#why did i decide to answer this mid ep rewatch

[archieism]

archie nation how we doing after s5e2

they gave us so much all at once i barely retained any of it but upon a rewatch i am unwell. the way that at the beginning of the episode when archie’s still processing the video tape, he’s just absolutely wailing on his punching bag, presumably not that long after he even watched it. his visit to fred’s gravesite right after indicates he’s upset (not really a good word to summarize how he’s feeling but.) because even in death, the town can’t give back to fred what he gave to it. even in death, there’s no peace to the traumas they experienced. 

and then the case for the people who got him killed in the first place pops up and he now has to publicly forgive a man he was prepared to gun for upon learning his address in the season four premiere. and we learn archie sees him every day, sees his face ten - twenty times a day (hello???? even if this is an exaggeration what when where?? is it just in the nightmares or is it while waking too? is it while driving down the street? is it in watching other cars drive by him? or maybe it’s nothing like anything - just intrusive thoughts about such a traumatic event that can never be laid to rest i have Questions), and he can’t think of the words to describe how he feels, but then suddenly it’s about the kid. the kid who actually got his dad killed. the kid who archie saw himself in when he poured his heart out over a horrible mistake, when his dad stepped forward to try and put the pieces back together. 

then he can think of the words. (coward, coward, coward, sound familiar?)

i would also like to talk about how archie probably would’ve been able to do the deed and eventually get a letter written for the dad, who he already knew wasn’t actually responsible, because (at least, in my opinion) that’s what his morals dictate. even aside from the fact the entire ordeal was an accident, the dad isn’t even guilty for that. but i don’t think archie would’ve written a single word of that letter for a kid he sees himself in without intervention.

anyways then his mom watches the tape and it’s the worst fucking thing he could think of happening because he already put one parent through this and now he’s doing it to the other one too, no matter how long it’s been, how much effort he’s put into distancing himself from it, that moment, that person he was. it’s one thing to re-witness it himself, but clearly he took it more personally on his father’s behalf, but the moment his mom watches it, it’s suddenly about how he was a coward? interesting. archie recoils at the thought of mary sending it to the sheriff or betty and jughead (who already have knowledge of the event, but seeing it for themselves is different, who cares if it’s a bad re-enactment). not to go apeshit over archie’s consistent thematic storylines throughout the entire series, but that one moment is The Moment. yeah, he has his thematic flaws planted in season one and they definitely still ripple through to season five, but That Moment is what’s been defining him and his actions since then. adrenaline, fear, fear for his loved ones, failure to protect them, cowardice, stuck on a loop like a bad record. you cannot emphasize how personal that moment is for him, how triggering it would be to not only see it again but acted out by someone else. he only let three other people know about it in the first place and it was to confess like he’d committed the crime himself.

so he smashes the evidence with a baseball bat (i am not thinking about no exit parallels i’m not) until his own mother says he’s scaring her. and we go straight from archie wailing on his punching bag to archie wailing on it with no gloves until it’s smeared with his own blood. 

not to be insane or talk about frank because i hate him but the two things archie calls him before making their altercation a physical one? ‘fraud’ and ‘coward’. we’ve heard the second one a lot from him, not just in this ep but many, but the first is a new one. as new as, you might say, a cheating storyline? interesting. anyways. then archie wails on a person who he’s described in ways he’s described himself, and, to the dismay of calling frank a father figure because i hate him, who’s been described in however slight ways that parallel fred (’i’m sorry, but you don’t get to worry about me. you left. you have no idea what i’m going through’). also he’s just related to fred, much to my dismay. and then he calls archie ‘son’, and archie’s strings cut. 

(i am not thinking about no exit parallels i’m not but also all of this is happening in archie’s room.)

only when archie pummels and then apologizes to frank do we get the themes tying together. apologies, frank coming clean just like that kid did, archie being able to forgive both of them (no exit!!!!!!!), all neatly culminating in another visit to fred’s grave to parallel the first. it’s not dark this time, he’s not alone like he was before, and he’s trying to be as generous as the very father he couldn’t save.

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

IDK if you've talked about this, but what was your take on the 100th ep kara deciding that she didn't have to feel guilty about her deception anymore after seeing the different timelines where Lena always eventually forgave her and helped/stuck by her no matter what? Did that make sense to you or how did you make it make sense?

My only problem with the 100th episode is that they fell into the usual trap of taking a ginormous concept (the multiverse), and narrowed it to teach the lesson or moral they want to convey (that it didn’t matter when Kara told Lena the truth). 

What saved it is that Kara’s anxiety seemed focused entirely on the when of how Lena found out the truth, which is the answer Mxy provided her. But in my mind, it was never the when that was the real crux-- it was the how. It was the manner in which she was told, and by whom. 

And limiting the number of outcomes to “knowing and dead” was a tad uncreative. I would have rather seen the addition of just one universe that broke that mold-- be it that Lena knew and survived, or that Lena never knew and STILL died.

For me, that would have been a more powerful message. There’s also something to be said for examining the quality of Lena’s life knowing vs not knowing. Is it worth it to live longer and have only half a friendship with her best friend, or would Lena have rather lived a shorter life knowing the truth if she had the choice?

But the finale kind of sums up why the 100th played out the way that they did. The premiere might have seen some deeper honesty from Kara on why she held onto her secret as long as she did, but from mid-season on, they were propping her up on the single, flat reason of “it was for Lena’s own good,” and the 100th needed to demonstrate that so that Kara was in the clear when it came time to compare mistakes with Lena.

Does it mean I disliked the episode? No. It’s probably one of the two (2) episodes I’ll actually go back a rewatch from this season. But it does mean they could have gone just a little bit farther, and a little bit deeper to help enrich a more textured conflict.