Riverdale Episode 1.09 Recap: “La Grande Illusion”
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Last time on Riverdale: Hiram was all up in the Kool-aid and curious as to who bought red when he specifically only drinks green. Veronica (Camila Mendes) tries to pay it forward by helping Ethel Muggs (Shannon Purser)… sigh, I’m sure that storyline won’t be tiring. And Polly Cooper (Tiera Skovby) is an idiot, but she’s pregnant so we’ll just call it hormones and give her a pass.
We open on a storehouse that features maple syrup stills where the Blossom family take shots of Riverdale’s finest sticky red. It’s like a diabetic nightmare and the only thing more cringe inducing than taking shots of syrup is Jason’s hair color.
They imply that Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) won’t get the business, but don’t really give us a lot of why. There’s a very interesting theme in this episode about children putting on adult airs and failing miserably. They’re allowed that right because they’re children, and thus allowed to give each other some much needed grace, but I do wonder if the show will examine the accountability of these kids being given such big tasks?
Cheryl is trying to solidify her place in a family she doesn’t think loves her. She says later in the episode that they hate her at school, and that’s fine. But this was her family. She’s a 15 (Or 16… or 23?) year old girl whose pride, character and legacy hinge on a dynasty that she’s not sure will be there when she comes of age.
Meanwhile, Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) is trying to hold her family together as the adults descend into petulant bickering and brick throwing. Alice Cooper (Madchen Amick) is trying to soothe her jangled nerves by writing a hard hitting expose about the Blossoms and Hal Cooper (Locklyn Munro) is busy changing passwords and trying to fire his wife from their own company. Betty takes their feat to heart and it almost breaks her since not even Polly is communicating with her. Thankfully she has a Jughead (Cole Sprouse) in a scene where we all wish we had a Jughead too. I love me some Bughead, y’all! Thought Betty isn’t successful in getting her parents to stop arguing, she does find out that Polly is working behind the scenes to investigate Jason’s murder and she and her mom are going to work together to expose the Blossoms.
Veronica tries to be a good person, but discovers that when you’re still hanging from the tree you were grown on, you might be a little culpable in what gets killed in the shade. We find out that Veronica’s new friend Ethel Muggs (not Barb, not Barb!) is having trouble at home, and just when Veronica tries to help her the most, we find out the reason is because Mr. Muggs made some bad investments with Mr. Lodge and then tried to kill himself. Veronica outs herself as a Lodge and gets the read of her life via Mrs. Muggs. Ronnie decides then and there in a symbolic tearing of the string of pearls her dad gave her, that she was done lying for Mr. Lodge.
Finally we deal with F*ckboy Supreme Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) who for some reason thinks he’s so good at music (which… no) that the Blossoms have forgotten how to be manipulative dicks and aren’t just using him for his dumbness and creepy Jason-like looks. Archie is so self righteous from the very moment he steps on screen to the moment he lets Cheryl kiss him and then looks at her confused like he’s so clueless. I’m glad Valerie wisely kicked him to the curb.
This show has an Archie problem. He’s too boldly self righteous to be so naive, he’s too self serving to be innocent, and he’s too untalented to not understand his privilege. In Riverdale, class is the great divider so he seems to think that him being the son of a construction worker puts him in a “honest working man” bubble, but being a tall, handsome, all-American football star seems to disclude him from that group and the contradiction just never seems to reach him.
He travels though this episode making grand meaningless gestures and really only excelling as a messenger to take down the Blossoms; however, this is only after he’s deemed them as bad for him. Because if it’s bad for Archie, then it’s bad for everyone. If it’s good for Archie, everyone else can wait. As you can see, he infuriates me.
I do love this show, though! Excellent turns from the adults where we see Hermione (Marisol Nichols) (under some wise advice from Ronnie who tells her this gossipy little town will run they mouth if she doesn’t get there first) finally tell Fred (Luke Perry) that the SoDale project (I still can’t with this name) is officially a Lodge enterprise. Fred decides to stay on, but tells Hermione that he changed his mind, he don’t love her no more.
Cliff (Barclay Hope) and Penelope (Nathalie Boltt) talk way too loudly about handling the board of directors (which Archie overhears so comically as he literally sticks his entire head through a hedge and listens and I just shook my head and sipped my wine) and possibly being the force behind sending Hiram to jail.
As Archie tells Jughead and Betty about his find, Jughead postulates that Hiram has a good motive for murder and he’s added to the board. We find out that since Mama Cooper is fired from The Register, she’ll now publish the story in The Blue and Gold, which is the school’s newspaper.
Yeah… more on that in stray rounds.
Next week: It’s Jughead’s birthday and they’re about to have the party of the decade! Naturally Archie finds a way to make it all about him, even stealing Jughead’s Sixteen Candles moment when his mom shows up and it’s Molly effing Ringwald!
At the very least I’m sure a lot of questions will be answered.
Stray Rounds:
-Archie and his music is absolutely the worst, but the best worst is when the writers make the other characters say things to try and convince us his music is good.
“Archie! If music be the food of love… play on-” (wait for it) “…play on!” They made Madelaine say this line twice and she sold it. I love Cheryl so much. Later we have Archie insisting to Valerie that the Blossoms are helping him out to which she replies, “Wouldn’t you rather earn your seat at that table?” (wait for it) “With your music?!” I have never laughed so hard. His music is terrible.
-Did I mention I love Cheryl? Here are some of her other episode zingers:
- “I’ll pass along your message… if I remember. That was a joke, you hobo.”
- “Mr. Andrews, you’re looking rather DILF-y today.”
- “I should get going, small houses give me claustrophobia.”
- “My lipstick is maple red, in case you were wondering why it tasted so sweet.” (this was creepy and made NO sense, and I loved every minute!)
Then we have Cheryl finally telling Archie the truth that he’s just like everyone else and no one will listen. Sigh.
-Ethel Muggs’s poetry is lovely, but why was Veronica the only one to see the obvious red flag. I also enjoyed Ethel telling Veronica she doesn’t have to buy her love, they can just be friends. Though knowing what we know now, I would take the Givenchy and leave the Lodge family alone.
-We find out that Veronica terrorized a girl named Paige and made her drink gutter water. That’s all I got y’all. I do love that Kevin (Casey Cott) immediately went to tragic suicide and Veronica had to remind him they live in the real world… kinda.
-I know last week’s review was a novel because of moments like this, but seriously… what is this student lounge?! Is this a thing now?! And Ronnie just has random loose watermelon? Is that a foosball table and pinball machine? What?!
-Ooh, I almost forgot to talk about how absolutely idiotic it was going to be to try and publish an expose in The Blue and Gold about the Blossoms! Yep, that’s a terrible idea.
See you next week!
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