Riverdale Review: How Many Reveals Is Too Many?

This episode forced me into a Riverdale review. We need to talk about all those big reveals, and then decide how we feel about them.

I’ve been pretty outspoken about how much I like this show. It’s really smart, and I absolutely adore how referential it is to works outside of it’s target audience’s frame of reference. But this week dropped a lot of plot into our laps, forcing me into a Riverdale review and I must react to all those reveals.

This episode is called “Faster Pussycat! Kill Kill” which is a reference to a 1960s “exploitation” film that has now transcended it’s pulp status, and is widely considered an really important movie. I can only hope folks can come around to Riverdale in this way, but I don’t want to wait until a whole generation later.

Until then, let’s take a look at all the big moments of this week’s episode, because there were a lot.

Polly Is Pregnant With Jason Blossom’s Baby

Finally, after five hours of everyone talking about Polly, we finally meet her. Last week was the first time Betty questioned her parents’ motives, and she and Jughead launched their amateur investigation. Betty’s suspicions are validated when Polly reveals her baby bump in the “garden of Deliverance” at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy home for troubled youth.

Photo: The CW

Polly seems mostly normal – a far cry from the sick, unstable mental patient her parents made her out to be. But when you look a little closer, you can tell Polly is wound a little too tight. When Betty delivers the news about Jason she unravels, sending her into some kind of episode.

Of course Betty’s mother appears out of nowhere, as if she’d been conjured, and you half expect her to disappear in a cloud of green smoke. There isn’t much nuance in Mädchen Amick’s portrayal of Alice Cooper. She might as well be wearing a pointy hat and have a wart on her nose. She laughs when Betty accuses her father of killing Jason – suggesting he’d never have the stomach to do something like that. She spits, “I wish he had killed him. Hell, I wish I had killed him.” Currently, we like Alice for Jason’s murder, but only because it’s all we have.

However, her interactions with her daughters is the main point of conflict with them both. Alice is dreadful enough to motivate Betty to be her own person, but it’s probably what drove Polly over the edge. We don’t have solid proof just yet, but it seems like Polly is legit crazy. Her jumping from her window in the institution might be our very first clue. However, her story about the getaway car Jason stashed in the woods checks out, but she since she might be the one who torched it, we’ll have to wait it out.

Jughead and Betty Kiss

This kiss is significant for a few reasons, and not just because I am ‘shipping them pretty hard. They’re freaking adorable.

Aside from this, this kiss marks a HUGE shift from the Betty/Veronica/Archie paradigm on which the entire universe was built. Riverdale departs from the original construction of the Archie comics, and illustrates the series’ willingness to establish it’s own mark in the long-running history of this franchise.

This also marks a departure from writer Chip Zdarsky’s choice to make Jughead decidedly asexual. Zdarsky’s Jughead series writes the character as being more than misogynistic or just plain developmentally-behind. In Jughead No. 4, he is clearly identified as asexual, and laughs at his friend’s Archie’s crippling preoccupation with the opposite sex.

Photo: Jughead/comiXology

This latest change to the Jughead character is justifiably upsetting to fans, but the showrunner defends his choice. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa told MTV News over the phone. “The way we’re treating Riverdale, especially Season 1, is it’s an origin story. So I think all of the kids are discovering themselves, and a big part of that is discovering their sexuality, their sexual selves.”

Pairing Jughead with Betty might just be the beginning of his character development. Maintaining his identity as asexual could be groundbreaking for primetime television if Riverdale decides to see it through. Until then, I’m on board with his romance with Betty. For now.

Archie Is Actually A Little Interesting

Maybe it’s just my weakness for a dude with an acoustic guitar, but I’m kinda digging him right now. I don’t even care that he choked at the audition for the Variety show. As long as he’s got Veronica in his corner, he can really get through everything. Too bad he sells her out as soon as Val becomes available. Lucky for us, Val’s availability leaves a spot open in the Pussycats that Veronica is happy to fill.

He pulls the performance at the Variety show out, but not before hallucinating wolf heads on his teammates, burns a bridge with Veronica, and shares a steamy kiss with the once and future Pussycat, Val. All of this makes him far more interesting than the blank-faced cougar-target than the last few episodes have shown.

Veronica Can Be A Real Jerk

All it takes is seeing her mom canoodling with her high school flame, and Veronica flips her brat switch. Sure, seeing mom, Hermione, kissing Fred Andrews is a destabilizing force, but it’s totally worth it to see her channel Blair Waldorf all over Archie and Val. She injects this sass right into her debut as the newest Pussycat, and doesn’t let Josie run all over her. Bad Veronica is no joke.

She even refuses to sign the paper allowing her mother to give the land bid to Fred. Veronica just can’t let go of the idea that her mom might be moving on while her dad’s in prison, and well, I get it.

Josie’s Backstory

Finally we get a little bit of background on Josie. Her jazz-playing dad is kind of an asshole, and her success-obsessed mother is too concerned about her teenage daughter’s brand. This informs Josie’s hard edge, but we get a revealing look at her vulnerability after her jerk of a dad leaves her performance before she’s even finished.

Photo: Diyah Pera/The CW

He wants her to follow in her namesake, Josephine Baker’s, footsteps but her her tastes are a little too poppy for ol’ dad. He protests her choices and leaves during the show. Anybody who can walk out on a Donna Summer cover is completely soulless in my book.

With only two episodes left, there’s a push to unload, then resolve a lot of unsettled plot moments. “Faster Pussycat! Kill Kill” went a long way to move the needle, but it’s upsetting what we thought we knew. I’m okay with that for, now. But Riverdale better deliver in these last few moments.

Check back here every Friday for my weekly dish on all things Riverdale.

Riverdale airs at 9/8c Thursdays on The CW.