#or gleeks its the same thing tbh | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hannahlovestheatre · 5 years

Text

Riverdale + Heathers = how very...(a good rant and review)

Ok so to start off if you're someone who doesn't watch Riverdale and only watched it solely to watch this episode because you thought it would be "trash" or you were politely curious or whateva whateva, here's a small, spoiler free synopsis of what's been going on this season...

This season of Riverdale has had a hard focus on cults and a massive drug possession. The people running this cult are complete wackadoos and Betty Cooper is determined to stop them as they have taken her mom and sister and also they are bringing out the worst in the citizens of Riverdale and ya know KILLING SOME OF THEM. The cult branches out from a creepy board game come to life called Gryphons and Gargoyles but we don't have to touch on that as much. The drug thing is all on Veronica Lodge's father but her mom has been helping on the side and so has Jughead's mom. Everyone in the town is turning against each other and it's been hard to find trust in people that don't see things through the eyes of "The Farm" or are trying to distribute some strong ass drugs.

Tbh that's not even a good description but it gives some good background on the main points of drugs and cults. Now...

Heathers is a world renowned CULT classic movie. The creators clearly used the term to their advantage (literally the only people to applaud at the end of the school's production were the MEMBERS OF THE CULT) and once again connected their characters to the characters of another piece of work and saw this as another opportunity to do a musical episode considering their Carrie one was a success for them even though it wasn't everyone's favorite, but of course I liked it, and Heathers is now a staple to the world of musical theatre.

I think that the Heathers episode was executed a lot better than the Carrie one. I appreciated the Carrie one more because that musical is so slept on and they were able to get the word out about it. But the Carrie episode was more focused on being an episode about the school musical and showed more of the rehearsal process and what the numbers looked like in their production rather than incorporating the songs into real life to make them seem more relatable. The Heathers episode actually incorporated itself into the current storyline of the show and helped tie up some loose ends with the relationships of this season. All the songs they used supported the conflicts and state of mind for each character. They didn't even have the cast sing songs that their Heathers characters sing like for example Betty and Jughead sang Seventeen even though Betty was cast as Duke and Jughead isn't even in the show (we will touch on this later because I think my puddle of tears is still in the living room). They also heard our prayers to have Casey Cott sing more and then threw Cole Sprouse in there to make it even better. (Thanks Riverdale creators!)

Long story short, it seemed more like if Glee were doing a Heathers episode which I stan hard as I am the biggest gleek to ever gleek.

I think they picked all the right songs, Fight For Me was the biggest surprise choice to me but I liked what they did with it again for context sake. If they had found a way to add Freeze Your Brain, The Me Inside of Me, and/or Shine a Light I would have been interested in seeing that. It also would have been cool to see I Say No (Betty would have nailed it as she is saying a big fat no to this cult).

I also wasn't as mad about them using the lyric changes that are in the school edition because it hit me. This is a HIGH SCHOOL putting on a production of HEATHERS THE MUSICAL. Since most schools would either get a big checkmark in the NO box to even put on the show, if a school did get the clear to put on Heathers, they would 100% have to do the school edition. So ya know what haters, they're actually being realistic with the production they actually got the rights to put on. It makes so much sense coming from a hardcore theatre nerd like myself.

Yes I would say some of the cast was autotuned but my mom thought everyone was a great singer and she was very genuine in that comment. Casey Cott, Lilli Reinhart, and Camila Medes are definitely the most polished but Vanessa Morgan, KJ Apa, Madelaine Petsch, Ashleigh Murray, and COLE SPROUSE are also very strong singers. They have more guts to sing this hard score than most people do in community theatre productions of Heathers.

I do think the casting of their musical was mostly spot on only I didn't really see Josie playing Veronica. But going back to my point on the episode not really touching on the actual musical production of Heathers that's happening, it didn't really matter. They pretty much never showed her singing Veronica's stuff so it went right over my head. I think Toni could have been a great Veronica as her Dead Girl Walking had spot on interpretation but actually Betty could have knocked it out of the park as Veronica and Toni could have been Duke to heighten the conflict between her and Cheryl at the time. They didn't HAVE to do it this way because they know the show better than we do but if I were casting Hearthers with Riverdale characters, that's where my head was going.

I know everyone said Betty should be McNamara and Veronica should be Duke but as I watched the episode, I realized everyone based that off looks because McNamara's dad is "LOADED" and the poor girl tries to kill herself because of what goes on outside of the social circle aka literally what Veronica is going through on the show right now. It all clicked. I believed her when she sang Lifeboat. And Betty is a low key savage. She isn't thirsty for Cheryl's power in real life but she does want to make a statement and be heard and to win this battle over the town cult. It made sense once I saw it in front of me.

Cheryl is Heather Chandler. Period.

And again they didn't really focus on their actual production of Heathers and that particular cast but let me say this rn. If Cole Sprouse does not play JD at any point on the future, the world is cancelled. I really didn't think he would ever sing in these kind of episodes or at all, because the show does have the actors perform on occasion. However, when they announced this was happening, I had a glimmer of hope that Jughead would play JD because it makes so much sense...and then he didn't...and then he sang Seventeen anyways and broke my fucking heart. I'm not sure if he really was singing the entire time because the man went up an entire octave between the verse and the chorus but man I was picturing a future production of Heathers starring Cole Sprouse and Lilli Reinhart. It needs to happen. This was literally 2 minutes of the episode and idek if y'all feel the same way but man it wrecked my emotions and my OG Disney Channel stan was losing her mind over Cole Sprouse singing her favorite song from Heathers.

It's 11:47 PM so I need to wrap this up before I fall asleep and forget everything lol.

As a wrap up, I really liked this musical episode and I really liked the other one but it really grinds my effin gears when people jump to conclusions because theatre people aren't doing theatre things. Theatre is inclusive. The arts are inclusive. We can't close our walls to the select few people that "got our criteria to be in the community" (oh wait, isn't that like a cult...? I guess their plan worked).

If you've seen my other posts you know I could rant about this topic for days but long story short, if you aren't willing to not just be a part of the community and welcome everyone in and accept everything as its separate entities but still have your opinions on it without jumping to conclusions...did you eat a brain tumor for breakfast because what's your damage? ❤💛💚💙

7 notes · View notes