#will i make it to 5x10 by next wednesday!? we shall see

[imreallyloveleee]

thoughts on 5x05

- adult Betty and Jughead: [interact for 30 seconds]

me:

- Betty gets home late and Alice shushes her because “the twins are finally asleep”. i was confused because this sounds like something you’d say about toddlers, not third graders, until i realized we’d simply encountered a patented Riverdale temporal slip and spent a few seconds in the version of 2021 where Jupiter and Dagnabbit are two years old

- Betty’s entire family treats her like absolute GARBAGE in this episode, which is never really a surprise, but always hurts to see since the show continues to insist that as long as you love your kids you can do whatever the fuck you want to them emotionally and it’s fine.

- Tabitha gets a personality this week! it’s great, she’s great. i feel like this is the first time they’ve actually done a good job introducing a new, likable character. credit where credit’s due!

- Jughead renamed Sweet Pea and Fangs “Popeye” and “Toothy” in his book, which is precisely the level of respect that they deserve

- do we think Reggie telling Veronica to ask her dad for help is a moment where he is genuinely trying to look out for her? or is he setting her up? as a lowkey Veggie fan i hope for the former, but i really couldn’t tell.

- Veronica’s whole storyline is just...so...depressing and awful. it’s essentially the story of a woman trying to escape financial abuse, and as usual the show treats it with slightly less than 0% of the gravitas something like that should carry. see also: Cheryl and Toni’s sexual assaults; Betty’s emotional abuse by her mother; and roughly 36 other storylines from the past 4.5 seasons of Riverdale

- Toni really lays the emotional manipulation on thick with Cheryl in their scene at the diner, but she also endured [insert anything Cheryl did at any point in season 4], so it’s a wash

- Archie, Betty, Kevin, Popeye and Toothy bust into Archie’s rental without warning, which violates so many tenant protection laws oh my god Archie, just because they sell drugs doesn’t mean they don’t deserve 24 hours notice that you’re about to smash all of their windows in

- p.s. does Archie understand that as the property owner he will ultimately have to replace all of these smashed windows, or is he going to try and scam the Ghoulies out of their security deposit, too

- out of nowhere, the torrent i was watching this on skipped back to the clip of Jughead sending his agent the Pop Tate article about 15 seconds in to the Betty-and-Archie-cleaning-his-house scene. i think it was trying to warn me! but no warnings necessary my friend, when i see two people straining that hard to produce a single iota of chemistry between them, i know nothing good is coming next

- feels like i should have something to say about that town hall scene

- i don’t

- will we ever get an explanation for why Jughead moves into Archie’s house at the end of this episode? did they just decide that the thought of Jughead living in the bunker full-time was too depressing? because if so, they were right