Favorite Movie: Strange Bedfellows (1965)
Favorite Episode: Citizen Lodge (5x12)
Most Relevant: Citizen Lodge/Citizen Kane (5x12 + 1941)
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For the past year or two, I've repeatedly claimed that s5 was my favorite season of Riverdale. I might have been wrong. While it takes the show in great new directions, a lot of the episodes fall flat because they don't know what to do with Hiram now that the protagonists are on (almost) level ground. The movies are also a lot duller, which doesn't sound like what you want out of this blog post, but it's what you're going to get. Get comfortable or get lost.
5x01: Climax
Modern movies have a hard time being shocking because they look to their idols for inspiration, automatically making their work derivative and predictable. Most directors want to talk the talk without walking the walk. Show me someone filming the rave, instead of just the interviews; show me someone seeing their best friends die in real time and needing to capture it, so it wasn't in vain.
Riverdale understands this. Fiction becomes reality, and the auteur (as well as the protagonists) uses this to their advantage to shape the world they want to see. I mean, it worked, didn't it? Jughead came home. Jughead cares. Everyone wants to watch snuff films, but more than that, they want to watch them together. Exploitation (JB) loves company.
Climax (2018) - ★★½
Climax (5x01) - ★★★★
5x07: Fire in the Sky
Lieberman spends the whole movie waiting for the climax. The town is a vacuum, residents waiting for the moment of reckoning when, for a few minutes, the abduction is shown, and the audience understands the sheer horror of the events taking place. Jughead experiences the opposite. His abduction is never shown, leaving the question of whether it happened or not open-ended. He decided it didn't, so we believe him. Is that wishful thinking?
Plausible deniability also gives the show more room to work with absurdity. For all that the movie plays with the impossible, it wants the audience to think the same could happen to them. That makes for the worst type of movie; a boring one.
Fire in the Sky (1993) - ★½
Fire in the Sky (5x07) - ★★★★
5x09: Destroyer
The movie is more thematically relevant than plot relevant to the episode, but it's all worth it to see Betty threatening random men at gunpoint. I thought it would be Judhead-esque because of the film's focus on "discovering her dark past." I think it's better that it's not? FBI dropout vigilantes are okay if they're women, though I would have preferred if Betty had a deeper connection to her victims. The writers still don't trust the audience to appreciate her for who she is, not the girl she was 10 years and countless murders ago.
Destroyer (2018) - ★½
Destroyer (5x09) - ★★★★½
5x11: Strange Bedfellows
My main takeaway is that Chad is the problem. He should have let Veronica exploit child labor and cheat on him and main her enemies. Crucially, they do (not) love each other. Whenever they think one is true, it becomes the opposite; neither death nor divorce can undo the impact they've had on each other's lives.
Strange Bedfellows (1965) - ★★★★
Strange Bedfellows (5x11) - ★★★★
5x12: Citizen Lodge
More than Veronica returning to Riverdale, or her throwing him out of town, this is the nail in Hiram's coffin. Up until this episode, Hiram has only completed the first half of his journey; he's built an empire from the ground up and married the right (wrong) woman, except he won his bid for mayor, so he must have escaped the curse.
Hiram doesn't see how he's abandoned his principles. His journey began with a need to avenge his family, and it ends because his daughter is doing the same. Dying alone, money incapable of saving him, was always his fate. Only the powers that be (the episode title) (Jughead) knew the truth.
Citizen Kane (1941) - ★★★★
Citizen Lodge (5x12) - ★★★★½
5x13: Reservoir Dogs
This is such a stupid title. They break up a dog fighting ring. If the writers leaned into it a little more, and started in medias res, it would work great. As it is, the connection is superficial, and if not for the specificity of the title, I would be questioning if they were related at all. Hirarchie could have done dying in each others' arms while being a little grossed out about it if they were given the chance.
Reservoir Dogs (1992) - ★★★★
Reservoir Dogs (5x13) - ★★★★
5x14: The Night Gallery
Riverdale, unlike every other IP in the world, thrives on anthologies. Each character is given the screentime and depth they deserve, and the story isn't divided into a million pieces. The same was true about Tales From the Darkside: even the connective tissue is interesting because that's the purpose Jughead serves to the story.
When it comes to comparisons within the individual stories? Archie is seeing ghosts. They want justice for their deaths, and he feels trapped in his haunted house. Betty's eyes are being opened to the violence she's capable of, but the trucker kills himself before she gets the chance, keeping her enlightenment in the dark. Not sure what it says about Jughead, though, aside from him being trapped in his own retribution.
Night Gallery (1969) - ★★★½
The Night Gallery (5x14) - ★★★★½
5x18: Next to Normal
The original story is meaningful and compelling, that much is true. I just feel that there's a language barrier between me and the story because it's so musical theater in a way that the episode isn't. The Riverdale versions have more bite. It's a great choice of musical for furthering the plot, something previous musical episodes have tended to neglect, but I wish they had included I Am the One (Reprise). This is the only episode that wanted to get rid of the Smith/Cooper family curse instead of deepening it. Tell me it's hopeless.
Next to Normal (2020) - ★★★
Next to Normal (5x18) - ★★★★
Two more to go. What else is there to say?
- urdeadbestfriend
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