slightly silly: riverdale, episode 19: death proof

every time i see mr. phillips i think of him as dr. charles percy who so ignominiously died in the active shooter episode of grey's anatomy. i guess his thing is ignominiously dying, because the black hood gets to him too. as the sugarman, he was spreading sin in riverdale, so serial killer justice prevails.

i'm about ready to learn the black hood's identity. allegedly it's someone we'll recognize. or at least it's someone who betty knows. i just worry that the reveal is going to be something of a letdown. especially given the mind games the black hood has been playing with betty.

and let's talk about the breakup. betty and jughead start out the episode on the outs but are reunited by the end of the episode. the thing is we have jughead's makeout session with toni topaz as a looming secret between them. it better not become the "we were on a break" of riverdale because i might lose it. jughead and betty are better characters than ross and rachel ever were so i'm cautiously optimistic. the truth needs to come out sooner rather than let it become something that festers.

this is kind of a weird complaint to have about riverdale because the show tends to blow through story at a breakneck pace. if i'm going to complain about anything, it's that. even though archie's red circle thing needed to take it down a notch, the fact that it's barely a thing anymore is seriously frustrating archie was finally showing some interesting depths of character, and now he's back to being eye candy.

and he's delightful eye candy, so i can't really complain. but i like it when my favorite characters have some hidden depth and angst. angst is my favorite after all.

also, i need to give some mad props to cheryl in this episode. she was fantastic. her scenes with her mother, with nick, with veronica, all give her some added depth and nuance to play when too often she is just merely the rich bitch from the crazy family.

i think one of my favorite things about this show is actually how much i love all the characters, even the minor characters. and my love is purely from the show. i mean, i have read an archie comic before, but never regularly. and more often than not, i tend to confuse archie with bazooka joe. my brain is weird.

anyway, let's hope all the neck breathing betty is doing will get us closer to seeing the black hood's face. i'm ready for the next big reveal in this story. my gut is telling me that it's a tangled, tangled web. and that more than one character will be affected by the reveal.