-Last week Riverdale ended on a dramatic cliffhanger where Cheryl got arrested and admitted she was guilty. Now since the show is only a couple episodes old and serialized TV murder mysteries never get resolved two episodes in, the cliffhanger was obviously a mislead that only the most gullible viewers would fall far (Schmuck Bait, as TV writers call it). So I appreciate that Body Double starts off with Cheryl immediately clarifying that she meant that she was guilty of lying about the events of July 4th, not that she killed Jason. It's ridiculously anti-climatic but it's also not trying to hide how anti-climatic it is so it's dumb enough to work.
-After the first two episodes of Riverdale set up the characters, the world they live in, and the big mystery that surrounds their lives, Body Double is the show's first real chance to show how Riverdale will function as an ongoing series. So we get a bit more on the murder and the continuation of various character arcs and we also get an episodic story that blends high school drama with noir genre trappings nicely and promises to have impact on future stories, while still standing alone as a complete story. Introducing an episodic element is a very smart decision because it gives the episodes a spine to build off of as they continue the mystery, preventing things from feeling formless (A problem a lot of serialized television runs in to). And while there's always the risk of the episodic stuff feeling like filler, when done right like it was tonight, it can build up the world and provide key character insight in interesting ways.
-If you look at the basic outline of most of the "slut shaming game" story, it reads like the kind of typical Betty and Veronica story you come across all the time in the comics. Betty and Veronica stumble upon an injustice, Veronica gets righteously angry and decides to right the wrong, Betty is more measured in her response but is right there with her, the two team up and enact a scheme, Betty experiences some anger of her own near the end because she and Veronica aren't that different, and the two successfully right the wrong. It's all formula but it feels fresh here because of what they're taking on: a group of football players led by team captain Chuck Clayton slut shaming their "conquests" real and imagined, broadcasting it all over the internet while secretly keeping score in a book that assigns point values to the girls. It's a relevant story tackling a serious issue, but it never feels like a "very special" message episode where everyone learns a valuable lesson about respecting people. The girls are mad and unable to be taken seriously by the system that's supposed to protect them, they take matters into their own hands. Again, Camilla Mendes and Lili Reinhart continue to be great as Veronica and Betty, behaving exactly as their comics counterparts would in that situation. I was particularly impressed with how well Mendes captured Veronica's righteous anger in the aftermath of her humiliation, especially once she learns how far it goes.
-Where the story really gets interesting though is when Betty, Veronica, Ethel and a skeptical Cheryl find the scorebook and it's revealed that Polly's name is in there right next to Jason. Suddenly Betty has confirmation that her sister meant nothing but a game to the man who caused her to break down and Cheryl can no longer deny that her brother was part of this game. It makes things much more personal for Betty who's been advocating for not taking things too far up to this point and leads to a sequence where she and Veronica lure Chuck to a hot tub, tie him up, drug him a bit and then basically torture him into confessing. It's dark and unexpected, but it makes perfect sense based on how humiliated Veronica feels and how angry Betty is about Jason and her sister. As dark as it is though, it's only the beginning.
-Betty wearing a short black wig and uncharacteristically revealing outfit is our first sign that something more is going on with her, but it's still a shock when she suddenly starts pouring syrup on Chuck, attempting to push his head down into the hot water demanding he apologize for everything, and calling him Jason, while seeming to be Polly. Even more shocking is the part where she doesn't remember anything about what she did afterwards. She brushes it off when a concerned Veronica brings it up but Betty going into a disassociative state is super alarming and raises a lot of questions about how well we know Ms. Cooper. It takes what to that point had been a good one-off plot to the next level. Something dark is going on with Betty (I have a theory about what's going on that I share down below in Murder Theory Corner) and I'm super stoked to find out more. Seriously who needs boring Archie at all when you have characters as great as Betty and Veronica?
-It's hard to feel bad for Chuck's hot tub ordeal when he walked into such an obvious trap. The friend of the girl you just shamed uncharacteristically propositioning you to come to the house of a different girl you shamed is the first big red warning sign that something is amiss. The girl you shamed also being at the house and implying you're going to have a three-way, despite the fact that you lied about her performing a sex act is the second big sign. Seriously Chuck, you deserved what you got.
-Sticky Maple is a dumb name for a sex act by the way.
-Shannon Purser AKA poor Barb from Stranger Things makes her debut as Ethel Muggs and she's delightful, humanizing a character who was so often relegated to a punchline in the comics (When she notices her name in the guys scorebook has a "big girl" bonus, it's a gut punch of a reference to the character's "Big Ethel" nickname that followed her for much of her history). Also while I can't be sure if Ethel's house having a large swimming pool is an intentional Barb reference, having Cheryl spout the hashtag "#JusticeForEthel" definitely is. Kudos to Riverdale for beating everyone else to the punch when it came to making that joke.
-So Chuck and his goon squad getting kicked off the team will apparently have consequences. Makes sense considering how big football is supposed to be in Riverdale and that assumedly a lot of top players were kicked off. How many people were kicked off though? The episode is pretty unclear with how many football players actually participated in this game but it feels like it was probably a fair amount. Are we going to start next week with just Archie, Moose, and Reggie on the team? Also what are the chances that Archie becomes the new captain for some reason? Pretty good, I'd say.
-Cheryl Blossom is a big, broad character and Madelaine Petsch gives a big, broad performance to match that is fun to watch but also doesn't have a lot of room for subtlety. So it really stands out when Cheryl has a quiet moment, like the part of this episode where she has to grapple with the reality that her perfect brother whom she loved more than herself wasn't actually that perfect or innocent (Though she probably should've figured that out when he asked her to help fake his death). The moment where she apologizes to Betty for what Jason did to Polly as they burn the score-keeping book together is beautifully underplayed by Petsch as she finally accepts that Jason was flawed.
-I have some questions about Betty suddenly restarting the Riverdale High Blue And Gold. Why is the school just letting her walk in and put out a newspaper that's been apparently defunct for some time? Did she work on this thing before? How big an operation is this thing? Are her and Jughead the only people working on it? Is there no teacher supervision? Does she actually have complete editorial control to just print whatever she wants without anyone looking over it first? Is this going to be an ongoing part of the show or is it just going to be forgotten whenever it's not important to whatever the story this week is? Are people really going to have to turn to a rinky dink high school newspaper to get actual facts about a murder investigation? Why must almost all TV high school newspapers be a void of endless plot holes? We'll probably never know.
-Jughead, investigative reporter is a lot of fun though. I like Cole Sprouse's performance more and more with each passing week and he was great here as he slowly but snarkily figured out the truth about what Dilton Doiley was hiding. He also drinks a kid's milkshake as a power move and it's hilarious.
-The mystery of the gun shot Archie and Grundy heard gets solved this week and it turns out not to be connected with anything murder-related at all (Though Archie coming forward does corroborate Cheryl's alibi). Dilton Doiley had fired it as part of his scout's lesson because he's a hardcore survivalist who's convinced the town is going to explode into chaos or something like that and so he wants his scouts to be prepared. It's a logical resolution and it's a pretty funny take on Dilton, but it also renders basically all of Archie's murder-related angst since the pilot irrelevant, making it all sillier in retrospect. The Dilton thread does bring with it an interesting new complication though as Dilton reveals that he saw Ms. Grundy's car along the river in an effort to keep Betty and Jughead from going public with the whole "Teenager teaching children how to shoot a gun" thing. So hopefully that means we'll be wrapping that particular storyline up soon enough.
-Archie comes forward about what he heard this week (Though he claims to have been alone with his dog working on his music), which costs him his music lessons with Ms. Grundy and gets him grounded for lying but earns him a "wish" from Cheryl (It can be used for anything but her body) that he cashes in to get a chance to work on music with Josie and the Pussycats. This leads to the biggest spotlight yet on the Pussycats. Melody and Valerie even gets some lines in this time around, and they seem much more willing to embrace Archie sitting in on their practice than Josie is. Ashleigh Murray continues to rock it as Josie, giving the character a lot of attitude and feistiness but also a vulnerability that comes from years of being under scrutiny and fighting and clawing for what she has (hence the name Pussycats).
-Of course the highlight of the Archie story is a scene where Archie suggests that he wants the Pussycats to perform songs that he wrote before inexplicably implying stating that he feels qualified to write songs for three women of colour who he doesn't know and who have been doing this a lot longer than he has. Josie immediately and rightfully rips him a new one for being an ignorant white boy and it's terrific. Songwriting is an incredibly personal act and Archie can't remotely begin to put himself in Josie's shoes or experience the kind of things she's had to experience (Archie tries to claim he understands because he campaigned for Josie's mom when she ran for mayor. Oh Archie, no.). This sets Archie straight and once he apologizes with his privilege properly checked, he's able to actually help them develop a song they're working on and consider their perspective, instead of trying to foist his own stuff on them. It's a smart beat that also nicely lays the groundwork for that day in the future where Archie decides to start his own band where he has an actual avenue to express his experiences.
-If the Josie stuff was all there was to Archie this week, I'd be happy but we unfortunately get a subplot where Archie gets in trouble for sneaking out while grounded, isn't allowed to go see the Pussycats perform the song he helped with (He sneaks out anyways) and then tries to make his punishment into really being about how Fred doesn't support his interest in music. Now Archie and his dad struggling to connect as Archie begins going down his own path is good story material, but the way it comes up here is really dumb and totally ignores the actual reasons why Archie is being punished. For whatever reason though, Fred decides that Archie has a point and after a talk with Ms. Grundy (Ugh) that convinces him that Archie might go somewhere with his music, he decides to soundproof the garage to give Archie a place to practice his music. Nice father/son moment? Sure. Totally forced? Definitely yes.
-Three episodes in and I still have no idea how Josie and Cheryl are friends, partly because apart from one hug at the pep rally we never actually see them interact. With what we know about both Cheryl and Josie though, they don't seem like they'd get along at all so I'm really curious to see what their dynamic is.
-Jughead's opening and closing narrations are always really overwrought and not as epic as the show wants them to be. It works well enough when he's talking specifically about the characters and their relationships, like his spiel on the core four last week and this week's "forged in fire" thing about Betty and Veronica's friendship but once he gets back to talking about stuff pertaining to the murder mystery, it's much harder to take. He uses the term "Pandora's Box" non-ironically this week for crying out loud!
-The adults don't have a whole lot to do this week besides snipe at and argue with each other at Mayor McCoy's Taste of Riverdale event but Mrs. Blossom slaps Alice so that's a lot of fun.
-This week in Hot Archie: Betty and Veronica barge into the guy's locker room where Veronica pushes aside a towel-wrapped Archie. See, the locker room is an appropriate place to show off Archie's body unlike last week's midnight run escapade.
-Alice compares Betty to Lois Lane but single-handedly running a school newspaper is much more of a Chloe Sullivan move.
-This week's Betty-Alice "Alice tries to impose her will" scene doubles as serious product placement for Covergirl, down to the point where Betty and her mom literally mention actual brands as they debate what colour lipstick works best on Betty. Just like the resolution of the cliffhanger from last week, it's just dumb enough to work.
-Murder Theory Corner: While Mayor McCoy is still my prime suspect, I'm starting to think that whatever happened between Polly and Jason is the key to the entire mystery. After all we don't really have a clear timeline on when whatever happened between them went down or where everyone was. We know Betty was gone for the summer but how much of the summer? When Betty dissociates and starts acting like she's Polly and calling Chuck Jason, was that a repressed memory of something she doesn't know she witnessed? It's something to keep an eye on for sure because something's going on there, and while there's no way Betty killed Jason, Alice seems too obvious, and Polly feels like a red herring, the oddly quiet Hal Cooper is on my radar now as my number two suspect.
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