessions; supposedly crew members have confirmed this was the case, too. since none of it's 100% confirmed you can take it all with a grain of salt, but i believe it.)

it was so fucking insulting as a viewer to give my time and attention to a show made by people who would not only randomly drop the threads they set up, but torpedo them altogether, and then behave like the fans are the ones somehow at fault for expecting a story that actually follows through on its own emotional and plot beats. we're just shippers, so our opinions are dumb and biased! it's just a tv show, so who cares! get over it!

so, i stopped watching, because i knew they would continue to write without any thought or respect for their characters or their audience, and therefore inevitably write themselves into another corner. and, shocker, i was right. they did it again, whisking everyone away to the 1950s because actually resolving any of the scenarios they set up was ToO hArD. why bother when you could just make every single character Righteously Angry and Incurably Horny all the time, lecture the audience about social issues that have already been mainstream progressive for the last several decades, and call it a "love letter" to your fans?

#WHEW ok anon idk if this was what you were looking for but it's what you got #hopefully this has fully exorcised my need to Go Off against the creators of this show but you never know!! #my capacity for bitter resentment is apparently endless when it comes to this show #rd negativity #riverdale #anti b*rchie #anti j*bitha #just in case #anon

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale s7 e1

There is a lot of commentary about whether the show is bad or good, and among those who hold that it's bad, a debate about whether said badness is intentional (It's camp! It's satire! It's  commentary on culture and/or our times!) or brought about from a lack of talent or planning by the producers, writers and/or actors.

What I say is this - I love the care with which Riverdale is made.  Starting with the S7 opening sequence!!

Archie’s painted hot rod is shown, then as the song plays Archie spins into view, his face framed in a little circle. He's doing something with his eyebrows. His smile is just a little off. Not a LOT off. Just off.  Immediately after that we see him press a kiss to Mary Andrews' cheek. We know it's all wrong because Mary Andrews is wary of the violence of this son that she regrets mothering and can't wait to get rid of.  They are not this affectionate.

Next up is Betty Cooper, short hair in the cutest ringlets, smiling sweetly, looking wholesome.  Betty Cooper found the pressure to be sweetly wholesome unbearably suffocating all six seasons of this show.  Immediately after her is Veronica with the most spectacular bangs,  looking pretty and hard and insincere.  These are things that Veronica hates to be thought of as.  

Then comes Cheryl, severely annoyed to be there, giving an evil eyed false smile.  Assuming arguendo that this is Jughead as world-maker as well as narrator, the fact that Cheryl gets to have a do-over of her intro in the montage, a doubling-up if you will, is noteworthy.  Everyone else gets the one shot in the juke box, but Cheryl gets a twofer, wearing the Lolita-Grundy sunglasses and pouting over the door of a great looking convertible. Kevin, looking gormless is up next and it makes me feel worried. Toni Topaz is looking ultra heterosexual with her long ponytail up-do. She winks at the  audience.  This is not edgy Serpent Queen Toni at all. But she and Veronica both look spectacular with bangs.  Tabitha in white cats’ eye glasses and white gloves, blows a kiss to the audience, looking sheltered and innocent when we all know she's a weirdo and not above cosplaying a truck stop hooker to catch a killer.  

The only person who looks like "himself" is Jughead, who comes last.  Worried, frantic, concerned and unhappy - basically, fail-adult Jughead without Tabitha.  Poor Jughead.

The year, he says, is 1955 and apparently people didn't mind when couples executed complicated dances involving swirling skirts inside a diner where people are trying to eat.  Jughead is narrating as he clatters away on a huge typewriter at the Diner.  Apparently the patrons don't mind that either. Does he keep it there?  Did he commandeer the one in the office?? Does he haul it around??

As Jughead narrates, speculating about where he is - Not sure if he's in the past or the past of an alternate universe -  he speaks faster and more frantically, sounding more and more like Bunker Jughead of Rivervale.  He tries to sound unhappy about living in a railcar with Hot Dog (". . . which actually tracks" sighhhh) but we all know he's relieved he's not homeless and couch surfing. Having a dog and a residence of his own is more stability than he's had since graduating high school and before Jabitha began cohabitation.

They're all juniors in high school again!  Betty and Kevin holding hands down the hallway, Betty in excellent patterned pants with eyes only for Kevin who won't look at her.  Jughead looks at the two of them with an expression of suppressing in indigestion burp but neither notice him.  Jughead is worried for Betty, all the time, nonstop, in every universe.  Plus Bughead were the horniest little fuckers in any high school on American television ever, and so the fact of Betty dating a gay man worries Jughead.  He doesn’t want to have sex with her anymore, yet Jughead wants Betty to have good things.  And Jughead has never liked Kevin much, but he’s worried for Kevin too. Betty wasn’t and isn’t a girl who takes not getting her way with grace.

Cheryl still has a twin brother, but she is completely not at all in love with this one.  The face she makes is not of a girl dominating the halls of her high school with her soulmate.  Jughead feels very similar about this iteration of a Boy Blossom, noting first and foremost that this kiddo is Cheryl’s twin, then second that he is not Jason, before introducing us to his actual name: Julian.

Julian like the possessed doll, the chimera twin that got eaten by Cheryl in the womb, etc, that Julian. Who actually knew this Julian name, other than Toni?  

Jughead’s thoughts turn directly from Cheryl to Not-Jason to Reggie then on to Archie.  This is the first of several pings back to earlier seasons, which I am sure I’m not going to be able to catch in a perfect way.  But!  Reggie and Jason were constantly in each other’s company in Jughead’s hallucinatory reminiscences of Jason during S1, even though Reggie barely ever mentioned Jason, and Cheryl has never been shown actually discussing Jason with either Reggie 1.0 or 2.0.

The key thing that Jughead notices about Archie is his body, in the same way the key thing he notices about Julian is that he is not Jason.  Archie being wholesome enough to kiss his mom on the cheek goodbye every morning being into body building in 1955 is very progressive (and gay) of him, isn’t it?  That sort of muscular build was still sort of a niche thing, I thought.

Jughead has been frowning at all these people for quite a while, long enough to confirm that they have no recollection of their S6 selves.  He hasn’t seen Tabitha, who he helpfully explains is chronokinetic and the town’s literal guardian angel AND his girlfriend.

Just in time, Pop Tate announces that the bus from Mississippi has arrived.  Tabitha, looking very sad, is accompanied by Toni, equally sad, and a third person, who I assumed was Chuck even though the actor has changed because that wouldn’t be Munroe.  Sadness from having to witness an act of racial injustice and hatred makes people move in slow motion into the Diner.

Jughead watches Tabitha slowly walk past him before he calls her name.  The way he says “Tabitha” is so cautious, because she might reject any conversation with the guy wearing a bulky sweater with the S stamped on it AND a felt crown making very loud tappity tap noises at her grandfather’s diner, and hopeful, because maybe they’re friends, and maybe hearing Jughead will make this Tabitha remember season 6.  The guarded, questioning response he gets from her makes Jughead change tack fast, to discuss the Emmett Till hearing verdict as something he heard “on the radio.”   When Jughead says the verdict made him “sick to my stomach” Tabitha frowns slightly, wary of where he might go with this, perhaps.   Tabitha saying that she and her friends are trying to figure out what they should do next, Jughead isn’t even breathing.  He’s watching her so hard, so hopeful that Tabitha will give him some hint that she knows this is the wrong universe, and so worried she might not.

When she asks him to confirm that his name is Jughead in a way that indicates they aren’t even friends in this universe, Jughead is so hurt that his drops out of his careful, speak-in-full-sentences 1950s speech, and stutters.  His eyes get much, much sadder, right before he says it’s overwhelming and heartbreaking.  He looks like he might cry.   Poor Jughead.  

The cruelty of his fate is astounding.  He was a kid who was left behind and rejected by his mother, let to live homeless by his father, rejected by Fred Andrews, routinely forgotten by his girlfriend during what he thought of as their shared childhood memories, and now, the singularly stable adult friendship and relationship of his life is like it never existed.  Jughead Jones is someone who hasn’t ever been without a girlfriend, it seems since starting one with Betty Cooper, but now when he needs a relationship the most, Tabitha literally doesn’t know him.

Simply because Tabitha Tate doesn’t know him, Jughead hates everything about the 1950s. (Whoever said the 1950s was the greatest decade should have their head examined, he deadpans.)

Archie is trying to skip out of the house when Mary calls to him.  Archie grimaces so hard at his mother’s summons that I can see it through the back of his head.  This did give me a small twinge of hope that maybe he does remember S1-6, and that Archie is putting on this wholesome teenager act, same as Jughead, until he can figure out what’s going on.  He puts on an evidently false face of doe-eyed innocence when he gets it together to go talk to his mother. He’s literally never made that face before in the past six years.

Mary Andrews is very upset about the photos of James Dean’s car accident in the papers, so she confiscates the keys to Archie’s “hotrod” with “fire painted on its sides.” Archie tries to talk his way out of this but fails.  He longingly looks at his “barely above a jalopy” vehicle before turning to face the reality of having to take a very old looking bicycle to school.

Archie has never been this cute to me. His little face!   Then he’s peddling uphill, getting honked at, and so mad .  Just, adorable.  I wanna give him a cookie.   He gets to school just in time.

Meanwhile, Betty in her very excellent 1950s pants is sitting with Toni in the Blue and Gold room.  Her sweater says Betty on it in a curly font.  With her short blonde curls framing her sweet face Betty looks picture perfect. She and Toni both have such enormous eyes that I keep getting distracted from the serious topic they are discussing - how to get past the school censors to properly cover the Emmett Till travesty.  When Betty says she will throw her weight behind getting the story told, Toni smiles at her in a small cheek scrunching way that she’s never done before.  She looks amazing, by the way - the bangs, the big hoop earrings, the scarf /headband thing in her hair, the Southside Serpent Jeans jacket.

Cut to a class where a 1950s tv announcer voice is explaining what a mill is (a souped up hot rod or jalopy) in a film the class are watching  when the principal (Warden Norton repurposed as Principal Featherhead!) bursts in to make an announcement.  Archie is wearing an R sweater, with Jughead in the S sweater seated nearby.

What do these mean??

Veronica make an iconic entrance, complete with heralding blues horns.  Yellow heels, yellow belt, black dress with white polka dots, black purse,  sunglasses, big black sunhat trimmed with the same fabric as her dress, and red lips.  Lace gloves with little black polka dots.

OMG SHE LOOKS SO HOT.

I want this whole thing.  I make a vow to only wear yellow heels with black dresses.

Archie, getting his first look, drops his pencil.  (Kevin, right behind him, has no reaction whatsoever.)  Jughead, Tabitha-less, looks constipated as he notes:  “Damn.”

Girl, that’s what I said!

With everyone else in some sort of sweater or jacket, buttoned up to the neck, Veronica’s plunging neckline and sleeveless dress makes her look practically naked.   She’s a Hollywood scion - Hermione and Hiram have “Amercia’s number one rated television program,” and of course they’re going to call it, Oh Mija!

I LOVED this in-joke, because it functions as a tribute to Hiram.  Mija was the word he said the most, after, maybe, Archie.

For some reason, this whole situation - Veronica’s appearance, introduction, presence and existence- piss Cheryl off entirely.  She is huffing, rolling her eyes, and generally extremely antsy.

Seated right behind her, Archie is just in heaven. Veronica is being very alternative-universe here: her self introduction is very pompous.  Real Veronica Lodge actually hates pomposity.  Her vocabulary is still very Jughead-huge though (“opportune” and “raven haired.”)  Veronica says that she’s trying a method acting type of thing (de rigueur for the age perhaps - another thing she might actually say) of experiencing small town life so she can better portray the “innocent ingenue” in the upcoming production of “Our Town.”

Longtime viewers are meant to know that she is lying about staying with an aunt-and-uncle, mostly because these people have never been introduced in the past six seasons.  As far as we’ve ever been told about Hiram in the competing lores of his life, he doesn’t have siblings. We have almost no lore about Hermione, other than FP hit on her almost once in high school and she had the affair with Fred Andrews as an adult.

Both Cheryl and Betty do not like that Veronica called them “small town lifers” basically.   Archie is entirely entranced with her, laughing at every little joke that Veronica makes, and even Cheryl pointedly turning in her seat to glare at him can’t make his besotted grin falter even a little bit.  

Veronica purrs and preens when she calls herself “the scion of Tinseltown royalty.”  I’m surprised she doesn’t roll her Rs.  When she winsomely says Thank You, Archie, whose face has been lit up like a christmas tree this whole time, bursts into solitary applause.   Cheryl is still very mad, but Archie gets rewarded with an extremely sexy wink by Veronica for being such an immediate fan.  

Is that a blush I see on Archie’s face?

I love this Archie. He’s so cute.

The table that Veronica chooses to try to join is Cheryl, Betty,  Kevin, Julian and Archie.  This is a weird fricking cluster of people.  Cheryl and Betty? And what the heck would Kevin and Julian have in common?   When Veronica asks to sit, Cheryl wants to say no but she is betrayed by both of the other redheads, who clear the space immediately.  Veronica comes to perch gracefully between the two redhead boys.  

Veronica says she caught all their names in the class they were just in.  Of course, Betty having BETTY embroidered into her sweater probably helps with that too.   Remembering that the R wearing Archie is Archie might be more of a feat.   Veronica shows that she took Cheryl’s eye rolls to heart by pointedly asking Cheryl what her name was.  Cheryl is extremely displeased, yet again.   This seems to know exactly what just happened between Veronica and Cheryl- he is trying very hard not to laugh too much.

Cheryl tries to explain that that they’d been discussing James Dean’s death, very self-importantly adding that she is president of his fanclub, when she gets undermined by Julian, who interrupts with a very weak joke about the Oh Mija! show being “high-larious,” to Veronica.   He says that the Blossoms “tune in every week” which must be a lie, because Cheryl’s whole face sours.  Betty and Kevin seem like they’re on the same wavelength.  They project the same calm, almost bovine energy when they ask Veronica where she lived in LA (BelAir) and if she knew James Dean.

Cheryl sharply tells Kevin off for being “so provincial,” then goes off to sideways disparage Veronica by implying that she wasn’t important enough to be a friend of James Dean, a person who was friends with Elizabethe Taylor.   Turns out Veronica Lodge was ‘friendly’ with Jimmy, “friendly” enough to go skinny dipping together at the Chateau Marmaduke (standing in for Chateau Marmont).  

This makes Archie choke.  Literally.  He focuses on “skinny dipping” -Veronica! Naked! She does Naked things! - while Betty and Kevin (Bevin? Ketty??) are entranced about being that friendly with James Dean.  Julian is more in Archie’s camp - he wants to know if Veronica has done the naked thing once or more than once.  I so appreciate the asshole energy that Julian projects nonstop.  He reminds me a lot of Bret Weston Wallis that way. You know on sight that he’s a dickhead, which is 180 degrees different from the angelic way that Jughead used to hallucinate Jason.

When Cheryl plays with her hair to sarcastically ask if Veronica will claim that she had dated Jimmy Dean, Veronica says no, but then drops a bombshell.  James Dean “played both sides of the net.”  In case the small town rubes don’t get her meaning, Veronica clarifies that this means both girls and boys.  Kevin has a milder version of Archie’s choking reaction from seconds before at this thought.  He’s smiling, and Betty is frowning.  Oh?  Oh???

When Kevin wants Veronica to name what James Dean was, Archie interrupts. This made me wonder if there  was a 1950s term for bisexual, that everyone would’ve known, that you can say on a CW show in 2023?    I guess not because Kevin never gets to finish his question.

Archie has a confused reaction, which fits canon so far and why Jarchie hasn’t happened yet even though it should.  He finds the concept of regular guys who are almost cowboys (all American? Is that what he means to say?) being anything other than 100% proof heterosexual incomprehensible.  Cheryl reacts with homophobic anger - it’s besmirchment, it’s foul, to say Jimmy Dean was not straight.   When Veronica calls her provincial, Cheryl slut shames her.  Nobody cares that Cheryl has flounced off, so now Kevin wants to know about Sal Mineo.

Kevin is definitely not straight in this universe.  Veronica knows it, apparently immediately. Poor Betty.

In science class later that day we see ETHEL is Jughead’s lab desk partner. Jughead is miserable to be back in high school.  He has an Asian American science teacher, who wears nerdy round glasses and has a bit of a lisp.  The teacher says Bailey Comet is due to arrive in two years.   He sounds vaguely Singporean, his teacher.  

Cut to Cheryl screaming GUYS as she floats in the air, trying to ice the comet.

Cut to the end of school, where Archie winsomely offers Veronica an escort home.  He has no ride, however, and Veronica isn’t the type of girl to walk. (She also just can’t, not in those high heels.)  Julian has offered Veronica a ride, ditching his sister wholesale.  JASON WOULD NEVER. Archie and Cheryl can’t bear to look at each other in the face of this rejection they’ve suffered.

In the waning light, Betty and Veronica are trying to talk to two old white men.  Dupont from Stonewall is here in Riverdale now as Werther a ‘child psychiatrist’ who fully backs Warden, I mean Principal, Featherhead that the Emmett Till murder and trial are not suitable subject matter for the school paper.

Toni tries to advocate for publication by saying that people need to know what happened “so that it doesn’t happen again.”  That is so adorable and incorrect.  Knowing something terrible happened again does not in any way ensure that it doesn’t keep happening.  I think the better way to think about it is, We owe it to the wronged to mark their stories.  Featherhead shoots her down by saying that “these sorts of things don’t happen in Riverdale.”  He also says a wrong thing - that “change doesn’t happen overnight.” Actually all change happens overnight.  That’s where there’s always a backlash to any progress, because those who can’t keep up want to turn it back. A lot of the time, they succeed.  In any case, Featherstone patronizes Toni by telling her take satisfaction in how ‘well written’ in article is.

Later, at family dinner in which Polly and Charles don’t exist, Betty tries to push her parents into reading Toni’s article on the air at their nightly broadcast on RIVW.  15 minutes is what they get, of which Toni’s article would take a whole minute.   Hal’s 50s persona is very hilarious.  He looks extremely shifty and chipunky, reminding me quite a lot of Peter Pettigrew of all things.  Alice has absolutely killer eyebrows, sharp enough to slice your face open.   They both repeat Featherstone’s line about the article being ‘well written’ but have no intention of rocking the boat.   Betty is angry but she is overruled by the power of the Blossom money and her parents not wanting to upset their only sponsor.

1950s Archie is still the cutest.  He is working his car, underneath it, as he breathlessly narrates his ove for Veronica Lodge.  He actually says SHAZAM!  persuasively.  Hit with a thunderbolt indeed.  He’s so 1950s in fact that the things he says and the way he says them feel suspicious too perfect. “How’s a guy like me gonna get anywhere with a girl like Veronica Lodge” and so  forth.  Jughead is perched like a depressed crow in his S sweater that seems to get darker and darker as the day goes on, looking off to the side and not listening to this earnest puppy love talk.

Jughead’s narration takes over. He is just so anxious.  He’s talking so fast, thinking about Bailey’s Comet, trying to harness that to get back to the future. “But I needed [ pause ] help.”  He sounds increasingly like the wigged out Bunker Jug of Rivervale.  Archie asks for his dad’s hammer, which sets off Jughead’s memory - that Archie buried the hammer in the time capsule.

The capsule they buried in the year 2020 when they graduated from high school, not to be confused with the year 2020 when they were 6 years after graduating from high school, might still be in existence in 1955 even though they were sent ‘back’ to this time from the first but not the second 2020.

Jughead seems to think this is a logical leap and I am very tickled. I kind of find it annoying (sorry, anti-intellectualism incoming, mea culpa in advance) when time travel stories get too precious about theoretical physics, so this made me very pleased with the wild swings they take in narrative on Riverdale.

So! Jughead asks for a shovel to Archie, who gives him an odd look. Is it because Archie thinks “Can I borrow a shovel?” is a really weird response to “Have you seen my dad’s hammer?” or is it because Archie knows something?

Later that night, Jughead is digging something out of the ground again. Grave robbery is one of his leitmotifs, I suppose?   He hits something hard, and guess what! It’s the time capsule.  Jughead is out of breath as he says “Thank God” but he seems just as frantic and scared as before.  And dun dun!! Someone is watching him do all this from the shadows!  The hairline looks vaguely like Tabitha.

Veronica is going to school the next day, wearing  more modest neckline and weather appropriate warm clothes.   Archie has somehow gotten his car out of the garage, so now he’s able to offer her a ride home. She’s very pleased, but Jughead walks right in between the two of them, carrying the time capsule ice box. Summarily, he insists that the two of them come meet him in the music room. Veronica has no idea who he is.

In the music room, they’re all holding their 2020 self’s contribution to the time capsule.  Toni has never seen the Pretty Poisons jacket.  Veronica thinks the Pop’s menu is an only passable prop.  Betty finds the headlines to be “like Dr. Seuss” meaning amusing gibberish, perhaps?   And Kevin keeps asking unanswerable questions - he wants to know what the “inch” is in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.  Archie wants to know when Jughead buried Fred’s hammer in a cooler.

Jughead tackles that one first, saying “YOU did.”  Archie genuinely looks like he has no idea what Jughead’ is talking about, but I’ve sussed it out now - 1950s Archie’s response to confusion is to smile about it. So he smiles.  Jughead can see that his attempt to “shake something loose” in his friends’ minds isn’t working, so in his frustration, his presentation starts to get very garbled.  He tells them they buried all these things 67 years ago IN THE FUTURE which, given the tenses, doesn’t even amount to English.   He says they need to get back to ‘our present, our future’ before full on stuttering.  Betty is concerned, Cheryl is annoyed, Toni and Kevin look embarrassed for Jughead, Archie is smiling because he’s confused.  Veronica, however, is very entertained.  

Archie wants to know what Jughead buried.  Jughead knows it was his “yarn beanie” but then says it wasn’t in the time capsule.  For some reason, this takes the fun out of this exercise for Archie, the fact that Jughead didn’t include an item of his own in the ‘cooler.’

Veronica says she’ll play along, and asks if she or Elizabeth Taylor is more famous in the future.  Cheryl, not to be outdone, cuts in with a request to give a bird’s eye view of the future.  Jughead has not thought this far in advance, so his answer is (adorably) piss poor.  he just throw things out - smartphones,  text messages, spotify, the internet - in THAT order which is the most confusing thing of all time.  Betty tries to help him out since he’s getting frantic during this speech that makes no sense to her - she asks Jughead to describe everyone’s Season 6 selves.

Jughead’s summaries are as follows:  Archie was in the army, fought in a war. Betty was in FBI hunting serial killers.  The way Betty practically salivates at the word serial killer, which doesn’t exist as a word yet, is VERY interesting.  Veronica owns a casino, and before that a speakeasy.  Toni bought the speakeasy, turned it into a biker bar.  Both Veronica and Toni are charmed by this story.  

Jughead positively chokes when he tries to summarize Kevin’s life.  He can tell, by this time, that this is going very sideways, which won’t be helped by how out of sorts Kevin’s life became by the end of Season 6.  Kevin is summarized as directing some musicals, after which he joined an organ harvesting cult.  Not wrong, but not very fulsome.  Cheryl, Jughead says, was possessed by an ancestor and became a witch.  She is not a happy customer, at all.

Archie says a fascinating thing- that he wouldn’t want to go back to the future because “we” sound miserable. Well, given that he was just told he joined the army and went to war, this is true for him, but not all the futures are miserable.

Veronica wants to know how the whole ‘going back to the future’ thing will happen, to which Jughead’s entire presentation falls completely apart. When he says that one of the ways might be a comet, Toni (who has tried very hard to be polite so far) gives a What the fuck look to Betty, who answers it with a Oh he’s just like this smile.   Jughead is fully in frantic world-maintainer Bunker Jughead mode now, and starts shouting about having Archie and Betty make out on Archie’s bed and then “BLOW  UP A BOMB UNDERNEATH THEM.”

This is so funny. I love with Jughead gets all Bunker-Jug, with the shouting and the extreme hand gestures. Is he perhaps channeling Hiram??

Everyone thinks this is very funny, but Archie has had enough.  Archie tries to make Jughead ‘take five’ which puts Jughead fully into feral motormouth mode to ask “YOU’RENOTGONNABEATMEUPAREYOUCUZYOU’REREALLYVIOLENTINTHEFUTURE”

The whole sentence is spit out as one long word.

When the two of them are alone in the gym, Archie lets it rip.  “People are going to think you belong in the looney bin with the other nutjobs!” and “It’s hard enough without your crazy stories” etc.  Jughead is coming down from his frantic mania so being called a ‘nut job’ is not helping.  His eyes actually start to glisten with tears.  “You think I’m crazy?” he asks, in a more normal, much sadder cadence.   Jughead is so upset, and so lonely, and so despairing.

This is a big change from his mid teens, when he took on being not understood, being isolated, unique and alone, as a badge of honor.  This Jughead understands the horror of being trapped in a solitary reality.  He can’t even stand to look at Archie, because that would mean confronting how trapped and alone he actually is in this universe.  Archie tries to be kind, telling him to keep using his ‘overactive’ imagination by channeling that energy into creating fiction.  When Jughead gives up altogether, and agrees, Archie actually skips a couple steps (something he’s never done in any of the other universes) before leaving Jughead standing in the gym.

At the very red, very depressing Blossom mansion, Penelope, who has the most fascinating hairdo (it’s both ornate and simple, hideous and perfectly coiffed) while dressed like the nightmare camp version of the English queen wants to know why  her twins look so sullen.  The way the Blossom twins of this universe bicker seems much more realistic, and, accordingly, much more dull.   I think this is post facto validation for the way the Cheryl-Jason relationship is in the S1-6 canon. It’s so much more interesting than this mundanity between Julian and Cheryl.

Penelope delivers movie magazines to Cheryl, and on the cover is someone not Veronica Lodge being cast in Our Town!

Meanwhile, Veronica is on a date with Archie at Pop’s!  She loves the food. All her attempts to make lighthearted conversation with Archie fail.  He has no idea who Gloria Swanson is.  This literally breaks Veronica’s spirit.   So she changes her line of questioning - “Tell me everything there is to know about Archie Andrews.”

His life is so boring.  “Work on my car. I like sports. I come here to pops. And i hangout at sweet water river.  mostly to fish.”

Then Archie reveals that Fred didn’t make it back from the Korean War, making him one of the 33,000 American servicemen who died.  Thank you Fred Andrews for your service, I guess? I’m slightly peeved that they didn’t make up a different war like they did for Archie to go fight in during the 2020 that lasted for seven years, but then they used the real Emmett Till story so they might as well use the Korean War, I suppose.  Archie is very used to people being upset about having asked, as well as not knowing what to say, so he is very smooth in the way he assures Veronica that “It’s OK” when she tries to apologize for prying.   In this universe, Mary Andrews works part time at the dress shop (no lawyering for her, alas).   I’m shocked she doesn’t work at Pop’s.  Though I guess maybe this economy is better.

Archie has never had a serious girlfriend by his Junior year of HS, about which Veronica is shocked.  Two days after meeting Veronica and in the course of their first real date, Archie more or less says that he wants to be Veronica’s boyfriend. He looks so starry eyed at her, that Veronica is extremely charmed. (So am I.)

But Veronica can’t be let to have nice things, so in comes Cheryl, shouting “J’accuse!”  Cheryl hates Veronica SO MUCH.  Just the ad hominem insults - “lying liar of a spoiled brat” and “banished by your parents!”  - and she insists on shouting the fact that Veronica employed a bit of puffery when she was introducing herself to the class.  

At the Pembroke, Veronica is weeping while consoled by Archie.  Archie tries to say nobody takes Cheryl seriously  Veronica fesses up that she was in fact banished, and she was a problem for her parents.   Veronica says she was ignored and sidelined since the Lodges started Oh Mija!  This is fascinating actually because Veronica’s persistent problem during her high school years was that both her parents were completely obsessed with her- and when she acquired a hitherto unknown older sibling halfway through her years in high school, Hermosa exhibited the same Lodge trait - obsession with Veronica, wanting to love her, wanting and willing to shoot at people on her behalf, and hating her just the little bit.  Now, in this universe, she’s an inconvenient burden neither parents cares much about - which indicates that Veronica was so the object of her parents’ focus because the two of them didn’t have sufficient creative outlets.  “The show is their real baby, not me.”    

This happened in a slower way during S5-6.  When Hiram finally, FINALLY killed off Riverdale and began his SoDale giant real estate project, he stopped being as invested in Veronica per se.  And when Hermione found the semi-acting gig of being a “Real Housewife,” she disappeared entirely out of Veronica’s life.

It turns out Veronica’s deep dark secret, the thing that got her banished to Riverdale by her parents, was that she was in fact tangentially involved in James Dean’s death.  She was one of several good time girls who formed a sort of racing fandom for Dean, and were going to meet him to cheer him on during a race.  

After consoling Veronica, Archie gets home late, to be immediately yelled at by Mary.  Mary is traumatized by the loss of Fred Andrews - which she honestly wasn’t very much in S4-6. Maybe this is why, if he does remember, Archie prefers to stay in this universe.    He has a mom who cares deeply that his father died.  Mother and son bond over their shared loss.  The compromise is that Archie is allowed to drive as long as his car goes very, very slow.  I will also note that his question about how he took HIS car out in a drive is a very unteenager thing to say.  So the question remains - what does Archie know or sense about this alternate universe?

In a fit of masochism, Veronica watches her parents’ show.  The kid cast to play the Mija is Tillie Temple (aka Shirley Temple, perhaps??).  Veronica hates Tilie.  Of course, right now is when Hermione calls.   Turns out someone is keeping a strict eye on the guests that Veronica has over at the apartment.  Veronica wants to go home for Thanksgiving, but Hermione doesn’t say she can come.  She has Orson Welles visiting.  Veronica is so lonely.   This is also new for Veronica - Maternal rejection has never been her problem.  That was usually reserved for Jughead, Cheryl and to a lesser extent, Betty and Archie.

Betty reads the Emmett Till newsletter which show the pictures of what Till went through.  It radicalizes Betty  into wanting to publish the article Toni wrote.  But Toni wants to read a poem out during the morning announcements. There’s an echo of the larger theme in S1 through 6 here.  In previous seasons, Cheryl took it upon herself to make up for her ancestor’s sins. In this one, Toni wants Cheryl to make it up to - who? Toni? the world? - someone for her parents’ cowardice in not wanting to cover the Till murder.   Toni is planning an ambush.

Tabitha immediately approaches Jughead She asks for help.  NAACP is taking Emmett Till’s mother on tour, so Tabitha is going with them.  What Tabitha needs someone to help her ‘stay on top of’ school while she is on this tour.  It’s really not clear to me what that will be, but Jughead - though he is crushed that this Tabitha doesn’t even seem to know him at all - agrees immediately.  His eyes get all sad again, as he looks with wistful tenderness at this person who is exactly like his girlfriend but isn’t, at all.   He smiles and says “Awesome!” which he corrects to “Swell.”

Meanwhile Toni ambushes Cheryl in the bathroom with Betty.  Cheryl doesn’t mind letting Toni borrow her platform, but points out that Featherhead has pulled the plug before.  For what, I wonder? When??  She’s otherwise very easily persuaded.

Tabitha has fainted, Featherhead is tending to her, Miss Bell is off, and so now, Toni can take over the morning announcement!

As Toni was reading the Langston Hughes poem I realized with the Rs and Ss stand for on those sweaters. R is for Riverdale.  A bunch of other students have Rs emblazoned on their sweaters and sweatshirts.  So the S must be for Southside.  Jughead wears a Southside High sweater all the time to attend Riverdale High, and they just let him!

So anyway Toni exhorts everyone to ‘talk to each other’ about it, and this is the third weird lie propagated in American society.  The emphasis on dialogue as somehow a catalyst for systemic change, which it is not

The four girls get a telling off from Featherhead, who tries to call them liars -but Tabitha has an answer for that (she felt sick! but felt better!) and insubordinate - but Cheryl has an answer for that (there has not been a rule that poetry can’t be read during the morning announcement or that they have to pass censorship).  

In the classroom later, the teacher does open up the discussion to the topic, but see, this is the problem.  It puts the burden on the three people of color - Tabitha, Toni, and the unnamed guy I have assumed is Chuck Clayton- to explain reality to everyone else, who can be passive recipients of information and responsible only for articulating their emotional responses.

Later that school day, Veronica is offered a ride by both Julian and Archie, and rejects them both in favor of walking home!

Late at night, Jughead is freaking out by himself in the diner, no typewriter.  He is cracking up.  Maybe seasons 1-6 were the dream and he finally woke up!!  

Tabitha slides into the booth and Glory Hallelujah it’s HIS Tabitha!  “The Tabitha who remembers and loves you.”  He reaches out to grasp her with both hands.  He’s so happy to see her, he says, covering his eyes with one hand, trying not to burst into tears.  Tabitha says that the comet hit because Cheryl failed, so they had their extinction level event  after all.  This isn’t the Sweet Hereafter.  She instead used her life force to send everyone back to 1955 to try to change the future.  She has to be ALONE to untangle all the messed up timelines.  “You have to make a go of it here in the 50s.”

So she parked Jughead here in 1955 to be safe, but because he kept remembering the actual reality (and could drive himself insane or further corrupt the safe timeline) she had to come back to make him forget, so that he can “live in the present, in the moment.”   Oh, but Tabitha.  Jughead was already so bad at that!  And now that’s his part of the mission? To hold it together without her while she fixes the universe?

Jabitha may be the MOST EPIC relationship in scale which doesn’t quite make up for the tiny amount of screen time we’re likely to get if Tabitha has decided that she has to solve this universe sized problem ALONE.  Jughead was willing to die a LOT.  Tabitha went through every single scenario where Jughead died to see how to make that not happen.  And now, Jughead is going to endure having the happiest time of his life wiped from memory - the time when he was a stable adult, who knew who he was in the world, when he was in a relationship and family unit of people who accepted him and supported him, when he had a real home - because Tabitha says it’s “for the best.”  He decides to trust her with erasing the thing that any of us hold the dearest - his memories that constitute his sense of self.   And can we talk about Tabitha’s self sacrifice?  She’s going to do this very difficult work of setting the UNIVERSE RIGHT while voluntarily, entirely, completely forgotten (by her own hand!) by her significant other who adores her,  all her friends in the community she chose to become independent from her parents, all alone.  

Holy shit.

Jughead’s sprint home after their kiss, which rightly seems to freeze time to be everlasting before Tabitha steps away, is so desperate and frantic.  Jughead who was terrified of being forgotten is beginning to forget the most important person in his adult life. All he has are the words “bend. toward. justice.” and the sense that something terrible has just happened to him, without the ability to remember what it is.   This isn’t the Sweet Hereafter.  This has to be hell.

I am LOVING this.  It’s so BIG.  I wish they could SHOW it though.  But I think eventually, because the universe does in fact bend towards justice, someone will write me the fanfic that will have me lain flat on the floor from devastation.  Because omg the Jabitha relationship has SCOPE.

And the final kicker-  Jughead doesn’t recognize his stupid hat.  Ha!

P.S.  The title reference, “Don’t Worry Darling”  if it’s to that movie that came out this year, in 2023, then it’s very twisty and fun.  Because that movie is about a man manipulating a woman’s mind for his own aggrandizement, and this episode is the mirror of that - a woman manipulating a man’s mind, with his explicit agreement, to save the universe.

#riverdale season 7 #riverdale opinion #jabitha #tabitha tate #jughead jones #veronica lodge #riverdale episode 7.1 #i am back on my bullshit #but wow these are taxing to write #i was so insanely bored during the pandemic that i could churn out one of these per day almost lol #i love this show so much #riverdale positivity #riverdale s7 recap #riverdale s7 #Riverdale s6 #riverdale recap #riverdale episode recap

[archietransdrews]

trixie and katya voice well, that episode had it all: parallel universes, a time loop, characters who learn that they're in a story, the core four doing murders on each other, two reggies, alive jason, dead cheryl, ginuwine's PONY, long-haired dilton doiley, return of ethel, archie finally breaking bad, betty in a blood-spattered wedding dress, lesbian bughead, lesbian vughead, jason/jughead, pop's diner confirmed as riverdale's version of heaven, killing your double, ben button saying "fyi, daytime hallucinations are a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia; have an awesome day".........

[daphnesvieira]

Don't You Forget About Me

For Bughead Appreciation Week - Day 5: Missing Moments

Summary: Amnesiac Betty reads her high school journal about her great love with Jughead with whom things ended badly when they were 18. She’s back in Riverdale and has meals delivered daily from Pops by a cute guy named Forsythe. They soon fall in love. Will she get her memories back and realize Juggie from the journals is Forsythe from Pops? What happens when she remembers what drove them apart in the first place? Was the amnesia a blessing in disguise making her forget all her past trauma? Will they make it this time or will history repeat itself?

Teaser under the cut (for the 2 people who said they wanted one: @middleagedresidentofriverdale & @forthehonoroflove)

Feb. 9, 2017 Dear Diary, new year, new me! Ok so the new year started over a month ago, but I decided to start this new diary even before I’d finished the last one so that all the Archie drama would stay in the old diary. This is a brand new start! I’m no longer the pathetic loser hoping to date her dum-dum neighbour! I am Elizabeth Anne Cooper, journalist! That’s right: I officially revived the Blue and Gold at school today! I even managed to rope in Juggie so I wouldn’t be doing it all alone. He and I will solve this mystery of who killed Jason, I just know it!

Betty smiles. She wants to remember this girl that she apparently used to be. The doctor said she should move back home, into a familiar setting that might help jog back her memory. Her mom apparently couldn’t be bothered to move back to Riverdale with her and help with her recovery, but she did give her the keys to the house they used to live in and where Betty spent most of her life before heading out to college. She wonders what kind of relationship she must have had with her mother where she wouldn’t come stay with her now. Yet another mystery to add to the ever-growing pile of what her life used to be before she got amnesia.

She puts down the journal and looks for the others that she would have written prior to this one. Maybe she’ll get a sense of who these people are? Archie, Juggie (that can’t be a real name, right?), Jason and most of all, herself. She doesn’t remember any of it and evidently, the universe doesn’t want her remembering because there are no other journals to be found. Maybe she took them with her and they burned in the fire along with the rest of her stuff and with her memories apparently. But why would she leave only this one behind? Maybe she’ll understand if she reads more diary entries.

But for now, she’s hungry and there’s nothing to eat in the house. She remembers her taxi driver saying something about a diner. She pulls out her phone and types: ‘Riverdale Diner’ Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe is the first result so, after quickly browsing their menu, she calls.

Man’s voice: “Pops Diner, how may I help you?”

“Hi, my name is Betty Cooper and I’ve just moved back into my childhood home at 111, Elm Street. I don’t have any food yet so I’d like to order delivery.”

Man on the phone, hesitantly: “Hum, yeah, sure thing Betty. What did you want?”

She orders the ‘Pops Special’ which she’d found online when looking for the phone number. The man assures her she’ll have her food in 30 minutes so she sits more comfortably on the couch to read a few more journal entries while she waits.

Feb. 24, 2017 Dear Diary, Juggie and I have been working on solving Jason’s murder every day. I really like spending time with him again. We sort of lost touch there for a while, but now it’s like we’ve fallen right back into our old rhythm and familiar habits. We went to Jason’s memorial this afternoon and Jughead looked really cute in his suit. I don’t know why I’m writing about it, it’s really not important… But also, I can’t stop thinking about it. What is wrong with me? Do I have a crush on Jughead? No, it’s gotta be the suit. Yeah, let’s go with that.

*Coming soon-ish to AO3*

#bughead appreciation week #bughead fanfiction #bughead fanfic #bughead fic #bughead appreciation week 2023 #my fic #my writing #don't you forget about me #missing moments #betty's diary

[downahill]

what’s really incredible about the jughead paradox episode is the fact that the shows directly like yeah it doesn’t actually matter whether it’s barchie bughead vughead w/e as the endgame couple, the thing that’s most important is that the entire universe (including 50s hetero comic book store/diner heaven in addition to riverdale and rivervale) is powered by jughead knowing all this and being alone like he HAS to be sealed in the bunker/closet in order for the story to continue

#all this to say. jarchie longcon real <3 #riverdale

[queen-of-the-queers]

So. I received an anonymous message today with a link to a post made by a Bughead shipper (who I won't be naming), which listed all of the reasons they hate Tabitha. I thought we could all have a read, shall we? I don't usually do posts like this but this just makes my blood boil.

Number one.

Firstly, Pop's is her diner. Her grandpa put her in charge and she legally owns it, so she had every right to say that! Also, I think it's a perfectly reasonable request of hers to ask him to not use up valuable space in her establishment to just sit, use the free wifi and order coffee without paying for it. Aside from that she didn't know him. She didn't know his history with the diner, who he was or what his deal could be. I seriously wonder, what would you do if you owned a restaurant and a random, sad looking guy walked in and sat there all day, not buying anything?

Tabitha also didn't treat him badly. She made a few very fair requests, then ended up covering for him with debt collectors and offering him a job, simply because she sensed he needed it. If that doesn't scream "good person" I don't know what does.

Number two.

Need I remind you that Tabitha said no initially regarding the shrooms, and was very kind about setting boundaries with Jughead? She communicated in a mature, adult way and I think she should be commended for that.

Furthermore, the only reason she agreed to watch him while tripping was because he already went ahead and bought the mushrooms, and she likely figured he'd be safer doing them with her watching over him than alone. And if you think for a second that his pretending to date him in the Jessica situation was weird or creepy, you clearly haven't watched the same scene I have. Jughead's face screams discomfort. Think of it as the Riverdale equivalent of pretending to be in a relationship with your friend at a bar, so a persistent person they aren't interested in stops asking for a hookup?

Number three:

This wasn't Tabitha's fault, or a reason to hate her?

Betty was the one who handed over the manuscript, and while it wasn't her fault either (both of them had been drugged, give them a break), to demonise Tabitha for explaining this to Jughead is ridiculous!

Number four.

Ok, firstly, to imply that Tabitha somehow coerced Jughead into wanting to become sober is absolutely ridiculous? I won't talk too deeply about alcoholism here because as somebody who has never experienced it/known someone who has, that really isn't my place. But I will say, it is clear that Jughead deeply wanted to become sober. He was miserable, and really not living his best life. And as with most mental health issues, it's very hard to recover alone. He is so lucky to have somebody like Tabitha there for him, who can encourage him to attend his meetings, let him know that she cares and be a confidant. You said it yourself- she helped him in the end.

As for the thing about Tabitha calling him out for having alcohol on his breath... She did it in such a kind and understanding way, a way that encouraged him to open up to her and agree to take further steps in his recovery. I think he really needed that little push. I say this from personal experience, having someone close to you gently call you out on something going on in your life can really help you to understand it better yourself.

Also, how is putting your hand on somebody else's immediately flirting? I do that to my friends all the time, as a gesture of comfort, to show that I'm there for them and feel that we have a strong relationship. Although we now know how Jabitha have progressed, this was something that could very much have been interpreted platonically.

Finally, that night Tabitha went to Betty's house to check on her, for both Betty's and Jughead's sakes, and walked around a dangerous highway with her all night, in order to keep her safe. If that isn't immensely kind of her, I don't know what is.

Number five.

Do you understand how a relationship/friendship works? Both people actually have to support and be there for each other.

I'm so glad we got this moment, of Jughead showing up for Tabitha in a way that emphasised how mutual the trust between them is. He can be vulnerable with her, and her with him.

Being an alcoholic wasn't and will never be Jughead's whole personality. Are you saying, that because he has an addiction, he can't go out for dinner with somebody who has been incredibly kind to him, for one night? Sure, that makes a lot of sense. What's so different about him supporting her through this one, hard meal, to her being there for him for weeks on end? Huh?

Let's also not forget the fact that it was Jughead who asked Tabitha out. And since it was his garage, he was probably the one who invited her there too. You know what? I don't think the issue here has anything to do with Tabitha, or Jughead's wellbeing. I just think that maybe you can't stand the idea of seeing Jughead with anyone but Betty. Did I get it right?

Number six.

I'm so confused, I can't see whether this person does or doesn't like/care about Jughead. One minute it's all "why would you ask an alcoholic to move in with you, that's doomed" and then next it's "he needs to heal, my poor little friend".

Anybody who really cares about Jughead's wellbeing would understand how loving, supportive and kind Tabitha has been to him, and see the trust that has formed between them.

As for the point about them having only had one date, keep in mind that they have known each other for a year now, and have shared regular shifts at Pop's. Despite not having had many formal dates, the bond is there. Though this isn't about Jabitha as a ship, it's about Tabitha as a person.

Closing statement.

You know what? I'm tired. The only part of this statement I'm going to talk directly about is the section where it says "again... we know NOTHING about you. What are you really running from Ms Tate?"

Maybe instead of judging the fact that we know very little about Tabitha as a character, we could all take a moment to consider why that is. And maybe to think about other characters, for example, Toni, also don't get much backstory either. I'm not going to make this about race (because as a white person, I really don't think I'm educated enough to make intelligent comments about this), but it certainly seems as though this issue comes into play with the Riverdale writing. Just a thought.

--

So there you guys have it. Six, nonsensical reasons for hating Tabitha Tate.

And you know what I think? I don't think this is specifically about Tabitha at all. No, I think that this OP can't stand the idea of their lovely Jughead being with anybody apart from a certain blonde- we've seen it already with Toni- whoever the character is, if they get in the way of Bughead, they're hated (and the fact that both of these occasions feature love interests who are women of colour adds a whole other layer to this problem that I won't be going into right now).

Overall I'm so happy we have Tabitha on this show and that Erinn is a member of the cast. They are both beloved by me, and so many others throughout the fandom. I encourage everyone who sees this post to show both the character and actor some love. Erinn's really earned it, having to deal with nonsense like this.

And OP.. keep my wife's name out of your f*****g mouth.

#thanks for coming to my ted talk #and #sorry for the rant #i just can't stand anyone who doesn't like tabitha! #like how boring is that? #please don't send hate to this person if you find them #or message them about this though #i don't want to upset anyone (though this will inevitably reach someone who'll be mad) #i just felt the need to comment on this because it's so irrational #why did i spend 20 minutes on this instead of studying #rivvie dale takes #tabitha tate #riverdale #riverdale season six #riverdale season five #anti bughead #anti b*ghead

[raymondebidochonlifechoices]

To summarise:

6x14 or “Nothing has been scientific since the explosion”

This is an episode about the epic highs and lows of adult superpowers.

After dedicating one whole episode to Archie, the World’s Mostest Invinciblest Man, it’s time to learn about the downside of having superpowers. Yeap, you guessed it: it’s Betty and Veronica’s time to shine.

Cheryl debates over the possibility of calling Heather. Nana Rose, who knows firsthand what being a secondary character in Riverdale is like, says no. Cheryl, on the other hand, who is core four adjacent, and knows Heather won’t be having any scenes without her, says yes.

It’s whatever o’clock, which means Archie has some free time away from RHS to visit his good friend Jughead, who also has some free time away from RHS, and whine about Percival. Is Betty at work? Is the Diner still open? Who knows? Who cares?

Nothing has been scientific since the explosion, says Archie, i.e. the Riverdale writers are breaking the 4th wall.

There was only one prison doctor: Dr Curdle Jr, coroner, pediatrician, almost obstetrician, now toxicologist-at-a-mortuary-nearby-you, diagnoses Veronica with high toxicity. All the toxic encounters with daddykins had to lead somewhere, I guess.

Veronica embraces her black-widowesque nature by dressing like a black widow, i.e. like a widow. Who wears black. As Reggie puts it: “You look insane”. (But also hot).

Archie tries to build up immunity to palladium by exposing himself to it. Cheryl warns him that he’s playing with forces beyond his understanding. To be fair, this is Archie, so everything is beyond his understanding. Anyway.

Cheryl asks Nana Rose for her book on Rasputin for some esoteric info that could help Archie. I believe she’s looking for the part that goes: Ra ra Rasputin / Lover of the (ex) Serpent Queen / They put some palladium into his wine / Ra ra Rasputin / Riverdale’s greatest love machine / He drank it all and said, "I feel fine". There is truly nothing scientific after the explosion. Also, adult stories.

“I can’t be weak in the face of Percival” says Archie while implementing a regiment that will ensure he becomes even weaker.

Betty asks Archie is he’s ok. He initially lies but then comes clean and asks her to open a can for him. Archie thanks Betty and proceeds to ask her how she is. Nah. Kidding.

Betty asks Jughead to read her subconscious mind and unlock her repressed memories, because, yes, you guessed it, there is more misery for Betty.

She organises her memories into Betty Cooper’s Comic Spectacular, a series of comic books for Jughead to read in his mind’s eye. Bughead hold hands and they’re immediately transported to their first kiss and discussion about babies. We now know why they haven’t shared any one-on-one scenes: too hot. 

Veronica is furious that Reggie is in cahoots with charlatan Percival with whom she’s also in cahoots (since she has accepted his triple rent and allowed him to live at the Babylonium).

She could have poisoned Percival but, no, she gives Reggie a nosebleed instead.

Chris O’Shea has made Percival’s amusement at the core four shenanigans into a character trait and can now smile and laugh at their lines without breaking character. Respect.

Dr Curdle Jr thinks Ronnie is going to die by all the toxins. He’s a man of science, therefore, he doesn’t understand her venomous superpower: Veronica is cursed with the snot of doom the kiss of death. The lick of murder. The nibble of demise.

Heather is a(n almost) completely new character, so, in lieu of backstory, she’s mentioned thrice during the episode to make the transition smoother. Right.

Betty has another appointment with Jug, so she dons her green blazer, the one that goes with Jug’s sofa and that makes her eyes pop. For science.

It turns out Alice had been lying about not having the serial killer jeans (only acceptable spelling). Also, Hal tried to groom Betty into a serial killer when she was little but, like, only once. (Suspiciously, the same once involving the late Caramel that we already knew about). Canon rewrite or clue that this universe -much like the Vale- is collapsing?

Beronica are about to have a girls night at the Wyrm! Will they pass the Bechdel test this time?

The answer is no, because Betty invited Archie as well.

As he becomes less dense, Archie finally realizes what was established 7 episodes ago: palladium makes him weak. Archie stops microdosing with Cheryl’s palladium soup (actual words) because the palladium in it made him lose strength. Will he forget again once he becomes denser? Only time will tell.

Cheryl is about to forge Archie through the power of metal transmutation. I mean, it’s not as if the writers haven’t warned us about the nons(i)ense. Betty wants to know if there are any drawbacks. Cheryl admits that Archie might die during the process but she didn’t consider it important. Betty’s furious but I’m with Cheryl. Surprisingly, so is Archie.

Faced with the possibility of death, Archie asks for one more night of sex. The level of b*rchie romance is killing me. Faster than palladium kills Archie, I might add.

After sex with Archie, another traumatic experience: Betty discovers what’s under the floorboards under the dining table. It’s proof that Alice Cooper - the same one who goaded Hal for not being able to kill anybody back in s2- knew about Hal’s extracurricular activities - and was afraid of him. Again, canon rewrite or clue?

Bummer: Archie didn’t die.

Archie’s SAT Greek is as good as his SAT English, the words ‘power’ and ‘combination’ are, nevertheless, pronounced and are, apparently, enough to turn his biceps into iron and his brain into tin. Archie can now officially shit steel and burp filings. Breathing might turn out to be a problem, what with all that oxygen … His hair remain red but it’s now due to rust.

Another Lodge bites the snack!

Another Lodge bites the snack!

And another Lodge bites and another Lodge bites- 

Another Lodge bites the snack!

Betty finds an opportunity to get rid of Archie without him realising and gets on with it: she tells him to make out with Veronica, so that she can get her mojo back. 

Fortified by Archie’s kiss, Ronnie dedicates Britney Spears’ Toxic to B*rchie and the Casino’s shareholders.

Meanwhile, after having touched Betty’s hands twice, Jughead gets rapid-fire flashbacks of Bughead kisses. RIP Tabitha’s shoulder.

Heather arrives at Thornhill but that is a story for the next episode.

Toffee had to run to the mall to get some anticorrosive spray and metal shiner to polish Archie’s abs. The sooner Veronica gets a glimpse of them, the sooner, Toffee can steer Betty in the right direction.

#Riverdale season 6 spoilers #Riverdale season 6 #s6 recaps #anti-b*rchie

[clueingf0rlooks]

my main Riverdale finale takeaways:

1. killing Fangs in a tour bus at 18 with an infant and a wife left alone is so brutal and unnecessary??

2. “86 year old Betty” on the brink of death looked like a very healthy 70yo (actress is 68, lol)

3. So..did Jughead die 2 years prior or did the show forget they’re the same age?

4. Archie you are a terrible poet and how are you even referencing these things if you only have the good memories?

5. Varchie both in Cali, Archie with an unnamed and unseen wife, no mention at all of Veronica’s love life, Betty confirming it is definitely NOT her that Archie married, manifesting Jug in her hour of need, Jughead regretting not getting married then playing the Bughead cue…could RAS not be a coward for 5 minutes and just give us a confirmed Bugvarchie endgame??

6. Speaking of cowardly, lol @ RAS saying they’re in a poly foursome but Jarchie are not shown at all.

7. Absolutely no reason for this series finale to be Bettydale and rob the audience of anyone else’s perspective.

8. Message of the show: despite the fact that you were all mostly miserable in high school apart from the 50s fever dream, and even though you all go on to live full happy lives, you all did indeed peak in high school and will spend eternity with your graduating class at a diner in the sky!

#I did cry a lot in this ep but jesus it really was 50 minutes of info dumps about how everyone died #I also just don’t believe that after everything they went through they didn’t keep in touch #MY Riverdale ended multiple seasons ago tho so idgaf

[bughead-in-the-comics]

From Straw Bore, Jughead's Jokes #10 (1969).

#bughead #jughead jones #betty cooper #dilton doiley #veronica lodge #old comics #digest comics #complete panels #jughead's jokes #bughead high school #bughead diner #bughead food #bughead mad #bughead surprised #straw bore

[dxncingwithastrxnger]

Cheryl :((

NO FUCK TONI STAY AWAY FROM HIM

My Bughead babies :((

DID THEY SLEEP TOGETHER

FUCK NO

Fuck you, Toni >:((

You stay away from him, you bitch >:((

I wanna fucking kill Cheryl's mom, she needs to go rot in a hole until she dies and then rot in the 9th circle of hell

Thank gods, they didn't sleep together

Okay, Toni, if you stay sapphic almost lesbian, you can stay, just keep your paws off of Betty's boyfriend :((

Damn it, I knew Betty was gonna see them at the diner, UGH

#purple_strxnger #riverdale #riverdale season 2 #riverdale 2x06 #strxngercommentary

[godheadjones]

riverdale infodump pls? 👉👈

okay. this is gonna be wild knife

we start off with the murder of jason blossom. whodunit? no one knows. jughead, our narrator, writes from his booth in the only diner in town, pops. shit happens. veronica comes to town and hits on archie a few time before they move from closest fucking to being in a relationship. archie struggles with his feels for betty and they immediately disappear as soon as veronica closest fucks him. this is one episode. more shit happens this season, like the revelation of the blossom/cooper family incest, cheryl calling archies dad a dilf as a not-yet-lesbian, betty and jughead start dating, jughead hates his birthday, sticky maples and clifford blossom hangs himself just after his daughter tries to kill herself. cliffored is revealed as being the killer cause jason said "no! im not taking over your maple syrup buisness which is actually a cover for heroin business" blah blah. shit happens in this town then archies dad gets shot in pops and even more shit happens. archie, without his drivers license but with an undiagnosed hero complex rushes his father to the hospital. everyone comes and is worried and theirs heart to heart and cheryl burns down her house. why not. new killer: the black hood. and he wants to purge riverdale of sinners. now theres a new drug dealer, the sugarman, who sells jingle jangle to the kids of southside high, where jughead attends school now with his foster family. another big bad rolls into town and his name is hiram lodge. hiram is hiram forever, we chant as veronica kisses his cheek in the dark. more shit happens, then, they think they finally caught the black hood! its a random janitor! haha, the students think, we can return with our life. nope. the janitor really was just a random janitor. at their musical production of carrie, played by cheryl, whos finally realized she gay and is dating southside serpent toni topaz. midge turns up dead in their show and the town is haunted. they hold each other, fuck each other, and interrogate half brother imposters whove come to town. jughead is caught up in drama with southside serpent member penny peabody. he cut off her tatoo cause he joined a gang, hes badass, he has to prove this blah. penny takes over another gang, the ghoulies, and jughead approaches them and is like "just kill me" so they do. or so they think? jugheads alive! jughead besting death 1/? gifset when? anyway hes alive. then betty catches the black hood and its none other than her father! hal how could you. he says bettys speeech at the 75 years jubilee (in season one) inspired him to go shoot shoot shoot. mystery solved! yippee! assembly time then uh oh. hiram lodge has nailed archie for the murder of some guy while archie was at a fuck cabin with bughead (betty and jughead) and veronica. hes going to jail. archies 3 friends try to save him along with his mother, who is a lawyer. good for her! they spend all summer trying to save archie from prison but its all for nought cause archie confesses under threat from hiram. farewell archie andrews. new school year but its weird since archie isnt there. hes teaching other prisoners about the epic highs and lows of high school football. as he does this, the school gets addicted to g&g, which is just d&d on jingle jangle. its all part of a larger scheme of the farm, a secret cult harvesting organs for a dying girl pretending she’s in high school. meanwhile with archie, hes in a wrestling ring for the prison and hes very good at it. he espaces with the help of monica posh, undercover vee lodge. when he does he runs away to hide from hiram with jughead because they are gay. not really both are in straight relationships. archie has kissed men tho. hes on thin ice. hes in canada has some trippin visions of killing himself and its all fun and games until he comes back. turns out the gargoyle king, the second g in g&g is penelope blossom, cheryls homophobic mother along with the help of fake jason blossom (imposter half brother) and the black hood!! gasp!

I can’t believe I’m even saying this. part two will be out soon

#riverdale #writing this made me remember that cole sprouse origianlly went for the role of archie and took the role of jughead cause he thought he #wouldnt be killed off as the narrator #also part one #I wrote so much I needed a part too for everything that happened on riverdale #knife asks layla answers

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale S6B Ep. #110 (“Things that go bump in the night”)

I kind of want to believe that this is the show finding its footing after the pandemic. Because Ep. 109 was fanservice to the Bughead fandom that’s been deprived of tailored content for a long time (and Riverdale the Show owes Bughead fandom its longevity).  This episode was Riverdale making playful use of all the bits they’ve been setting up and priming us for 14 episodes so far this season!

Oh, and if you’re a big fan of Fangs Fogarty we aren’t friends and you should skip this one.

Heather and Cheryl are catching up about work and life.  Heather’s mother is dead, she’s a librarian.  Cheryl’s amazing bosoms are fully out.  I really admire Heather for being able to keep her pretty eyes only on Cheryl’s face.  Either she’s an angelically good person or she is not a natural creature (I am undecided.)   Both women confirm that they are currently unattached, and beam at each other about it.  Just as Heather is about to catch the bus to Greendale (most public transportation to Riverdale is cut but there’s a MIDNIGHT bus between Greendale and Riverdale? Okay.) Cheryl comes up with a ploy to keep her close.

Cheryl wants to turn Thornhill into a library. “How kismet” is how Heather responds, and this is one of the rare instances when I very much envy Cheryl for her wealth (implied) (Did that all get fixed by the way? The insane building and reconstruction that Cheryl was doing. Or is that Vale Cheryl? I am so confused.)

At the diner, Tabitha delivers bad news to her two important men - Pop Tate and Jughead Jones. I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am that Jughead gets to have this seat at this table.  She was, however, unable to get the diner declared a historic landmark.  Tabitha, looking just so pretty in her neat light violet sweater, says she has an idea about how she might save Pop’s anyway. 

In the very moodily lit FBI office, Betty Cooper is unloading the discoveries about her childhood trauma to Agent Jillian Drake.   She is especially galled by the fact that Alice helped Hal bury a body that “rotted under our family dining table.”   The way Betty cracks a joke about this TERRIBLE thing that was happening in her life (her family can be summed up as “Apple pie served over an unmarked grave”) was so sad and dark.  I was however distracted by just how much Agent Drake resembles Jughead Jones back in his Serpent days. Dark forelocks flopping over her forehead, sharp eyebrows cutting across pale skin, intense gaze, black leather jacket, a never-ending patience for listening to Betty Cooper talk about her parents, and an impulse to give her very sensible, correct advice in response to trauma-dumping.  Even if she turns out to be TBK or whatever it is, I will forever have a soft spot for Agent Drake for being the first and only person to actually tell Betty to move out of Alice Cooper’s house asap. Finally! Finally!!   Just like Jughead Jones back in the day, Betty’s revelations of the ugliness of her life makes Jillian Drake want to get closer to Betty, not further. 

Betty goes straight to Archie to move in with him.  He says yes, and then speaks of himself and that dog Bingo as “us” that would love to have her “for as long as you need.” So Frank definitely doesn’t live here anymore, and when they put the Andrews residence back together nobody created a nook or anything for Jughead Jones in the garage.  I’m not bitter, I just want to know what’s going on.  And where does Uncle Fucking Frank live, by the way??  Why don’t I know this?

The Gangbangers With Criminal Records, the Mickey and Minnie Mouse King and Queen  of the Southside Serpents, the cursed FONI (Toni x Fangs) are getting a very unpleasant reality check from the social worker, who says that Toni being birth mother, college graduate (apparently she also found time to get a Master’s degree??), school counselor, whatever whatever, don’t really count for much in the face of Kevin’s onslaught.   Fangs being a hands on dad (according to Toni) isn’t always going to look good to every judge, according to the social worker ally.  The fact that we’ve hardly ever seen Fangs actually touch this baby (whereas Kevin did haul the rubber doll all over town when he had to keep the baby safe) undermines all of this.  And I don’t know why they won’t talk about RACE as a potential issue - it’s THERE, but the show won’t directly address it.

Tabitha wants to disassemble the diner, keep the entire set of things in storage, then reassemble it in a safer location.  Because the land that the diner is on has been claimed via eminent domain.  Riverdale being a show about real estate above everything else still holds as a theory, I suppose. Is it because everyone who makes the show on the production side is middle aged? (Middle aged people will discuss real estate non-stop.) (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)  Archie is all in, not because he particularly cares about the diner, I don’t think (I mean it’s a place where he experienced his dad get shot so…) but because he despises Percival. 

Meanwhile, Jughead has writer’s block yet again.  It’s so bad that he’s actually run out of ways to procrastinate.   I’m not sure how that’s possible in the age of the smartphone.  Just in time, Veronica summons Jughead to the casino via text message.

The last time I can recall Veronica and Jughead interacting in any meaningful way was when she was trying to be a straight housewife for Archie (which neither of them wanted) only to be ditched for exciting all-male fire-quelling activities when she’d gone all out to make a dinner feast.   Jughead and she had reached a tacit agreement that he needed to escape that situation with a loaded plate. 

I am trying not to do this but I can’t help but compare: 

Archie learns that Jughead can read minds and has no interest or use for this whatsoever because a mind is not something you can punch. 

Betty learns that Jughead can read minds and goes, How perfect! I’m going to use you to solve my problem that only applies specifically to me and in way that makes you uncomfortable and uneasy that I do not express interest in.

Tabitha learns that Jughead can read minds and goes, If we’re going to be partners in life we need to have respect and boundaries and I must insist that you do not go digging around or dropping in on my thoughts uninvited.

Veronica learns that Jughead can read minds, and she says, Let’s monetize this to “our mutual benefit!”   She wants to do a mentalist act to make some quick cash so she can be armed with liquidity to fight off Reggie’s attempt at a hostile takeover.

Jughead pushes back on Veronica’s 60-40 split to insist on 50-50 plus the whole consent and boundaries thing he learned from Tabitha (“We only read the minds of the willing.”)

Archie has assembled his crew (It’s a union job!) which includes Fangs but not Uncle Fucking Frank.   The job seems very unusual to me - disassemble a business, with the assurance of reassembling it later. 

Then we are treated to a very depressing scene. I mean, all the scenes of FONI are very very depressing.  Is this Riverdale’s statement on (bisexuals) being straight?  Being in a straight relationship basically triggers some sort of masculinity anxiety in Fangs.  He has had no qualms being a freeloader and layabout and also is someone who did not pause for a single second before bringing an arsenal of ILLEGAL GUNS into a relatively small apartment with an infant, but now that he’s been told he will be judged using the mainstream standards of manhood, he is suddenly obsessed with ‘being a provider’ i.e. earning more money (than Toni?).   Fangs used to be the calm boyfriend to Kevin, but he’s a shit life partner to Toni and every time FONI come on screen I want to black out from tedium.   He is providing Toni with zero emotional support - he just burdens her further with HIS insecurities. It’s very telling to me that he managed to get home EXACTLY AFTER she did all of the labor of caring for and putting to bed the actual baby. Shut the fuck up both of you, about Fangs wanting to be a better father and ‘already being an amazing’ father.  This is so awful - a woman trying to keep custody of her child by having to shore up a very shoddy man’s emotional instability on top of everything, essentially begging him to stay with praise. UGH.   GO BACK TO CHERYL, ANTOINETTE TOPAZ. 

Betty comes home to the cursed Cooper residence to find Polly’s cursed incest children being creepy with a cat that Alice gave them.  The statement that Dagwood makes - “We’re going to have so much fun playing with his tail!” - is actually really great as an indicator of evil, because nobody should ever play with a cat’s tail, and giving an animal to kids without imparting this lesson on them is total fail!  Dagwood glows red to Betty, so she confiscates Butterscotch the cat (and puts him in a shelter!??).  Juniper says something equally creepy - “Bring him back soon so he can catch mice for us”- as Betty backs away. 

Archie and his crew (we keep getting close ups of Fangs which made me uneasy) are disassembling Pop’s to very cheerful music, until the gumball machine drops forward and crashes into pieces for no reason. 

Betty consults Agent Drake (who I see now has blue cat eyes like Jughead.  Okayyy.) about the auras she can see. In a similar vein to Jughead continually being able to find books and answers to esoteric occult techniques related to mindreading, Drake is someone who knows a lot about the paranormal.  From the time Polly’s children were babies in bassinets, Betty has been concerned about their being evil. I would hate to have an aunt like this, someone watching for signs of badness and evil in me at all times.  This is how you create people who hate themselves.  Betty’s nervous little laugh as she worries that Dagwood is “a killer in the making” weirdly made me want to take Dagwood away from her influence.  Drake sensibly says that Betty should first get the kids tested for the telltale gene (before jumping to conclusions is left unsaid.).  

Dr Curdle Jr is visibly creeped  out by the two little tykes  when Betty takes them to get the test.

At Thornhill, Heather is doing something with a bundle of sage to both set an intention and ‘cleanse’ the space in order to bring ‘innovation’ into the space.  (Instagram is where I learned about sage, and recently Instagram has advised people to not use sage if they’re not Native American.)  Heather is dressed like (what else) a sexy librarian while Cheryl is dressed like a sexy bride all in white with a really terrific bosom window (she is the opposite of subtle).  Heather says she’s studied Wicca and name drops Hecate. So there’s more bonding, this time over their shared religion, between Heather and Cheryl. 

At the cleared-out diner, Archie and his crew are taking a break when Percival enters with Uncle Fucking Frank.  Frank offers higher wages, signing bonus and freedom from union dues to abandon the diner project and Andrews Construction.  Percival rolls his eyes at the mention of Fred Andrews and for just this, he must die.  Fangs is of course very interested in turning coat and joining Percival’s team. He isn’t even subtle about it - he just does it right then and there.  Can he die too, please?

To cleanse us of this dankness we are next shown Veronica’s opening song for the mentalist act that she and Jughead have put together.  Since the loss of Josie, and with Kevin shunted to the sidelines as whatever his role is currently supposed to be (incipient villain?), the bulk of the musical theater impulses of this show are currently being shouldered by Veronica Lodge and I’m kind of here for it, if for no other reason than her amazing taste in costumes.  She’s wearing a top hat with long opera gloves and a sexy leotard and I love her. 

She introduces Seer of the Southside, Forsythe the Fantastic .

THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER.  Just. I love this. It’s so funny - Jughead takes on the “Southside” identity in full now, and for this?  Furthermore, Forsythe is a name that he didn’t use in prep school (Bret continually called him Forsythe but he kept telling people to call him Jughead) but did use as his official author name, and now this!  Who added the Fantastic? Veronica? Jughead?  Together? I want the behind the scene montage of them deciding what sort of outfits to wear and how to title the thing and which aesthetic to present, commissioning the poster from a Veronica crony, getting the costumes tailored and picking them up together, because this whole show is so much fun!  I am immensely cheered by this indication that Jughead Jones has developed a really healthy sense of humor about himself. 

People love the show and Reggie is pissed.

The diner is fully reassembled the next day.  Tabitha stomps off to confront Percival. I absolutely adore the fact that she isn’t afraid of him, not even a little bit.  She commits a petty little act of destruction with the cutest little ‘oops’ after yelling at Percival.  Unfortunately, Sam (whoever that is) gets electrocuted by the jukebox during the diner dismantling.  

The MAOA gene was passed to Juniper but not to Dagwood, so then Drake and Betty put up an ‘aura’ murder board to try to figure out what Betty’s problem is.

Oh?  OK. I am slow. This is a blatant thing that the show is doing, giving Drake basically all of Jughead’s physical traits plus slotting her into the role that Jughead used to play in Betty’s life:  confidant, sounding board, assistant and guide.   Betty is wearing a very strange orange and blue shaggy sweater.  They come up with some theory about what her blindspot might be as it relates to the serial killer gene.  In order to protect the twins from Percival, Betty decides to move them away from Alice.

Reggie decides to try to blackmail Veronica for a cut of the earnings she’s making with Forsythe the Fantastic.  Veronica keeps calling Reggie stupid in the nastiest possible ways (“so unburdened by intelligence”) that is very reminiscent of how Jughead in S1 used to talk to Reggie (“Can you spell it?”).  Given the merciless pwning that Riverdale the Show gave the immensely valid and valuable Jeronica fandom earlier in S6, I am very pleased at these crumbs.

Fangs, with his ill gotten gains, has bought a whole car without telling Toni anything about it, which means that the reason he gave for becoming a turncoat (“Toni and I are drowning in legal bills”) was a total lie. He’s also making a white bread and mayonnaise sandwich which I find unforgivable.  I will also harp on the fact that fully 22 minutes into this episode where Toni has called him an “amazing father” he has yet to be shown touching the baby in any way whatsoever.   Toni yells at him about how Percival is evil incarnate.   Archie, bless him, apparently has taught Fangs about how not to get overwhelmed by Percival’s mind control, but you need either a spine or native intelligence to pull this off, so I am going to assume Fangs will fail. 

Like all good tail-end Millennials with Instagram-influenced spirituality, Heather and Cheryl in the course of their date have progressed to candles, crystals and tarot cards.  Queen of Wands is a ON THE NOSE choice for Cheryl obviously - very literal. Queen because she’s a girl, Wands are the fire suit, and in some meanings she’s meant to represent redhaired fair skinned women.  Apparently, Cheryl isn’t all that into tarot, which means Heather packed a tarot card and a handful of tumbled magic rocks with her all the way to Thornhill.   The next card is the Lovers (which doesn’t always mean literally lovers but ok) and then comes the Tower.    I disagree with Heather about what the Tower card means, but then I like chaos and massive change and the toppling of established order and I guess a lot of people dislike drastic change.  The Tower card apparently means Riverdale, to Cheryl.

Outside the hospital room where “Sam” is recuperating, Tabitha tells Archie it’s not possible that there was any sort of electrical problem with the jukebox.

Thanks to the Jeronica connection (oh I wish!) but more likely because he’s finally FINALLLLYYYYY found a friend who treats his current state as being ‘gifted,’ Jughead has found his writing mojo again.  His comic seems to be about some woman named “Laura.”  The legible panel reads: “Laura had graduated summa cum laude from Centerville University, but these days she was chairing the PTA…”  (She has Betty’s haircut and general aspect, even in his chicken-scratch art.)

Veronica comes over to the Jabitha Residence to discuss Reggie blackmailing Veronica.  Jughead says he’s ‘never’ liked Reggie from the start, to which Veronica answers, “I know.” Do we know? We do?  I guess we do. I can’t off the top of my Riverdale saturated head remember any sort of heart to heart that Reggie and Jughead had. They had people in common, that’s all. 

Veronica asks Jughead if he would be willing to mindwipe Reggie - “Not his entire mind, small though it may be.”  This is an extremely Jughead Jones turn of phrase. The Jeronica crumbs keep coming!  Jughead appears not particularly surprised that Veronica killed Hiram, only that she is telling him about it.  He also didn’t go to Hiram’s funeral even for the sake of Veronica, if you recall.  Veronica calmly says that she’s made her peace with it. Jughead offers to research to see if a ‘surgical ‘wipe is possible. Jughead has no judgment or editorializing to offer about Veronica’s patricide, which I find lovable. 

Tabitha stops by the diner and she sees it all lit up and perfectly furbished again and operational!  When she goes inside, the items are real but the people are gone.  Ghosts!  So she tells Archie that the diner is haunted.  Since when it rains it pours, Archie tells her that he’s lost most of his crew to Percival. 

Trying to fix things, Archie invites Uncle Fucking Frank to the White Wyrm.  Product placement for the Chime card (whatever that is, I don’t know, I’m not in the US) is done in the same vein as having Veronica who can’t be poisoned thoughtfully eating those Smartfood popcorn - the Chime card is something you use to buy Uncle Fucking Frank a day drink in order to find out why he’s so in deep with Evil Incarnate.  Is Chime card happy with this? Because I’m very amused. 

Archie calls Uncle Fucking Frank straight up FRANK now and I love that.  After all this time - all this time!! - absolutely despising Uncle Fucking Frank, I feel extremely validated by how shit he is being.  He take the Sainted Fred Andrews’ name in vain, refusing to do something in ‘honor’ of him. 

I don’t know how they obtained this but the Lesbian Bughead (Drake and Betty) have managed to get DNA test results for both Cheryl and the woman-killer orderly.   They posit that Betty has a blindspot about the MAOA gene.   With this bit of business out of the way, Drake wants to know how living with “The Boyfriend” is. She can’t even bear to say Archie’s name??

Tabitha goes to consult the local witch Cheryl (and Heather is there) about the ghosts.  They spout a lot of stuff about why ghosts exist (unfinished business, fear of the afterlife etc) but what I’m obsessed with is the fact that Cheryl and Heather have the exact same level of pillowy lips.  These three super pretty women join in invoking a magical spell in the diner.  When ghosts manifest in Riverdale it gets very cold, and the lights flicker.  Heather’s magic is in English and has to be in rhyme (compared to Nana Rose/ Percival’s Latin and Cheryl’s Greek).

One of the ghosts, an old school sassy waitress stereotype named Gilda Snide, does a short exposition dump that 1. the diner is the final battleground between Good and Evil, 2. the ghosts have to preserve the existence of the diner in order to complete their earthly mission of ‘bearing witness’ to the battle and 3. the diner cannot be allowed to be put into storage and must have a continual operational space.  (The ghosts refuse to count the franchise that’s opened inside the Babylonium, I suppose? Or the show itself just forgot.)

We also get an explanation for why Percival wants a TRAIN station. The thing he wants to activate is the ‘ghost train’ which scares the ghosts. Heather explains that it’s “an engine that grants great power, dominion over the living and the dead.”  Like Jesus? Oh!  Like, the Antichrist? Or something?  Mythology people help me out - is this - is this Hades?

The theology of the ghosts is very garbled.  There have to be witnesses or else the battle between good and evil cannot take place (what sort of battle is this where the witnesses are primary?) which means the eldritch evil cannot be defeated (?).  I’d never heard of the mothman before this show (because I don’t consume anything to do with horror) so, same vein, I had never heard of the eldritch evil either.  According to TV Tropes this is:  type of creature defined by its disregard for the natural laws of the universe as we understand them. 

Uh OK then. 

Cheryl as audience insert (or rather ME) goes “is it?” in response to Tabitha saying, in the most Jughead Jones jumping to an intuitive conclusion way, IT’S ALL STARTING TO MAKE SENSE.  Anyway, they need to rebuild the diner as quickly as possible after moving it off of this location (and saving it from being destroyed outright).

Meanwhile, Alice comes bursting into the FBI walk-in-office to yell at Betty about the custody of the twins.  Betty says she’s trying to end the cycle of being raised in a house of evil by the batshit Alice Cooper - and Alice understands immediately what the implications are (“Protect them from me??”), proceeding to truly flip out.  Alice Cooper, who has been the major source of persecution and pain in Betty’s life, goes on an absolutely unhinged rant about how she sacrificed things for Betty, that Betty is insane (“conjure up these villains”) and evil (“maybe you’re the villain”).  #Hal Cooper Was The Better Parent

Alice Cooper really is the posterchild for how very important abortion rights are. She should never have been made to carry Charles to term. She should’ve had her abortion. This also means she probably would never have had Polly or Betty and there’d be no show, but the way she flips out shows that for her, motherhood was nothing but a series of nightmare sacrifices.  It’s that way if you have children when motherhood is a bad idea for you.  She wishes on Betty  barrenness (ooh echoes back to Rivervale) so that she can be spared having to know Alice’s pain.  I think this is a powerful self reveal. Alice wishes she hadn’t had children.  In a fit of anger, she says “so you don’t have to experience the things that you’ve made me endure” which is actually the opposite of what you should be saying, if you mean that as a curse. The common curse is actually, I hope you have a child exactly like you so you can suffer exactly like I did, isn’t it?   During the course of this rant, in which she calls Betty “a bad person,” Alice glows very red. 

In order to maintain the continuum (the booths, the counter and the jukebox are key), Tabitha asks Archie for permission to set up the diner in the El Royal.   Archie agrees, smiling as he says he ain’t afraid of no ghosts.  Uncle Fucking Frank who apparently was lurking in the doorway just like the other Percival Minion Alice Cooper, has apparently overheard the majority of this. He says that he’s seen the light, so with the help of St Fred, he wants to find his way back to the good side.  Archie hugs Frank and I still hate Frank. 

I can’t believe I’m just noticing this now but - Archie and Tabitha have a relationship

 entirely separate from their connection to Jughead or Betty or Veronica.  I’ve been lowykey worried about Tabitha being killed or written off in some way (because of leftover Sweet Pea trauma) but they wouldn’t dare do that now, would they? WOULD THEY?

Later, Barchie are having pillow talk, and they tell each other about their problematic family members. They’re so cute, sometimes. Betty having a nice boyfriend to cuddle up to after her rough day makes me happy.

Jughead Jones is just having a really good time developing his talents. I wish they did more with his HOH status but regardless, he’s very motivated by the thought of doing a precision hit type of brain damage to Reggie Mantle.  In order to distract Reggie enough to leave his ‘subconscious’ unguarded, Jeronica (I’m just going to call them that here) give Reggie his cut of the pay in small bills, forcing him to count it. 

They do that lovely artsy transition - Jughead in the real world concentrates and Forsythe the Fantastic finds himself in the target’s mindspace.  Reggie’s mind has football paraphernalia, gambling items, a Mantle Motors sign, and a comic book box which Jughead didn’t even have to ask him to envision.  Jughead finds the relevant memory and rips it out in a violent way.  Veronica has handed Reggie the cut in a disorganized cluster of $10 and $50 bills (which I guess was supposed to prevent  us the viewers from estimating what 20% of the mentalist act is = how much they made).   When Veronica snatches back the money, Reggie cannot recall what he was blackmailing her for.  This is very spooky.  

The ghosts of the diner (which Tabitha can just casually see now, by the way) have emptied out the essential furniture in anticipation of the big move.  These ghosts are superpowerful.  Didn’t Patrick Swayze have a much harder time with this in Ghost?

Cheryl points out to  Heather that what she did at the diner was necromancy. NECROMANCY!  Heather says she was raised by the witches of a very powerful coven. She comes out as a witch to Cheryl.  Then she gets Cheryl to admit that she herself is a witch. Cheryl demonstrates her pyrokinesis powers to Heather.   Witches being a metaphor for lesbianism or equated with lesbianism is as old as at least Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Cheryl asks for formal lessons from the coven-trained Heather. She looks so vulnerable and perfect and beautiful, so of course Heather has to touch her and say yes.

Can we keep Heather? Please? Pretty please?

Meanwhile, Reggie is proving everyone wrong who called him a dullard or dumb (especially Jeronica) because he knows exactly who did something to damage his mind, and tells Percival about it. I do not like what the glint in Percival’s eye might mean for Jughead.  Whenever Jughead Jones scores a point, he tends to lose a lot. 

Betty shows up to help but she can see the red glow on Uncle Fucking Frank.  Is she wearing Archie’s shirt? I feel like Archie was wearing the flannel she is wearing.  Archie calls Frank ‘Uncle Frank’ when he tells that bastard that his evil intentions have been discovered.  He was going to sabotage the continuum of Pop’s.  Uncle Fucking Frank tries to sucker punch Archie with a fistful of palladium, but of course, Archie is invulnerable and ready to fight.   Uncle Fucking Frank takes off.

The transition of the diner to the El Royal location was seamless enough to please the undead.

Speaking of death -  Fangs comes home to Toni having prepared a dinner, dressed up, and she begins to APOLOGIZE to him about having been too independent. I WANT TO POKE MY EYES OUT.  And then she says the most horrible thing: Maybe we should get married.    When Fangs, who is pleased as punch to have her abase herself in this way (Please kill him. Can Baby Anthony kill him? Please?).

We are treated to a hideous flashback (everything FONI is so very cursed) where the social worker tells Toni that the way POC couple FONI can defeat white-gay Kevin is to present the most heteronormative front possible.   Basically, pitting racism v. homophobia.  Toni lies in her proposal to Fangs, but kind of like how Veronica couldn’t bear to say things that were not her heart in the break up with Reggie, she doesn’t say she loves Fangs or wants to make a life with him, and oh god this is so awful.

Lesbian Bughead are trying to figure out why Betty could see Alice’s aura.  Drake really is just Jughead - she says everything about Betty stems from trauma and that Betty isn’t wrong (because Jughead also never liked to say Betty was wrong) but that this is potentially an expansion of her powers - she might be able to sense physical or emotional danger.  

Betty then does what she used to do to Jughead all the time - tell a lie by omission. She saw an aura around herself, describes her worries about what this means, but won’t say it’s herself.  

Shout out to the brilliant memes about how Betty staring appalled at her red glowing self in the mirror was the manifestation of her internalized homophobia - I see what you meant now!

#i am finally all caught up! #anti fangs fogarty #agent drake = girl jughead jones #riverdale episode 110 #riverdale season 6 #riverdale episode 6.15 #riverdale opinion #Riverdale s6 #riverdale recap #riverdale episode recap

[alexzalben]

i think anon is referring to how u stated back during s5 when barchie decided to end their friends w benefits relationship u thought their conversation seemed pretty set in stone and served as closure (even though the season ended w them together) vs now that barchie is going strong u have not made any statements about bughead and varchie in that same light (though now it feels more appropriate to say those relationships may be done?) also sorry if this seems aggressive just trying to clear up what i think anon was trying to say !

Oh sure, that makes sense. I'd love to take this moment to remind everyone that I'm not a government official, we're talking about a CW show, and I - and anyone else - is not only able but encouraged to change their mind on a near hourly basis if they want to about whatever they want when it has to do with this subject. 95% of the problems of the world would be solved if people would be willing to change their mind about things, say they've changed their mind, and everyone was okay with that. I think we can have a little leeway in particular with a show where several characters talked to ghosts in a diner the last episode.

#riverdale

[djgrannyglasses]

Thanks for elaborating. I'm so tired of these couples and crazy storylines and your post gave me hope. lol. Any indication from Betty that she's missing Jug? What about Jug missing Betty? I WANT MY BUGHEAD BACK NOW.

No mentions of Bughead unfortunately. But like J*bitha was locked in a diner all night and didn't like kiss or slip any fingers or sausage. Just sipped coffee if that's any indication.

#riverdale spoilers #anti b*rchie #anti j*bitha