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Photo: Diyah Pera /The CW — © 2017 The CW Network. All Rights
What’s Going On?: It’s been heavily drilled in that the Blossom name and legacy is uber important to them. In fact, it’s everything. Cheryl has been raised to pride herself on being a Blossom, that trumps anything and everything, and she embraces it. Jason, it would appear, did not. Clifford lends us to believing that Jason wasn’t interested in carrying on the Blossom legacy, i.e. being a drug dealer and that disappointment weighed heavy. We can speculate that Jason discovered that drugs, not Maple Syrup, are the bread and butter of the Blossom family and that’s the real reason he wanted out of Riverdale. He didn’t want him or his children to be caught in this loop of deception. Also, I should point out, we should have seen this coming. How many times did we see that downed “Blossom Maple Farm” sign?
We should have realized that the syrup wasn’t tapping as good as it used to. I can see Clifford realizing that the empire is about to come crashing down, that stress sends him into reactionary mode and Jason being a threat to the legacy could cause him to take drastic measures. We don’t know everything that went down between father and son. Jason could have threatened to expose the family if Clifford didn’t let him be with Polly. While devastating to think a father could murder his own son, it’s very Gothic Horror and not beyond the realm of believability. Marvin Gay was murdered by his own father after an argument, why not Jason Blossom?
What About Mary? There was a spoiler floating around that Mary Andrews had a “connection” to the Blossoms. Well, Mary left town and yeah… the previews for next week show Archie beating someone or something in the snow while Jughead, Veronica, and Betty look on in horror; also the preview showed Jughead and Betty walking through a snowy cemetery; if we are to assume this all takes place together, maybe whatever Mary’s connection to the Blossom’s is resides in the cemetery? Or that’s a dead spoiler of something that was cut from the episode.
Jughead’s Pal Hot Dog: Cole Sprouse recently revealed (at WonderCon or Paley Fest) that Jughead would be adopting his comic book canine best friend, Hot Dog, by the end of the season. With everything left to cover in the finale, I’m left wondering at what point they have time and/or it seems like a good idea to take a trip to the animal shelter?
Flowers in the Attic: Is anyone else curious as to why Polly hasn’t returned to school? Is she being home schooled? I kept waiting for Polly to reveal she wasn’t pregnant and it was all part of some elaborate scheme to uncover Blossom secrets or something. Babies are annoying on TV shows, unless there’s a time jump like on One Tree Hill or The Originals where the child is able to fully form sentences and contribute to the narrative. Or they’re on a soap opera and go upstairs to bed as an infant and return a week later as a 10-year-old and the audience just has to go with it. We call that SORAS (soap opera rapid aging syndrome). Are we going to have to watch Grandma Alice tending to twin babies in season 2? Cause, Meh.
Photo Credit: © 2017 Art Streiber/The CW.
Gone with the Wind: They keep telling us the classic love triangle is coming, which is not something I’m looking forward to for three reasons:
1) I’m tired of it. I’m tired of this storytelling trope on any show. For this to work, all characters involved in a love triangle have to look bad in some way or another. Every time. The center of the triangle, man or woman, always looks like an indecisive douche who can’t make up their mind and strings along 2 suitors, leaving one of them undoubtedly heartbroken and the other constantly questioning whether they’re actually first choice. The path to the “choice” is always fueled with manipulation, mixed signals, and general f***ery. The 2 suitors are always dumbed down to the point of sacrificing any self-worth all for the love of someone who cannot definitively chose them. It makes the suitors look pathetic and the suitee (is that a word?) look like an awful person. Betty and Veronica have been established as intelligent young women with a deep friendship and the last thing I want to see is them going toe to toe over Archie, of all people. It’s entirely different for Archie to have a relationship with Veronica, they break up, time passes and he begins to see Betty in a different light and that relationship is explored. I am not interested in any way at watching these women catfight for him.
2) What about Bughead? Whether you like them together or not is irrelevant. After everything we’ve seen them go through this season, how close they are and the lengths they’ve gone for one another, I don’t see how it fits the narrative to have Betty suddenly do a 180 and turn back to Archie. Of course, there’s always “I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone” forced drama with Jughead but after Betty being the one who insists on uncovering FP’s innocence and ultimately solving the murder, how would he still not trust her? Unless, of course, PLOT. Which is just lazy writing and lazy storytelling. Albeit, we haven’t seen what goes down in the finale yet, but barring Archie (who currently is clearly into Veronica) throwing himself on Betty, I just can’t get with it.
3) Something I’ve enjoyed, particularly in this most recent episode, is the establishment of the friendship between Betty and Archie. When she texts him and without thinking, the two of them head out to find Jughead, I just loved it. Seeing them come together for Jughead solidified their best friendship to me. One Tree Hill fans will remember that besties Lucas and Haley never got together and the audience adored that friendship. Cisco and Caitlin on The Flash have an amazing friendship that never even touches the realm of romantic coupledom. Solid male/female heterosexual friendships are missing on television and they’re important because they exist in real life.
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch: There has been speculation and anvils galore about Sabrina coming to town soon. Roberto has basically refused to answer this question, which generally means yes. The promo for next week’s episode has Betty saying “something wicked this way comes” which could be a reference to actual witches, Sabrina, or a hint at the future of Penelope Blossom, the Lady Macbeth of the Blossoms. I’m leaning towards Sabrina. Also in the promo, FP is seen in his jail cell reading a comic. Thanks to the skilled detective work of Russ Burlingame (http://comicbook.com/tv-shows/2017/05/05/riverdale-sabrina-teenage-witch-easter-egg/) we see that FP is in fact reading a comic about Sabrina!
Riverdale’s Season finale airs Thursday, May 11th at 9pm EST on The CW.
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