Favorite Movie: The Raid (2011)
Favorite Episode: The Great Escape (3x05)
Most Relevant: No Exit/In Camera (3x09 + 1964)
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Here we are again for what is quickly becoming the only thing on my blog. While s3 is miles better than s2 (my second favorite after s5), the movies were much less inspired, so. Prepare yourself.
3x01: Labor Day
The movie is a tonal and moral nightmare, but it does bring one idea to the table: you are living on borrowed time. Frank is trapped, trying to get out before it's too late. As we've seen before, adults are never a true threat to the teens of Riverdale, so the plot necessitates a twist. Archie is free, trying to fit himself in a cage as soon as possible because it's the only place he feels safe. The cell will be waiting for you come morning, will you be waiting for it?
Labor Day (2013) - ★½
Labor Day (3x01) - ★★★½
3x02: Fortune and Men's Eyes
I'm at a loss. I can't articulate how much it means nothing while also recontextualizing the entire show. I'll leave you with this: the writers sat down and said Archie Andrews is having an experience similar to sexual slavery. The underground fight club is an allegory for gay sex and the only way these boys know how to experiment is through violence. Not saying I agree! But it does make you think.
Fortune and Men's Eyes (1971) - ★★½
Fortune and Men's Eyes (3x02) - ★★★★★
3x04: The Midnight Club
There's an in-depth post here, but the TLDR is that they are a call and response. When asked are we going to be like our parents, Claire says not me--ever. Alice doesn't ask. She tells FP that you're going to end up just like your dad, downing six packs in your double wide. We've seen how their stories play out, and maybe FP has too, because he looks her dead in the eyes and says maybe.
The Breakfast Club (1985) - ★★
The Midnight Club (3x04) - ★★★★½
3x05: The Great Escape
Why did they choose this, a movie centering around a group prison-break, instead of The Shawshank Redemption, which literally has the protagonist (innocent on all charges) crawl out of a sewer and a Warden Norton? Because Archie doesn't identify with it. He believes that he's guilty and incapable of help; he has yet to learn that he's wrong.
The Great Escape (1963) - ★★½
The Great Escape (3x05) - ★★★★★
3x06: Manhunter
They have similar vibes, what with the seemingly endless police work and cat-and-mouse between Goodness (Will/Archie) and the Mouth of Evil (Francis/Sheriff Minetta) (not to be confused with its puppet master, Goodness-if-his-5-year-plan-doesn't-work-out (Hannibal/Hiram)).
There's also the contrast between Will going back to his safe hetero family on the beach and Archie breaking up with Veronica to traipse the countryside with dangerousfreak Jughead. Either Archie has been turned, or Jughead has always been what he comes home to. You decide.
Manhunter (1986) - ★★½
Manhunter (3x06) - ★★★½
3x07: The Man in Black
They call Hiram "The Man in Black"--black suit, black car, black morals. But if we follow the lore of the movie, it's Jughead. The Man is the narrator, lending his off-putting demeanor to a series of soft-core horror stories.
Can Hiram be blamed when his actions were planned out for him? Did he have a choice? Maybe. And maybe Alice is the stepmother, doing everything in her power to get Betty out of the Farmie line of fire (and into insanity) without being the one to do the dirty work.
The Man in Black (1949) - ★★★½
The Man in Black (3x07) - ★★★★½
3x08: Outbreak
Was it engaging? Sure. Did Riverdale do it better? Absolutely. Obviously the movie was going for a very different effect, but the seizure epidemic is a great way to use the same plot devices without compromising the upbeat teen vibe, as well as stick to the Riverdale founding tenets: make it vaguer, make it campier, and make it more colorful.
I keep coming back to the fact that Riverdale told the story from the point of view of the infected, as opposed to the curers. It's human. Painful.
Outbreak (1995) - ★★
Outbreak (3x08) - ★★★★½
3x09: No Exit
Riverdale has been quarantined to create a pressure cooker of volatile personalities ready to destroy the town in an attempt to get back at their enemies. Veronica acts as Inez, coercing Jughead to do her bidding, while ultimately failing to have an effect on her true enemy: her father.
That doesn't mean that hell is limited to Riverdale. Wherever Archie goes, Riverdale's luck seems to follow. He, quite literally, ends up in a hell of his own creation, spurred on by the people he loves. His brain created exactly what he needed to kill the soft part of himself, turning him as jaded as Garcin. The difference between the two is that Archie knows what it means to be good down to your core. It's just burned him too many times to keep trying.
In Camera (1964) - ★★★★
No Exit (3x09) - ★★★★½
3x10: The Stranger
We don't know his past or how he got his fortune, but we do know that Hiram has been to jail. Riverdale is his escape from that, becoming the "family man" and taking up initiatives that he claims will help other residents. JugheadVeronica is after him. They want Hermione to talk, but she's in too deep to see a way out. Hiram is shot anyway.
The end of The Stranger might be tied up with a pretty bow, but Riverdale doesn't have an after. Hiram is and he is and he is, and he will never cease to be. Even in his absence, he (Veronica) is present.
The Stranger (1946) - ★★★½
The Stranger (3x10) - ★★★★
3x11: The Red Dahlia
The episode is more of a love letter the the genre (and Raymond Chandler) than the movie, full of voice overs, big hats, jazz music, and lingering glances. It catches my attention that this is one of the few noir films without a voice over, especially when Jughead's voice overs become so central to the plot in later seasons. I loved Hiram as the dead wife--who is he if not one to kill his child out of negligent love, seeing it as nothing more than a stepping stone to success? Who is Veronica if not the femme fatale?
The Blue Dahlia (1946) - ★★★★
The Red Dahlia (3x11) - ★★★★
3x13: Requiem for a Welterweight
Jughead and Veronica are the obvious choices when talking about who's the most influenced by pop culture, but Archie is a sports film. He's beaten down, past his prime, and looking for any means possible to get in the ring (not to be confused with 2 seasons and 8 years later, when he's had his comeback, indestructible, and about to get his shit rocked in front of all his loved ones). Every fiber of his being is traded in to become the best he can be.
At least he doesn't have a shady manager betting against him. Oh. That's him. Archie is the only one capable of tearing himself down, and the story must stay balanced, so he's all too willing to practive his death until he eventually gets it right. Let's make some money from the losing.
Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) - ★★★★
Requiem for a Welterweight (3x13) - ★★★½
3x14: Fire Walk with Me
Directly: misunderstood teenage girls, the soundtrack, liminal spaces.
Indirectly: separated from the pack and waiting for judgement, your father is behind it all, what's Riverdale's Red Room? La Bonne Nuit? The Bunker? Or is it Riverdale as a whole? No matter where you go, you're alone. Waiting for something bigger. The cosmic forces demand their dues--how easily will you give in? How far are you willing to go to get away? (it will never happen)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) - ★★★
Fire Walk with Me (3x14) - ★★★½
3x16: Big Fun
While it's not the strongest musical episode, it works. Heathers is about a teen ousted from her peers, trapped in a web of lies and murder. That describes just about every Riverdale character. It also does a lot for the idea that parents can never be a part of this equation. This is their big secret, Veronica: the adults are powerless. They can't help is. Nobody can help us. As Westerbrook High is the Heathers' playground, Riverdale is our protagonists'--they bend the town to their will, and it's up to them when danger strikes.
And of course, there's the line. High school may not ever end. You're right. It doesn't. The only thing that ends is you.
Heathers: The Musical (2014) - ★★★★
Big Fun (3x16) - ★★★★½
3x17: The Raid
Who are the brothers? Jughead and Archie? No. They enter and leave the building together, both committed to ending the drug trade. It's Archie and Mad Dog. Monroe takes the bribe, the implications, and the betrayal because he feels backed into a corner. Fighting is the only thing he's good at. The same can be said about Archie, but he hasn't accepted that yet; he still believes in a future where people get to have children, believe in the law, and live happily ever after.
The Raid (1998) - ★★★★
The Raid (3x16) - ★★★★
2x18: Jawbreaker
It was chosen for the scene where Betty chloroforms Alice, but it also encapsulates everything that the Northsiders are: gaudy, ingenuine, self-centered, and a cautionary tale. And awesome. Basically, it should have been a Cheryl parallel.
Jawbreaker (1999) - ★★★
Jawbreaker (2x18) - ★★★½
3x20: Prom Night
That's Betty Fucking Cooper. Any time they give her a foil it works because she is the #1 final girl. There's the running around bathroom corners, and the killer sound design, but the ending... You look into the eyes of a mask to recognize someone you love, but it's too late; they get away, whether that be physically or mortally.
Who's Robin? It could be Jason, but that doesn't fit the Cooper-centric plot. I'd like to think it's a metaphor for Betty's lost childhood. The death scene is even reminiscent of Betty killing her cat.
Prom Night (1980) - ★★★½
Prom Night (3x20) - ★★★★
3x22: Survive the Night
While the episodes are distinct, the combo reminds me of Judgement Night. I would swear this was a rip-off if not for the fact that they came out the same year. It doesn't bring anything new to the table except the divorce subplot, but Stacy's fuckass husband wasn't shot in the head by his mistress in front of his daughter, so he doesn't interest me. The season finale reminds us that Riverdale rises above.
Survive the Night (1993) - ★★
Survive the Night (3x22) - ★★★★★
In the middle of writing this I realized how little sense it makes if you haven't seen the movies (LET ME BE CLEAR THIS IS NOT ME TELLING YOU TO WATCH THE MOVIES), but if I laid out the plot points this post would be 5x longer and less interesting. If you want my full opinion then you can track me down and stop me on the street xoxo. Or I think there's a guestbook on this website somewhere. Coffee's on you.
- urdeadbestfriend
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