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riverdale-retread · 2 years ago

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Riverdale S7 E8 Hoop Dreams

I kid you not, this thing is 20 pages. Enter at your own risk. (ILY for reading even part of this.)

Jughead Jones tells us that while “some towns are football towns,” Riverdale isn’t. My longing for OG Tabitha, the angel of chronokinesis and savior of FailAdult Jughead Jones, is such that I pondered if this is Tabitha’s touch - to make a town that for six seasons has been all about football (insert the immortal “Highs and Lows of High School Football” quote gif here if you’re able, which I am not, so you’ll just have to imagine it for this summary) stop caring about that sport altogether and switch over to basketball, which might be her favorite.

Please come back, chronokinetic angel Tabitha, God of Time Loop Manipulation!

The funny thing is, even though Jughead says with what sounds like regret that Riverdale has but a “so-so football team” there’s a banner over the in progress basketball game that says 1942 RIVERDALE HIGH FOOTBALL CHAMPIONS. Granted, it doesn’t say WHAT they were champions of, but I suspect Jughead might be wrong about everything he’s saying, because the other banners say things like Riverdale High Field Hockey Champions 1944, Riverdale High Boys Basketball Champions 1945 and Division II State Champions Field Hockey 1952. Jughead insists that kids only play hockey on the river in winter, implying that they only do that because there’s nothing else to do. Granted, field hockey isn’t ice hockey, but it’s still hockey, and they were champions of this twice across eight years, so - basically, Jughead currently only thinks basketball is cool because (a) his girlfriend-god that he’s been (tw: Harry Potter reference) obliviated into forgetting wants him to think that and (b) Archie in the 1950s AU that we’re in plays basketball not football.

I wondered if the reason, say, that the one and only time the Riverdale football team was the champion was because of WWII or if that war had something to do with this spotty history of performances from the high school of at town that is completely obsessed with sports in every iteration, but I don’t think it quite lines up. WWII was between 1939 and 1945, and the US entry into that war was in 1941.

One more irrelevant point - in OG Riverdale True Timeline of previous seasons, SWEET PEA played basketball. So did Reggie Mantle. And now - now that the tallest boy Riverdale ever had is gone for good, NOW is when they make basketball a thing. O Riverdale Why Are You Like This?! (All Hail the Members of the Cult of Sweet Pea of which there are about five at any given time). I only say this because they actually cut to Fangs, playing basketball, which spiked my stress levels.

Basically, every time I see Fangs I’m enraged because that actor - while beautiful in the face and body - makes for a very terribly unintimidating Serpent and a very terribly unintimidating US Civil War warlock, and a deeply inappropriate basketball player because everything about him says gymnast weightlifter.

Anyways! Even though Fred Andrews, who is basically a saint now in Riverdale because Luke Perry was apparently a very kind man as well as valuable actor who died tragically young during the production of this show, led the team to become champions of the state three years IN A ROW, there are no signs to actually commemorate this achievement in the current halls Riverdale High where his son, Archie Andrews, plays basketball. Granted, doing some rough math, if Archie is 17 in 1955, his dad’s high school career would’ve been in the mid thirties, so the basketball glory days of Riverdale High would’ve been between like, 1934 and ‘37 (assuming Fred was born in 1918 and had Archie at age 20 in 1938 - omg this makes this Archie so old to me - 1938?!?!). Do they only put up banners for wins from the last 10 years? (But then why the 1942 win?)

I tried really hard to see what team kicked the Riverdale basketball team’s butt so hard they lose 63 to 32 (with the announcer saying “that’s another big loss for Riverdale” while all the worthies - the evil vile boyfriends the HS principal and shrink, Hal Cooper, the Blossoms, Betty and Veronica, all mourn the loss) but they had very small print on red jerseys and I could not make it out. Uncle Fucking Frank reacts with violence against innocent paper cups that Dilton Doiley with literally Long Duk Dong hair (ARE THEY SERIOUS?) cringes beside him.

I always wonder about actors who get hired for roles that essentially play a hateful racist stereotype based on their racialized phenotype. Is the actor’s ‘cringing’ reaction portrayed here so awkward because he’s a bad actor, or because the scene is bad, or is he ‘resisting’ the Asian Dweeb stereotype he’s being forced to portray by being very unnatural? (There was a black and white film from the 1940s I watched for a college class whose title escapes me where white people go do things in “China” - a set - that had as its plot device and local color provider character a “Chinese” girl who spoke surreal pidgin English, and the obviously California born-and-raised Asian actress insisted on delivering these “Me Help For You Go Get!” type of stupid lines with the most So-Cal Accent of all time). Anyway, Dilton cringes because the awful white man beats up his paper cups because he sucks as a coach.

Choni, looking amazing in those cream turtleneck sweaters (I really want a cream turtleneck sweater with something navy emblazoned on it because of this), are so very upset about this loss. They find it unspeakable. Further, Toni is discomfited by the fact that Lizzo the Lesbian who dresses in proto Tom of Finland outfits and looks very hot came to sneer at her and only her for being a cheerleader.

In the locker room, Archie, because 1950s Archie is adorkably wholesome and a natural leader, is trying to give his discouraged teammates a pep talk. He sounds so decent and sweet. The other redhead, because really, there is room for only one redhead to be supreme in this town, the Julian who isn’t Jason, interrupts him with a generic sort of homophobic slur against them all - “Not if we keep playing like pansies!” before launching into a shouting rant that Archie cuts off. Nostrils flaring, Julian invokes St. Fred’s sainted “legacy” of having gifted Riverdale with a streak of wins at Archie, who is very very peeved. Julian makes sure to mention the fact that his parents sponsor the team, to which Archie fights back with a very pointed pronunciation of the title, “Captain.”

After the game, Uncle Fucking Frank is begging Clifford Blossom for something. When Archie asks him in his 1955 voice (which I now realize is a very creditable impression of the tenor husky tone of Luke Perry actually) what Blossom wanted, Uncle Fucking Frank says that he’s been permitted to bring in an outside player.

And here we come to it.

This is another Very Special Episode of Riverdale S7 - subtitle, The Thorny Question of Race in America.

Uncle Fucking Frank has many many MANY MANY flaws but he is a middle aged white man in 1955 who is entirely free from not just racism but any sort of prejudice or racial awareness whatsoever. Which - what? How? Does Uncle Fucking Frank have prosopagnosia or something? I mean, he called with evident, drooling joy, Betty Cooper in her underwear that he happened to see without her permission in her skivvies “a ripe peach of a girl” to Archie his nephew, but this is what he has to say about Reggie Mantle, about whom the first thing literally everyone other than him notices is his Not Whiteness:

- Farm kid out of Duck Creek

- Kid who knows how to win games

- 6ft 3, 220 pounds, pure muscle, fast.

- Nickname: ‘The Blur - cause you never see him coming.”

Zero mention of Reggie not being white, of being Asian (or as he may more likely have said, Oriental), or Korean. Zippo, nothing, nada. Just the barest locational and socioeconomic background, no mention of immigrant status, and only what needs to be known for his credentials as an ace basketball player to be communicate to Archie.

Do I - must I - stop hating Uncle Fucking Frank quite as much? I mean I’ll always hate him, but I might have to downgrade from Despise to just Hate. Frank, Sir, you are coming up in the world.

Wait no, I figured it out. I still can still hate Uncle Fucking Frank despite the fact that he manages to talk about Reggie Mantle purely limited to his traits as an ace basketball player with zero mention of his race, ethnicity, being oriental, what kind of Asian etc etc. During the past few years I have seen and heard in passing analyses about how pro and college football will populate their winning teams with not-white athletes, build out hugely profitable merchandising using these same athletes but not pay them their due share. I’m sure coaches that recruit students for this sort of enterprise also don’t really go into what color their skin is or their facial phenotype: they only want to know if they have the physique to render them profitable for the team. Same with Uncle Fucking Frank. He’s not enlightened, just desperate.

Meanwhile, Cheryl and Toni are working off the stress of cheering for a losing team (and in Toni’s case, whatever that meaningful look was between her and Lizzo at the end of the game.) Cheryl, who manages to not have her siren red lipstick all over her face after this make out session looks very fetching in her red neckerchief (omg the clavicles on this chick are to die for) proposes that she and Toni “go steady, just for us." Toni, looking equally fetching in with her thick bangs and leopard print scarf (do they wear these to hide the hickeys or are they too sophisticated for that?) is not nice about it. She points out that they can’t walk down the hall at school holding hands nor can they ‘pin’ each other.

Uh. That’s struck me as quite nasty, and a weirdly underhanded blow at that. 1955 is only five years after the founding of Mattachine Society which moreover was just white men, and it’s not clear to me that those dudes would’ve necessarily welcomed either of these girls. Why is Toni pointing out that they are living in a homophobic society to blame Cheryl for it?

When Cheryl finally gets the hint (“Unless you don’t want to!”), Toni finally says that monogamy is too ‘square’ for her. (What the hell is happening with her and Lizzo?) Cheryl though is nothing if not obnoxiously persistent, so she works her way around Toni’s refusal, which was I will note once again, not at all gentle, by concluding that “it’s kind of like we’re already secretly going steady if you think about it.” Way to be suffocating, Cheryl. Toni is annoyed.

We are now finally going to meet 1955 Reggie Mantle. A very dusty blue pick up truck drives down a road to turn into a yard with lots of goats. It turns out to be Archie Andrews’ ride. The farm house looks pretty huge, though not particularly fancy. Reggie is moving bales of hay from one truck to the other. His hair is all glossy and shiny looking as he does this. Archie asks apparently for the second or third time if he can’t give Reggie a hand, to which Reggie who is very Eyeore in 1955 says no.

The second thing that Archie says to Reggie is to ask if Reggie is “from Korea.” Which means at some point Frank told him he was Korean.

Maybe American and European awareness of Korea existing waxes and wanes, but this question surprised me, as in, it struck me as very unrealistic. It’s only in literally the past seven or so years (i.e. since BTS hit it big in America in 2017) that an Asian looking person is going to be asked if they are Korean first and foremost. My, how we’ve come up in the world, I guess? (Except this more like that one nutty Englishman who plastic surgeried himself into ‘being Korean’ for a bit before deciding that he wasn’t Korean after all.)

Reggie gives a very, like, 1990s answer to this “Where are you from” question, politely answering with his genealogy - Mom is “Korean.” Then he goes on to say his dad “was born here,” before adding “I was born here.” This convoluted writing is necessary because the show doesn’t want to say if Reggie’s father is ethnically Korean or not. If Reggie was born in 1938 like I’ve calculated already for Archie, and let’s just say for the sake of argument they’re all the same age, Reggie’s father was born in 1918 in the US and his mother managed to enter the US (that’s what “from Korea” or “Korean” here is supposed to mean) before the 1924 Oriental Exclusion act banning all Asian immigration to the US, which stayed in place until 1952 (My head hurts. Why did they have to make his being KOREAN a thing on this show?). This makes her the wrong age to have come to America as a picture bride (1905-1924). Also what the heck does Reggie mean by “here”? Most of the initial immigration by Koreans to the US were to Hawaii (prior to annexation) and to California because those land masses are closer to Korea (Koreans moved east to America).

Reggie looks very hot in his baggy jeans and brown belt and work gloves that match his tan boots. Of course this is a bit of a call back to the Jarchie Run Away from Hiram Together moments where Archie takes his shirt off and moves bales of hay as Jughead watches peevishly because he gets annoyed whenever Archie does things that are likely to get him laid.

Apparently, Reggie used to play basketball for Stonewall Prep, but then dropped out. While he’s willing to be polite about explaining his ethnic background (kind of - we know his mother’s ethnicity and his father’s immigration status, to be accurate), Reggie gets testy when asked this question about his history as a Stony. He says he dropped out, as Archie smiles ruefully at the rebuff (“You writing a book?”) which seems very harsh because OG Archie of course has difficulties learning things from books.

I was wrong- it wasn’t Archie’s truck, it was Frank’s. Frank has come out of the farm house to tell Reggie that things are “squared away with your folks” and that Reggie should “say his see you laters.” I don’t think this is intentional, but it’s actually accurate. Certain types of Americans do lay it on super heavy with the colloquialisms when they are speaking to someone they didn’t expect would have an American accent.

When Reggie walks past Archie towards the house, Archie looks exactly like I would if a panther just casually walked by me in the street. He’s so amazed by Reggie that he gives Uncle Fucking Frank a ‘Oh My Golly Gosh Did YOU See That Too?’ look to which Frank gives him an understanding nod. Frank apparently doesn’t find this reaction ‘bent’ at all.

So now we’re at the dinner table at the Andrews home with Mary politely trying to make conversation.

I’m gonna have to break the summation again once more to note the huge problems that trying to be ethnically accurate about Charles Melton the actor (his mom is ethnically Korean and his father is not) for this season that they’ve set in 1955 causes the show. In S2-6, they gave Reggie a Tiger Dad type father who looked Asian (or part Asian) and his mother was cast with an Asian (or part Asian) actress. But in 1955 we’re having to go with the idea that Reggie was a mixed race kid born in 1938, without actually going into anti- miscegenation and laws associated therewith (I am not going to research this ok? I just know Loving v Virginia was decided in 1967. FML. I hate history so much and here I am having to do this for my RIVERDALE HOBBY - , like wtf is my life rn).

The thing is, THE THING IS, the set up they have for “dad born here, I’m born here, I speak fluent English with an American accent” Reggie is that of an exchange student far from home, an alien guest in an All American Caucasian Household.

Long Duk Dong set up (from Sixteen Candles, which is a movie Molly Ringwald was in, who now plays Archie’s Mom) ONCE AGAIN. There’s a classic Margaret Cho quote from decades ago about how Asian Americans aren’t allowed to just, like, EXIST in American shows and movies. There’s always got to be some reason that justifies their existence - foreign exchange student being one of the most benign go-tos. Riverdale is reproducing the Explain Your Existence, O Surprising Oriental trope even as they pretend to actually engage with Asian American identity.

Friends, I have written five pages, single spaced and so far I’ve covered literally FOUR MINUTES of the show. Let’s move faster.

Mary Andrews has heard that Reggie grew up on a farm, and wants to know all about it. Uncle Fucking Frank is seated at the head of the table like somehow he has a right to be there. Anyway, Reggie is bouncy and discreetly proud of himself when he says that his dad was injured in the Korean War (“Came home with shrapnel in his shoulder”) so he has to step up, because it’s his family’s legacy.

These are all words designed to ping every string in Archie’s heart - Dad, Korean War, Family Legacy, Stepping Up.

Times are hard, is what Reggie is telling them, so Archie asks why they couldn’t get assistance from the GI Bill. “We’re not considered eligible” is what Reggie tells Archie. So… is Reggie’s Dad a Not Korean But Asian person? Who was born in America in 1918 and got drafted into the Korean War while Asian? I mean, I have no idea how many that might be actually, and the Korean War was an international police action that had battlefield participation from, like, Ethiopia, Turkey and South Africa, so there were bunches of not Korean men fighting that war. (Oh and uh, if you bring up MASH to me I will curse your bloodline and block you because NO.) So where the US government refused to do right by its veterans of color, Clifford Blossom's need to have his pet basketball team win something will provide the assistance the Mantle farm apparently needs and should’ve received from the US government.

Reggie is going to be roommates with Archie. He gets a bunk, lots of blankets, and a dresser drawer. Reggie looks very glum about this, though the adorable clueless 1955 Archie whom I do like so much is being very sincere in his efforts to be a good host. Reggie happens to glance out the window to see Betty Cooper, very fetching in green and white polka dots, settle on her bed

“Who’s that?” he wants to know. He says everything in this dour, serious tone, which I guess is meant to convey that the weight of the world is on this Reggie, as opposed to the one that lived in the permanent year 2020. Archie tellingly refuses to say her actual name, describing Betty as “his neighbor” that Reggie will “get to meet at school tomorrow.” Then, just to make things extra weird, he firmly notes that they’re both supposed to keep their window curtains shut from now on - no further explanation. Reggie clearly has a ton of questions but decides not to ask any.

Hal comes to give Betty a visit. Werthers has advised Hal that Betty might be better off burning off her excess energy by becoming a cheerleader. The fact that her school shrink is talking about Betty's sexuality with her dad is supposed to give me the heebie jeebies but it doesn't. When this town's adults don't like something about their kids they straight up shove them into a mental institution run by a pseudo Catholic cult (both in the OG Universe and 1955 AU) so what Betty is getting is cosseting. What's more interesting is the very All American conviction that repeatedly keeps getting voiced that Sports Will Fix Sexual Problems In The Young. Kevin's unacceptable homosexuality was supposed to be cured by participation in homosocial team sports. Betty's unacceptable sexuality in general (because God forbid women do anything) is also supposed to be cured by participation in a homosocial team sport. Nobody sees the contradiction in any of this. When told that she must join the Vixens - AND without auditioning! Join through back channels! - Betty looks completely disgusted. And yeah there's a very Rivderdalean triple pun here, of a sexualized virgin being forced to join the most objectfied female activity in American high school AND acquire the title VIXEN into the bargain! I wonder if this is the show advocating for teen girls to send nudes to boys - because that's what Betty would've done had she had the technology, right?

The next morning Lizzo the Lezzie is waiting for Toni at the school. I thought Lizzo dropped out? Is she just an incorrigible morning person? This is a disturbing level of stalking of Toni is it not? To come super early to the grounds of the school you dropped out of to provide sneering commentary on someone else's relationship is a LOT. And Lizzo is so carefully dressed too : Tom of Finland leathers hat and jacket, maroon pants, belt with a big interesting buckle that is the same color as her huge hoop earrings. She tells Toni she's "figured out a good hustle." She picks put "ripe" closeted girls, brings them out and uh deflowers them, then ditches them.

Oooh is this Toni Topaz having a toxic trait? Because her relentless pursuit of Cheryl, who was all manner of unwilling (plus the usual lack of sexual frisson between these two performers- also sidebar rant WHY WONT THEY GIVE VERONICA A GIRLFRIEND) was in truth a little icky right?

Toni looks shifty and avoidant when she spots Tabitha Tate and simply leaves Lizzo in the lurch.

Tabitha says that Mrs. Till was all the things that sound exhausting to have to be ("so strong, so inspiring") but that the tour trying to voice the racial injustice of America took a personal toll on her. This is the start of a severely, comically fucked up race related discussion vis a vis African Americans on this episode. First of all, you have two African American women explaining white racism to each other, very calmly, without expressing anger or fatigue and even managing to experience some surprise. That is so weird. Second, Toni says she "can only imagine" the hatred and racial injustice that Tabitha just got through encountering up close and personal. Excuse me? Why can she only imagine? Wouldn't Toni actually KNOW? Because anti black racism doesn't exist at all in Riverdale 1955?? (But she was one who pointed out exactly what some of the more obvious ones were to Featherhead!) When Toni confesses to Tabitha that she's now a cheerleader, she prefaces by saying "Don't laugh" and doesn't say the BS she tried to push on Lizzo at the start of her River Vixen career - that being the first black cheerleader is somehow meaningful. Tabitha evidently doesn't feel anything other than horror at the idea of being a cheerleader so she instead asks about whether Toni is still writing think pieces for the Blue and Gold. She isn't. Tabitha completely runs out of things to say. OK so thus far, 1955 Toni is a bit of a predatory lesbian lothario who will get sanctimonious about race only when she thinks she can get away with it, and Tabitha is a judgmental prig. I suppose this could be considered a sort of progress for characters who used to be all about their “race,” each with the designated role of being the only one with the braincell because that’s clumsy representation but it’s better than a hateful depiction, but the dark sides shown here are still a simplistic flip of the equally nuance-free ‘light’ sides that were dominant for both.

In the student lounge, Betty, Veronica and Cheryl (who really would be an ultimate throuple - with Veronica as the hinge person, if only, well, if only all of them didn’t have the various issues they’ve always had) allow Kevin to sit with them, which I simply do not understand. Betty is too good for her own good, to coin a phrase. Veronica is deeply amused by Betty being a “RiverVixen” to which Cheryl makes it clear that she did not want this to happen - for Betty to join the cheerleading squad NOR the nepotistic way she joined it. Veronica now owns the Babylonium - complete with “paperwork.”

Why. Do they do. This. with the Contract Mentions. [fists clenched, vibrating with rage] Finalized by who? Which paperwork? Is Veronica an emancipated minor too like Jughead probably possibly is or has she been lying all this time about being the same age as everyone else purportedly is in this universe?

In any case, Betty, who has developed a new oral fixation with lollipops, finds Veronica’s penchant for business as adorable as Veronica finds the thought of Betty in a cheerleader uniform. Veronica is wearing a very un-1950s Veronica outfit - the collar goes right up to the collarbone, the sleeves are puffy, the color subdued. Now that she’s recovered some element of her OG Universe self (compulsive entrepreneur), she is now speaking of herself in the third person and archly. The camp is dialed up so high the knob breaks off. (“Veronica Lodge likes to burn rubber” which is, what, three layers of pun? Burn Rubber = goes fast. Rubber = slang for condom. But Veronica is a virgin, etc). Betty and (Sighhhhh) Kevin think so too, because they give each other a look.

Or it could be because their 17 year old friend suddenly talking like she’s a 1940s screen diva at a waning stage of her career AND talking about herself in the third person using her full name is just fully very strange.

To make matters worse, Archie brings in Reggie Mantle to this little group, trying to do his best to integrate this valuable new teammate (and roommate, and all round amazing looking cool handsome guy that he thinks is just the tops on first sight) to his coterie. Veronica fully falls into an erotic fugue at the sight of Reggie, and starts to speak in tongues - “Are you gonna introduce us to your strapping flutter bum of a new pal?” 1950s Archie smiles nicely at her while not answering, which is the usual thing that he does when he just doesn’t understand wtf the other person is saying but doesn’t feel safe asking them to explain in case everyone else understands and they all wind up finding out that he’s dumb.

Reggie apparently expects Riverdale people to be completely insane because he doesn’t even do a double take at this exceptional sentence from this girl he’s meeting for the first time. He just soberly introduces himself. I mean, given that he has first met Uncle Fucking Frank on a mission from Clifford Blossom of all people, and then had Archie say what he said about the curtains and Betty, he’s not wrong.

Veronica is laying it on an inch thick - “I suspected a tall drink of water like you was a sportsman!”

She’s taking all her behavioral cues from an earlier era of movie diva, I think. This is like, Marlene Dietrich (“Marriage? [scoff] I never found a man good enough for that.”) or Greta Garbo (“But I vaaunt to be aloonnne”) with a certain brassy kind of young Joan Crawford making movie after movie with Clark Gable.

The original high-camp archly-haute queen of Riverdale, Cheryl, fights for her crown. She interrupts whatever next thing Veronica was going to say by snapping that Veronica “might get a ticket for speeding.” This doesn’t just mean that Cheryl really dislikes it when people are very heterosexual around her (though she does feel that too). Veronica first of all is intensely wlw-coded, which is why it irks (the closeted) Cheryl that Veronica is laying it on so thick with the attraction to big handsome man’s-man Reggie (which of course goes all the way over the maximum virility level to loop all the way around to being gay!). (In a way that Toni never actually appeared to like or interact with other women, OG Veronica absolutely LOVED other women and made the personal political in a very principled way). And it shows that Cheryl not only closely listens to everything Veronica says but also really thought the whole ‘burn rubber’ triple pun was great, which is why she references it in her attempted put down.

She tries to demonstrate how she thinks not-straight girls should react to someone with Reggie’s glossy hair and sculptural face. Cheryl puts on the most anodyne professional face to tell Reggie what “professional” (ahem) connections they have, and makes sure to say that the two of them “will be working closely together.” She does this very well. But the thing is, she looks even more insane than before because the flip of the switch from her sniping at Veronica (an explosion of genuine feeling) and this ‘groomed professional’ self is so abrupt!

Reggie is like, okay so hot girl 1 is nuts and so is hot girl 2, but maybe hot girl 3 (and neighbor) is not insane, so he asks Betty if she’s a cheerleader. Kevin makes a face like he knows exactly Reggie’s thought process (but honestly, fuck you Kevin. Die in a ditch.). Betty does give the most sane reaction out of the three. When Reggie calls her ‘neighbor’ though, Veronica AND Betty AND Kevin all have a reaction. (Cheryl already knew and possibly doesn’t care so she doesn’t say anything). Kevin and Veronica look over at Archie, while Betty scrunches her forehead at Reggie.

Archie is still looking at Reggie like made of solid gold. “He’s gonna help turn things around for the Bulldogs.”

Veronica is so bored by Riverdale. She must be. Why else is she acting like this? She immediately tries to monopolize Reggie’s attention, calling him “Reginald” and interviewing him like she’s a celebrity journalist trying to win some sort of tabloid spirit award. Reggie continually gives her looks that blatantly say, Are you really like this - like, really?? Yet Veronica is utterly undeterred. What she reminds me of is Samantha from Sex and the City. No woman talks like that - that was a ‘woman’ written by gay men who thought THEY would talk like that and behave like that if THEY were women (which no, they would not. There are reasons why actual women can’t talk or behave that way). Veronica tries to lay out all her best cards (she thinks) on the table, concluding with “I own my own business, yes” and calls her movie theater a “movie palace.”

Oh Veronica. Being a entrepreneurial girl in a heterosexist world is exactly like being a logical confrontational girl or a scientifically rigorous girl. Being these things is surely a strength, to be aspired to and will fuel you to achieve self actualization, but no straight boy ever found these things hot. They like us in spite of these strengths, not because. Sad, but true.

Reggie clearly just doesn’t believe her, possibly adding ‘mythomania’ to his assessment that already includes ‘speaks strangely’ and ‘incomprehensible’ about Veronica.

When showing off her fabulous gift of the gab, her perfect face, and her entrepreneur skills fails to make an impact on Reggie, Veronica gets annoyed. In response to his saying his town just did not have a movie theater AND his parents never owned a TV (possibly, never made enough to buy one), she offers Reggie a job, which will come with a side order of sexual harassment from a very attractive female boss.

Cheryl Blossom, who knows all about Reggie’s financial dependence on her father, finds the mention of money horrible (Cheryl Old Money vs. Veronica New Money dynamic). She calls Veronica uncouth (“Raised by wolves!”). Reggie has had more than enough. He used to go to Stonewall with rich WASPs so can tell when things are about to go sideways. He literally backs away from everyone, asking to be shown the gym.

Veronica AND Kevin leap at the chance to get near Reggie and a shower stall at the same time, so Archie comes to his rescue to show him the way. Reggie gives Kevin a Et Tu Brute?!? look, not because he’s homophobic, but I think because he thought a big muscled fit person like Kevin might conduct himself with better comportment. Archie gives Kevin a look before leaving.

Tabitha approaches Jughead in the hall. They are wearing perfectly matched outfits. She’s wearing a fabric with a pink-and-green checkerboard pattern, while Jughead is wearing a vest with shades of green in a grid over a pink shirt. His locker door is very interesting. He’s got a big cover of the Super Duck comic issue taped in the honored central location, which I take to mean that not only is he actually really working on the Super Duck comics but he actually is proud of and excited by the work (Unless this is some super tightly thought out trickery against Werthers and Featherhead). There’s also that month’s calendar with each day crossed out - is this him working on his personal writing ‘every day’? To be true to himself, there’s also some sort of movie postcard about SPIDERS and another one about TOMB. I wish I could make out more of what’s on there but I can’t.

Anyway - Jughead apparently has NOT been doing anything to help Tabitha keep abreast of her schoolwork like he promised her a few episodes ago. Tabitha smilingly takes him to task for it, and he’s full of stammering apologies. Tabitha says that she didn’t actually have difficulties keeping up with school, so Jughead is “hereby absolved.” She even wants to know why Jughead was so preoccupied, like he tried to explain during his apology.

The way Tabitha and Jughead keep echoing each other in this little scene is just so cute. Their outfits exactly match, as I’ve said. Jughead says that he “got a job” writing a “broad range” of comic books and that he’s also working for Bradberry. Tabitha has read Bradberry because she “reads across all genres, including science fiction.” The cuteness of these super attractive nerds with their pretty faces just moisturizes my dry little heart. Their twitchy little body language tells of excitement and shy liking also match - they both shake their heads a little when they suggest something, to indicate Please Don’t Say No, and bounce on their heels and do minute little up down motions with their shoulders. Whereas 1955 Archie is wholesome in a slightly clueless way but also because he’s trying to be perfect as a way to grieve the loss of his father, these two, memory-wiped Jughead and 1955 Tabitha, are genuinely wholesome. When Tabitha takes her leave, Jughead looks at her with slight disbelief at his own good fortune.

At the ‘movie palace,’ Kevin, who like Cheryl pays very close attention to everything Veronica says I guess, asks Veronica for a job. He’s also obsessively watched Singing In the Rain so many times that he’s gotten it memorized end to end. (This is yet another way Kevin is not friendshaped to me - I’ve always been a Fred Astaire girl.) One of the (spoken) prerequisites of getting a job at this theater is to love movies. One of the half-spoken prerequisites, however, is a willingness to get involved, either directly or not, in Veronica’s attempt at having a sex life in Riverdale. Veronica really thought that becoming a sort of mogul would help her land straight guys.

Oh honey.

Veronica (sort of like Toni, actually) is sexually predatory and also desperate in a way I find curious. She’s been hitting on Clay for a while, apparently, but even though hes just NOT RESPONDING (which is very woman-coded of him) she refuses to take the fucking hint. She makes it blatantly clear that she only hired Kevin because he is friends with Clay AND will help her “suss him out.”

Oh honey!

We finally get to the reveal of Reggie The Blur Mantle's basketball skills! Uncle Fucking Frank calls his players "turkeys." Waterboy Dilton is there wearing an especially unflattering rotten greenish Grey color sweatshirt while everyone is in either a blue or a yellow jersey. I guess gold was too expensive? I can comfortably hate Frank again because a teammate tosses a used paper cup right at Dilton and another gives him a fist bump for it in a very visible act of denigration and Frank neither notices nor cares. Maybe it's this inability to see detail and perceive reality by this coach that is the cause of this team sucking so badly?

Reggie’s purpose in being brought on is made crystal clear to everyone. He's either to be an unwelcome alien element that provokes the existing property team members to hitherto impossible levels of competence and, if that doesn't work, use his own proven excellence to drag them over the edge. Frank has no interest in Reggie’s quality of life or smooth integration into the team, accordingly. I've been hired a part of a reform and upgrade effort like this one and lemme tell you - the push back from the existing people who are told We Are Bringing Them In Cuz You Suck is insidious, nasty, brutish and persistent. People don't like being insulted nor shown that they are replaceable.

So Fucking Frank makes Julian the captain of one team and Reggie the captain of the other. The only two that initially join Reggie’s group are Archie and Fangs. Archie thinks it's a no brainer - he dislikes Julian, this is his uncle's big gambit, and he thinks Reggie is just tops. Fangs joins, I assume, because Reggie has black hair like him. When everyone else joins Team Julian, Fangs objects (3:7 is unfeasible).

Reggie invites Dilton to join. Dilton lights up as that fucker Frank looks back at him as he's seeing him for the first time. Maybe he has. I've had white teachers "forget" wholesale that I was in their class when the class had only 6 other students when assigning roles for a semester length project. (Riverdale got this right, is what I'm saying.)

The thing is, I HAD TO be in that class.

Why Dilton puts up with this especially when he had no ability in it is confusing to me.

Archie is worried about this decision but he does nicely ask Dilton if he's up for it, then prompts him to get on the court.

This is by the way fascinating kingly behavior on Reggie’s part. The easier choice when you're bullied is to avoid the people who are the same type as you.

The Vixens filter in. I didn't realize the cheerleaders were obliged to sit and watch team practice. That is truly terrible. No wonder Betty was so annoyed.

And we're off!

I do not care about sports and therefore have zero knowledge or reference but is this sort of angle normal for basketball??

Reggie scores a point immediately. I'm assuming that what he does here - a sort of demi tourne en-l'air as he scores- is awesome because they show it a) in slow motion and b) most of the Vixens clap and all react like they saw something amazing. Cheryl especially looks shocked.

I am again so enamored of their outfits this season. An extra wears a beautiful pinstripe skirt with stripes of color mixed in - white, red, and mustard - with a grapefruit cardigan over a white shirt. I covet this outfit. Betty is fetching dressed only in pink and white. I LOVE IT when they put Cheryl in navy, like they do here, because it makes her look like three scoops of vanilla ice cream. Midge looks extremely not pregnant in her cinched-tight skirt. Toni is trying to dyke it up while matching Cheryl in navy tones - tight blue jeans and a matching sweater.

Julian makes like he's going to smash Dilton's glasses (or face) with the basketball in his hands. Dilton cringes, costing his side however many points Julian immediately scores. He's crushed. Reggie comes up from behind to reassure him with pats to the stomach, maintaining eye contact with Dilton to make sure he is OK.

The fucker Frank seems worried at this show of solidarity that Reggie feels with other Asians.

Reggie scores every time he attempts to. He looks right at Betty as soon as he scores the first one, and Betty is getting into it with every score Reggie uh, scores. (I am bored and I also know very few sports words.)

Julian fully elbows Dilton right in the chest, knocking him over, before scoring too. Abusing Dilton seems to be what helps him achieve excellence. I'm wondering what exactly was wrong with this team to begin with because Julian at least seems as good as Reggie at scoring, albeit in less aerodynamic ways.

Muscles rippling, Reggie lifts Dilton up off the ground. I feel a grim obligation to look up a Dilton/Reggie tag for s7 on Ao3. (Grim because I much prefer the other Dilton, the feral one that eventually grows his hair long and has that secret close friendship with Jughead).

Oh and when Julian scores the banner behind him says Victory Is Ours! whereas when Reggie is helping Dilton out the banner behind the two of them says Go Team Go!

Frank shouts something about game point, and Dilton, whose dusty skills are irrigated by one instance of skin on skin contact by Reggie, actually manages to score. Frank looks pleased but I think he's not proud of Dilton so much as pleased for himself that Reggie’s excellence transfers to other people.

Reggie, Fangs and Archie hoist Dilton into the air to celebrate his single solitary winning moment in life so far in the 50s alternate universe. The two Asian boys helped each other win against Julian Blue-Blood Blossom and to make sure you got it, Riverdale gave the Asian Boy Team members yellow jerseys. Guess what color Julian's jersey is. Later, Julian is so pissed he kicks a basketball.

In the locker room afterwards Dilton is shown collecting laundry to haul off somewhere. Just like I didn't know that cheerleaders were forced to attend the practice and training sessions of the players, I didn’t know that to be a water boy was to be an unpaid maid for the other players. Remind me once again why Dilton wants to participate on these terms?? (Also, an Asian boy with laundry duties is actually worse than Long Duk Dong. Having the less stereotypical Reggie (though at this point, the Super Asian Who is Good At All the Things is ripening into almost a fully fledged stereotype) doesn’t counteract Dilton’s portrayal. That’s not how this works.

Everyone other than Dilton is pretty glum, because the player that was brought in because they suck has proven himself to be superior to them. Archie suggests that they all take him out for burgers at Pop’s. Possibly for the first time in his life, Archie is met with silent treatment from a bunch of people. He wants to know “what gives?” Reggie gets it immediately, so he tries to recuse himself. Ominously, Julian suddenly says he wants to go, and that’s because when Julian is down in the dumps the immediate next thing he alights on is to use his money to squash someone. Knowing that Reggie doesn’t have a car, he sets up a race - “Last one to Pop’s treats!” knowing it’s gonna be Reggie. Archie didn’t think of that, so he feels alarmed. Dilton is permitted to come by Julian. The four of them - Fangs, Archie, Dilton and Reggie - awkwardly stare at each other.

In the extremely constricting looking cheerleader practice outfits - the button down shirts with tightly belted blue shorts - the Vixens are assigned their ‘designated’ player by Cheryl. Cheryl thank the lord gets Julian (which she doesn’t mind and is great for everyone). She describes this duty as “personalized support, baking him cookies” and “helping with his homework.” Neither Veronica nor Betty have ever heard of this. Cheryl assigns Archie to Toni, and Reggie to Betty. Toni is full of questions and suspicions about this choice, but Betty seems more than pleased.

Meanwhile, Tabitha and Jughead (him wearing the felt crown, which unlike the beanie I can’t ‘unsee’ and her in a pink bandeau headband) are visiting Apartment 407 which belongs to Bradberry. The author is not responsive to Jughead’s knocking. Tabitha suggests leaving him a note, and Jughead, while scribbling, asks if Tabitha wants to go see a movie. lOoh, sort of like how Jabitha started - with her asking him to hang out!! “I would love to go to the movies with you” is what she says, in her melting sweet voice and her huge soft eyes which can’t be fully obscured by those huge glasses frames. It’s a completely unromantic movie, about being attacked by a giant octopus, yet Jughead gets starry-eyed when she says Yes without hesitation. Having written his note, Jughead takes out a piece of gum from his mouth that he hadn’t been chewing this entire time to attach it to the door. Jughead and Tabitha giggle cutely at each other as they head off to the movies.

In the changing room back at school, Toni is changed into her Hot Beatnik Chick outfit. Cheryl asks what’s wrong, to which Toni ominously replies, “We need to get real, Cheryl.” So, this emotional rollercoaster that Toni keeps dragging Cheryl on - is this supposed to serve as some sort of corrective to the way Choni ultimately worked out in the OG timeline? Lizzo’s critiques about how Toni’s predatorily self-serving ways being correct doesn’t really do anything for me until they do more with Lizzo as a character. Toni, though, is not wrong when she says, “Baking for my own personal meathead is not really want I want my life to be about.” Hear hear. Plus, I don’t think that it was general knowledge that this level of handmaidenhood was what was required of cheerleading, so this probably is far beyond what Toni is willing to put up with for a girlfriend. Cheryl seems infinitely sad at the dismissive way Toni says “cheerleader” when she says that isn’t what she wants to be. Then she asks a really scary question, so scary that she closes her eyes the entire time she is asking. Cheryl wants to know if this whole rejection of everything square and cheerleader and so forth is because Cheryl asked to go steady. Toni says no, at first, but then says that she needs to “figure herself out” plus she “needs space.” Again, I must reiterate my question about what making Toni not just a bohemian but such a toxic one supposed to show me. Cheryl is left alone with two sets of paper shakers lying like dead animals on the bench. Poor Cheryl.

At the movie theater, Jughead is ordering a LOT of food because he is flush with cash from his writing gigs I guess - popcorn, large cola with ice, two packs of ‘Senior Mints,’ a ‘Butterflinger’ with a hard emphasis on the G, Mint BoGos, Buccaneers and a Skit-Skat.

I happen to love KitKats and calling them SKAT is hurtful to me in a personal way. The official ‘joke’ of this little bit is that all of this is entirely for Jughead’s solitary consumption. Tabitha, who is grossed out by this collection of foodstuffs, has no appetite. There’s an inflation joke too, because Veronica says all of this is 75 cents. The thing that’s truly an insider level of joke about this bit, of course, is that Jughead seems to have entirely forgotten that he and Veronica had a pretty long term flirtation where they dated and she fixed up his residence and he read her his first drafts.

Veronica tells Clay that she founds it “interesting” that Tabitha and Jughead are at the movies together. Clay does not care about straight people’s shenanigans, plus it’s apparent that Veronica will not stop bringing up the topic of sex to him, so he deflects as politely as possible.

Veronica however has not forgotten their entanglement, which she describes as lasting as long as a “New York minute.” Now Clay has no choice but to show interest. Clay thinks Jughead is “plenty handsome” to which Veronica rolls her eyes before saying a very lukewarm, “I suppose.” Veronica says that Jughead is an oddball, which she makes sound like a bad thing, before trying to butter up Clay by telling him that she prefers her men to be “continental” and “worldly” and with an “air of mystery.” Cut to Kevin’s POV (Kevin is sweeping up the front hall of the theater while Veronica has Clay trapped in close proximity with her behind the concession counter. The signs on the wall immediately behind Clay read:

Refreshments

Hot Buttered (much small writing: Popcorn)

FRISKY (sandals - is this a movie?)

FLESH (eating spiders).

Clay gives Kevin a helpless look before deciding to beat a swift retreat. He’s got reel changing duties to attend to. Before he can fully get away, however, Veronica turns it up a notch to fully sexually harass her employee: “Just think about picking up what I’m putting down” she says, placing pointy manicured fingernails against his hand. Clay gives Kevin yet another Oh Help Me look (unseen by Veronica). Kevin is trying to figure how to rescue his boyfriend.

At the student lounge, Betty is trying to provide support for Reggie. She asks him what he got for a certain question, to which Reggie says she doesn’t have to do this. Betty tells him straight out that this is part of her job as a Vixen. She also wants to know what his favorite cookie is because she’s obliged to bake him some. Reggie doesn’t want her to do that either. Reggie is either some sort of paragon (Uhhh Model Minority?) or sexually repressed (Sigh) or gay because he seems ultra unreactive to Betty, being gorgeous and friendly. Betty is repressing a lot of anger about being made to participate in any of this, so it comes out in this arch, sarcastic way. I also think that she’s defensive about her ‘reputation’ so she pretends she doesn’t care as she tells him how her innocent sexual exploration (“A peep show, in our windows, if you can even call it that”) was violently taken out of the realm of privacy and ruined her reputation in town, leading her to flash her underwear on live television.

Reggie has fully had enough. He looks very concerned for her sanity as well as his own safety. Betty belatedly realizes how insane how she said what she said makes her sound but her panic makes her unable to order her thoughts. (“We didn’t— No, we’re not— I’m completely–! [dissolves into adorable mouthsounds of incoherent reassurance]). He decides he should just go. This is very reminiscent of the “Am I the only one here who hasn’t gotten rid of a dead body” moment from Killing Mr. Honey, except a bit less funny because Reggie’s personality is so tamped down for 1955. Overwhelmed by this girl mentioning “peep show” and “flashing panties” in her first real conversation with him, he tells her that she’s hereby “relieved of your, uh, Vixen duties, okay?” As he takes off, Betty puts a hand to shield her face. She is just the cutest.

Reggie is practicing basketball when Archie finds him at the gym. Archie invites him to lunch, but Reggie refuses. Archie insists that it’s not with the team (shitty people) but instead his other friends (hypersexual crazy people) so Reggie politely declines double.

Then we come to a comical bit that I don’t know the show knows is comical. Clay, Tabitha and Toni are sitting together to discuss Toni’s idea of starting a literary society at Riverdale High for black students because of …Emmett Till. That’s a really weird jump to me, but OK. Clay and Tabitha seem excited. This isn’t what I find comical. What I find comical is that this is an oblique discussion about anti-black racism by three black students who are all dating white people in an episode that decided to focus on Reggie’s Korean ethnicity.

Toni wants to highlight Black voices and writing. Clay is a prolific writer off screen - he writes poetry, literary criticism and short fiction. He wants a forum and probably deserves it -except he did spoken word that one time at the coffee house, and it’s not clear to me why he had to wait for Toni to get bored with her jaunt to Caucasian Squaretown to do this. Tabitha really hates cheerleading. Does she know about the baking and the helping with the homework and being assigned a personal meathead and all of that? It’s strongly implied Tabitha really wants Toni to give it up for an idea that she approves of as much more worthy. Toni says she gave up cheerleading because she was gay for Cheryl Blossom. Neither Tabitha nor Clay have a reaction to this at first. Tabitha enthusiastically agrees when, in an attempt to steer the conversation away from her personal life, Toni says her ‘journal’ would make a big difference to (just) the black students. The fact that Tabitha and Toni take it as a given that absolutely no white students would read this journal is an interesting commentary.

Clay wants to know what happened to which Toni gives a toxic significant other answer: ”We’re just so different.” I say it’s toxic because all the things she names about Cheryl - family background, race, financial status - were fully upfront and known and contributed to why she pursued Cheryl in the first place (according to Lizzo). Clay calls bullshit on it immediately - that it’s not ‘impossible’ to date someone who is very different (i.e. white, if you’re black) from you. Toni really needs writers for her upcoming journal so she graciously concedes his point about how “everything is a conversation” (when what she has been doing to Cheryl this whole time is making demands, ignoring refusals, and now, issuing unilateral decisions), but then needles him back with the fact that both Kevin and Clay are preppies. “I guess it depends on how much you like the person,” is Clay’s retort.

They’re actually fighting while making really sweet faces at each other. Clay is very interesting.

Tabitha, who is dating the show’s officially strange person, and the one that freaked everyone out weeks ago in this universe with his nutty theory about comets and the future and the internet etc, says absolutely nothing. Did she know both Clay and Toni were gay? I can’t tell if she’s just mulling over what they said or she’s in over her head and this is stunned silence.

At the theater, Veronica is stalking Clay, who isn’t there. She asks Kevin where Clay is, so Kevin has had enough. He calls her a slut first (because of course he would - “You’re coming on really strong”) but then Kevin says a correct thing: “Is that really appropriate [given that he works for you]?” Veronica thinks there is “nothing wrong with a little workplace flirtation.” Um. So Kevin (???!??! wtf wtf??) is like, literally decades ahead of his time (the COINAGE of the phrase sexual harassment wasn’t until the late 70s by the very great legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon who is a personal hero of mine and in a direct connection - not really- to this episode visited S. Korea in 2019 where I got to meet her at a talk she gave). All because he wants to safeguard his boyfriend. Anyway, not only is this the They Say the Word Korean Too Many Times For My Comfort episode, this is also the episode where all the gay people come out to someone. Kevin outs Clay first (without asking, and in a fit of pique, which is so shitty) and then himself, to Veronica.

Oh but not before he’s hateful to a beautiful woman first. When Veronica dejectedly notes that Clay “isn’t remotely interested” he answers in the most swinish way possible: “He’s not. I know that for a fact.” Have I mentioned enough times that I hate Kevin? I do. I hate Kevin.

Veronica does a huge about face to say that “she knew” both Clay and Kevin were gay. I think she’s lying. I might give her the point that she knew Kevin was gay (from all the obsessive Singing in the Rain watching, which is really about looking at Gene Kelly’s ass) but Clay? She didn’t.

Anyway she adjusts to reality really fast, thinking swiftly on her feet when Kevin confronts her with, “If you knew that, why would you make a play for Clay?” to retort that it was all to test her hypothesis, “of course.” She can’t sustain the lie, however, because her bored horniness takes over. The immediately next thing she does is to ask if Clay could possibly ever be bisexual. I really doubt Kevin has ever asked Clay this, but he states that “he doesn’t” before presuming to answer a question that Veronica did not ask - he includes himself when he says “we” don’t swing both ways. Veronica lies again and says that she was only ‘double checking.’

Her disappointment is so crushing that she turns into Mae West. She makes up some gibberish - that it’s better to have “hunky friends who are boys” than a hunky boyfriend. I’m not at all this type of woman (the old skool term for this is a double whammy of homophobic misogyny so I won’t use that word here) so maybe I’m missing something, but if Betty Cooper’s experience in this universe is anything to go by, Kevin is no friend to any woman because he hates women. Being homosexual doesn’t do anything to ameliorate his misogyny - in fact, it makes it much, much worse. He’s disgusted by female human bodies. Stay the hell away, Veronica!

Veronica in her disassociated Mae West persona is too much for Kevin to handle at this moment. She claims to have had more fun with the “Toni and Tab” types than Dennis Hopper and Steve McQueen which can’t possibly be true if you’re a woman attracted to men. Like COME ON (Tab is Tab Hunter, and I guess Anthony Perkins is Toni?). I Have got to hand it to Veronica for having a can-do spirit about everything. “This hick down is finally starting to feel like home,” she says, in the immediately aftermath of being told that the guy she’s been panting after for weeks and weeks will never be interested. Kevin seems moved, but since I hate Kevin, I don’t care.

At basketball practice, Julian has an announcement: Tomorrow is the “Bulldog Booster Basketball Mixer.” We know that it couldn’t possibly have been Julian who came up with this mouthful of a title - it has Cheryl stamped all over it. It’s a fundraiser to build a new gym, girls will be there, and everyone has to “dress spiffy.” Coach Fucking Frank forces Julian to issue a nastily worded invitation for Reggie in particular. All the boys are wearing the identical Chuck Taylor high-rise sneakers - is this part of the Blossom sponsorship?

Reggie I guess always stays later than everyone else to practice a bit more (and to avoid Julian), because when he heads into the locker room the only one there is Archie. Archie tries to get Reggie to commit to coming to the mixer (“They’re always a gas and a half!”). Reggie shuts him down forthwith.

In an echo of Mad Dog Munroe from the OG timeline, Reggie of 1955 wants to get a scholarship for college through his sports skills. Archie is wearing yellow to show his, uh, solidarity I guess with Reggie. (I rarely recall Archie in yellow, but also I am cranky now from all this unprecedented history research I’m being made to do.) Archie really, really, truly, desperately, like a WHOLE LOT wants to be friends with Reggie, not just roommate and host. He wants to know why Reggie can’t “cut loose a little.” He even tries to gloss the turd that Julian laid with his reluctant invitation, upgrading what Julian said (“We’ll be welcoming our newest Bulldog to the family, I suppose”) to “you’re the guest of honor.” Reggie refuses to go along to get along. In response to being called “naive,” Archie calls Reggie “a killjoy.” He wants Reggie to meet Riverdale’s Bulldogs “halfway.” This turns out to be a trigger for Reggie to tell his story.

Oh, before he tells his story he correctly points out that outside of Archie, who is tone deaf and determined to not see any unpleasantness even as it’s right in his face, nobody else has taken any sort of step towards him.

Bret (who is also alive - yay! - and a basketball player in this universe) of Stonewall Prep put up a hugely labor intensive prank of getting a really big bag of rice into Reggie’s locker, tearing it halfway open and then wedging it so that as soon as Reggie opens the door an avalanche of cascades from it all over the floor. He also concocted some sort of mean line (“You guys like rice” and “Enough to take back to the farm” and also “Yellow belly” which is kind of funny actually - if someone called me Yellow Belly I’d laugh, but I suppose any of the actually on-point racist epithets aren’t allowed on American television). The sheer amount of effort that something like this takes marks people who are bullies to be absolutely psychotic. Bret and Co. basically ran Reggie out of the school. Reggie in the OG universe felt safe telling Archie his most painful secrets (back then they were about his father who was openly abusive to the passive observation of everyone else in town, which is also a sort of racist reaction - “Those people are just like that” - which, no we are not). Reggie is so hurt. He’s determined to not “give anyone a chance to humiliate” him “ever again.”

OK so this is a great character moment for Reggie, but of course, people of color having to relive their most wounding moments of racist trauma in a way that feels sufficiently authentic, and/or literally bare their broken bodies (i.e. the open casket photo of Emmet Till which started this season) for the edification of single special white persons is a racist trope which keeps getting regurgitated as being meaningful in American popular culture. This time, Archie is the special white person. Plus, instead of just being ashamed of their appalling ignorance, the white person always gets to have their say according to the trope, which Archie does here as well. (“We’re not like that here.”) Reggie though gets the final word, which is very nice; “Aren't you?”

Wounded Reggie is wearing the navy jersey top. Wounded Cheryl is wearing a violet-navy long coat, with red accents (gloves, collar, shoes, file folder, patent leather shoulder bag) as she descends the steps of the school. Can we just talk about how hard it is to get the exact same shade of anything for an outfit like this, nevermind red, and across so many different articles of dress? I covet the coat and the bag, especially.

Toni is waiting for her. The way she says “hello” like a scared little cat filled me with tenderness. This season’s highlight of Cheryl’s essential softness has been wonderful for me. Cheryl says she’s being “stoic and strong for the sake of” the Vixens. Toni doesn’t really pretend to care about that. Instead she directly asks for money. Toni sells the journal idea to Cheryl as “a way to express ourselves on our own terms.” Cheryl indicates that she’s all for it, but that Featherhead might nix it.

Because Toni is doing this social justice type thing but the only three black students with actually speaking parts are all dating white people and there is a statistically anomalous over representation of not-straights, the show has a black extra stand on the steps of the school to show that there are indeed other black students. His legs stay in view the entire time Toni and Cheryl are talking .

Cheryl even volunteers to bake for a fundraising bake sale, if it comes to it.

Cheryl then asks if she was dumped for being white. Toni says yes, which is very brutal. I have no idea what the hell this is supposed to indicate because um, what is wrong with Toni? Did she somehow discover that she is more black than she thought? But she’s dated not-black women before, no? Her and Lizzo are exes, right?

At the fundraiser mixer thing at the Blossoms, a mixed race couple (a white man and a black woman) pointedly walk across the screen. Fangs is posing for Midge, which Cheryl intercepts by hauling Midge off screen as the camera moves on in one long take towards ARchie, who is hanging out at the food spread. The Blossoms own what looks like an enormous oil painting based off of an Audubon print. Why that bird and why this shot I don’t know. Betty approaches him for a chat.

When asked how being a Vixen is going, Betty says that she’s been forced into it by Werther, who thought it would “burn off excess energy.” They both agree that adults are really stupid about the fact that becoming more cardio-fit doesn’t actually make you LESS horny. Plus the outfits and all the looking at boys in short shorts? How exactly would this make Betty not think about getting naked with boys? Betty tries to tell Archie that there’s a weird system of “taking care” of basketball players on the cheerleading squad but Archie is not listening at all. Oh- by the by - now that Toni is off the squad, does this mean Archie is the one boy without an assigned cheerleader?

Anyway, drawn by the power of recessive genes, Archie has made eye contact with Clifford Blossom. He is summoned to the circle of people of the inner sanctum at this party - the Blossom parents, Julian, Uncle Fucking Frank and one more dude whom I don’t know named Dennis. Penelope is wearing the most extraordinarily unflattering terrible dress of all time. I am so fascinated. It’s a long dress with sewn on details all down both sides from the waist to ankle mimicking the effect of a hoop skirt, making the extremely narrow and petite Penelope look as wide as a barn door.

Clifford Blossom wants to discuss Reggie, his “secret weapon.” Clifford, with Julian behind him, says that being forced to share a room with Reggie is a “sacrifice” that he appreciates Archie for being willing to take on. Archie is “cranked” to do it. Dennis says he wouldn’t be able to tolerate such a thing, having to “bunk with a…..” [Korean yellow belly? Lol why does that sound like a species of bird or fish?] Penelope chimes in saying that having Reggie around is “a necessary evil.” Clifford Blossom is obsessed with winning. Oh and he was also a former Bulldog basketball player. He then turns to Frank to say that he was initially skeptical of bringing on a “Korean prodigy.” Clifford is offended by Reggie’s absence, even though he finds what he’s seen of Reggie’s basketball skills very impressive. Archie, possibly because he had that talk with Reggie earlier or maybe because the recessive gene holders communicate better with each other, realizes that he needs to say the right things to Clifford Blossom and tries to appease him, by saying that Reggie “doesn’t want to fall behind on his schoolwork,” which is why he’s not here at this party kissing Clifford’s ass. Clifford, intending that this message be conveyed by Archie, threatens Reggie that if he doesn’t keep smiling while bringing home the championship trophy, there will be “trouble for his family.”

Why? Why will there be trouble for his family? What is Reggie’s father? Are both his parents illegal immigrants? (But how was his father able to enlist for the army?) Is this something to do with his mother’s status? Did they break anti miscegenation laws? WHAT?

Dennis smiles evilly at this threat, but it has no teeth because I have no idea why it’s threatening. Archie is perturbed enough to take his leave right then. We scan to Cheryl, having overheard this entire exchange, also look quite upset.

At the movie theater, Veronica is very pleased to see Reggie. She needles him right away, and he banters right back - I thought you didn’t like movies vs I didn’t say that, I just said my town didn’t have a movie theater. Why oh why is Veronica so desperate though? She hits on Reggie in the most nakedly fishing-for-compliments way. And why oh why are these dudes so brutal to her? Reggie bluntly says he didn’t even remember he might run into Veronica at this theater. Forgot all about her. What the hell.

Veronica rewards his churlishness with free popcorn. 1955 Veronica being overly generous to whatever boy she is interested in is upsetting to me the way 2020 Adult Veronica was never not drinking liquor. When Kevin points out that what Reggie just said was quite rude (as though he himself did any better? Hypocrite.) Veronica says this about Reggie:

“Take a powder, Herman Melville, because that is the real Moby Dick.”

I’ve already made the post about how this is a joke about Asian Dick Size. But also, a second layer of this is that she called an Asian guy a Great White Whale.

Meanwhile, Jughead has taken Tabitha all the way back to his home that Veronica has fixed up for him for free.

Actually the line progression is very hilarious:

“... that is the real Moby dick.”

[pinging music]

Tabitha’s voice: “Wow this is like the Orient Express!”

So they managed to work the word “Orient” in here I guess. Well done. Tabitha has brought Jughead a book gift. “Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by WEB Du Bois.” Jughead pronounces it Du-Bwah, which Tabitha corrects as Du-Boyz. We’re not allowed to make a pun about Du Bois I guess, like call him Trois Bois. Jughead is impressed with the title, so Tabitha tells him to read “The Comet” first since he likes science fiction. She describes the actual real story written by Du Bois, which is “one of the first times an interracial relationship has been depicted in science fiction.” She wants to read it aloud together with her new white boyfriend. Jughead looks entranced by the twitchy cuteness of Tabitha as she suggests this activity.

Archie has come back home to find Reggie reading Super Duck(written by Jughead??) on his bed. Reggie wants to know if the cheerleaders looked pretty at the mixer, but Archie is too burdened by the choice of whether to convey Clifford Blossom’s threat to Reggie, and opts the path of least resistance. He doesn't convey the message, and skips out on further discussion about the event with Reggie. Reggie seems to take this as a dismissal of his overture which is intended as an apology and a gesture of friendship.

The next day, Julian is being obnoxious at the basketball practice. Uncle Fucking Frank is ‘in a meeting’ so Julian runs warm up, to bully the shit out of Reggie. At some point he calls Reggie “Banana Boy” which is another ridiculous epithet. I kind of wish they would either not address the fact that hate speech exists or just use the actual examples because this and Yellow Belly just aren’t cutting enough. In any case, Reggie reacts like he’s been called a proper slur. Reggie refuses to pass the ball to Julian, instead giving it to Archie. Archie, however, decides to um, White Knight the situation. He punches Julian so hard he knocks him flat on the ground.

I mean, it can’t be that hard, because Jughead Jones managed to do this on behalf of Ethel Muggs. But the violence startles Fangs and Dilton on the bench, and Reggie grimaces because he just wants to get his NCAA scholarship and get out of this general area.

Archie gives an anti-racism speech to his teammates about Reggie, based on Reggie’s merits. Merits based arguments in service of anti-racism only feed the racism, so I’m not sure this is better for Reggie’s life than just not saying anything. Moreover, in a very strange move, whoever directed this decided to have a black extra stand next to a white one as the main 2 people that Archie appears to be directing his speech at (Julian is still flat on the ground). Um. The look that the black student gives Archie can only be described as disassociated. Archie says that if any player can’t get on board with being true teammates and supporting Reggie be his excellent self, they are free to leave. He even tells Julian “that includes you, too, captain.”

Meanwhile, at the offices of the Blue and Gold, with the world “Gold” in huge font right behind her head, Cheryl hands Toni a check. It sounds like she’s committed a form of embezzlement, diverting funds that were originally intended for something else, on her own cognizance, without Featherhead final approval. Even though Cheryl took a huge personal risk, her toxic ex girlfriend Toni does not give a shit. She even shittily helps herself to a ‘plausible deniability’ option (“Well I won’t ask any more questions.”). Cheryl is so disappointed.

Toni stops her just as she’s about to step out the door, to ask what her plans are after cheerleading practice. Oh Cheryl. She’s twisting her hands, almost breaking them off the stem, when she tells Toni she doesn’t have plans, because she is so hopeful. Toni asks her out on another date. “About what it would mean if we tried again.” Cheryl is so happy her eyes are tearing up, but I hate this. It reads to me just like Toni has realized she has more ways she can use Cheryl than just for the power trip of bringing someone out and taking their virginity.

Meanwhile, Reggie and Archie are sitting together in the boys’ locker room. “I didn’t sock Julian for you,” he says, confirming that that is indeed what he was doing. He’s had a realization, he seems to say, that Riverdale is “just as messed up as any other place.” Then he says the pivotal thing, the only true thing he can say with any conviction: “I don’t know.”

In a weird reward for his outburst of violence, Reggie accepts the friendship overture at last, asking of Archie wants to grab a burger “on the way home.” This is as sour to me as Toni wanting to restart things with Cheryl only after she has the check in hand. Archie says sure.

Jughead has stayed up all night reading the “Comet” story (about a comet hitting NYC and only two people surviving) and talking about it with Tabitha. Why can’t we at least get a montage of this? Why do all the important Tabitha things have to happen OFF screen?

In any case, because the experience was so “swell” he runs immediately to his adopted daddy to tell him all about it. When he gets to Rayberry’s apartment, however, he is told by Sheriff Keller that Rayberry has killed himself. (They are just now covering the body on the gurney with a sheet). “I can no longer continue living this way.” Jughead is deeply upset. Keller is kind enough to say he is sorry because he knows Jughead was friends with Rayberry.

#riverdale #riverdale recap #riverdale opinion #too many thoughts about riverdale #but this time I've gone too far #riverdale ep 7.8 #if you say the word Korean in your show once too many times you summon a korean reaction which is a whole LOT of reaction

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