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riverdale-retread · 2 years ago

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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

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