maxineofarc

Another way Donna is a saint: insisting Kelly is her best friend when Kelly is NO ONE's best friend. I'm glad you kept the beeparoonie even after Dylan's departure.

A Nice Moment: After ranting about how Betty's never seen him without his stupid hat, in the later scene at Pop's Jughead wasn't wearing it.

The thing that always trips me up is that Jason wasn't just shot, he was kept prisoner somewhere for a week and tortured first. I favor Nana Blossom as a dark-horse suspect, but since we don't know much about her dementia, it's hard to frame. Maybe we'll learn more through Polly's sleuthing.

It's been made explicit in the last few years in the recent comics line, but for most of his 2D existence Jughead mostly just ran away from Ethel. I don't think he's ever been shown as very interested in dating.

Yeah, that scene where Betty and Veronica tied up and tortured a black man was really, really uncomfortable. Where are literally all of the teachers at this school? In no universe should Cheryl have such complete control over the cheer squad. Even if they're a club sport, there should at least be a faculty advisor to prevent Cheryl from, you know, just cutting girls she doesn't like. If that's her power, she should have been able to just fire Veronica, but I suppose that's too ridiculous even for this show. I'm so frustrated by the whole Joaquin subplot. That was your big chance to give Kevin an actual storyline, show, and you blew it. Now he just shows up and is "Kevin's boyfriend" with absolutely no indication how he got from A to B. This episode was a dud for me even with the Betty/Jughead drama. I'm looking forward to going inside the Blossom manse with Polly next week; that should bring the fun crazy. Hi, Molly Ringwald!

SUSAN. JESUS. DUMP HIM. HE SUCKS.

Even worse, she was usually called "Big Ethel."

I think Cheryl said her lipstick was "Maple Red," which would make it a thing, I suppose. On the subject of maple: "Winter came early?" You tap syrup trees in EARLY SPRING, when it's above freezing during the day but below at night. And with global warming progressing, there's actually been much less of a syrup harvest in the last few years and it's liable to get worse. The Blossom fortune may not last forever. I really do like Betty and Jughead (I refuse to call them "Bughead") but it seems to me like Jughead is always the one to initiate any kissing or physical affection. I'm still not convinced she's into him as more than a close friend.

Well, you can give Dave cheese and bacons if you'd rather, but Gordon's going to be jealous.

Please give Gordon Lightfoot many cheese and bacons. GOOD DOOG!

The Fug Girls coined the term "polterwang" for whatever is happening with Donna's jeans situation.

SUSAN. JESUS. DUMP HIM. HE SUCKS.

That's what it sounded like. First, I don't think you can actually force your girlfriend/wife to have an abortion (excuse me, an "appointment," and speaking of, maybe Polly should see an OB at this point?) she doesn't want, and second, how/why did she stay with him after that?! And third, why did he do that? Surely it wasn't another contamination-by-Blossom situation.

I maintain it would have been better to see some development of the relationship up until this point so I know if I'm supposed to care. The last time we saw Joaquin was a quick makeout behind the snack shed and Kevin giving him his number! How did FP even get involved in that? Joaquin must have told him about it, which makes the Serpents an awfully progressive biker gang. The Blossoms are straight out of V.C. Andrews and I love it.

Based on screen time alone, I wouldn't necessarily say he is taking over as the lead (I think they're still hoping for an ensemble), but he does seem to be positioned as the audience surrogate character. I think that was a choice made from the beginning when they decided to have him do the voiceovers. And unfortunately for the rest of the ensemble, Cole Sprouse is by far the most charismatic of the "teen" actors, so it may be that Jughead ends up dominating scenes even where he isn't doing much, just because of his screen presence.

That actually reminded me of a prop I wanted to give the show... as wackadoo as the writing for this show is, the costuming is actually kind of detail oriented! Jughead did show up wearing his usual grunge layers but obviously ended up stripping down over the course of the afternoon, tying his flannel around his waist. He's not as big as the football guys (I didn't even recognize Moose either, possibly because he hasn't shown up since, what, episode 1) so despite those nice arms presumably we're meant to believe he isn't used to physical labor and maybe he overheats easier. I also initially did a O_o at Archie wearing his letter jacket to a biker bar, but then I figured that Archie always wears his letter jacket and literally wouldn't think not to. As for Polly (she in danger, girl) she doesn't seem too bright, but maybe she's trying to do some kind of undercover investigation? I don't think she'll be very good at it, but she's pretty motivated to find out what happened to her boyfriend and the father of her child. Keller is still interviewing minors without an advocate, parent or guardian present, unless Polly's 18. Hermione is an adult, but she's not a legal guardian.

I really WANT to care about this, because I want Kevin to be an actual character with a trait other than "gay," but I have absolutely no investment in this honey trap situation since I haven't seen anything about the development of this relationship or how Kevin feels about Joaquin or anything else. I don't think Joaquin's name was even spoken this episode. If it were a movie, I'd say a whole subplot got cut. Hey now, that boy has fine arms.

Okay! Well! So Kevin and Joaquin are dating to the point where Kevin's friends are cool knowing he's going out with a Serpent? I certainly am glad that was dispensed with in a couple of lines of dialogue instead of giving Kevin any kind of storyline.

That gif of Kelly and Donna opening the box o'snakes is a delight. The best moments on this show are the ones where a glimmer of the actors comes through- usually it's things like Ziering and BAG making the best of whatever background moment they have, but even Jennie Garth is actually charming for a moment here.

I don't remember it being said anywhere on the show that Killer Frost is a heat vampire in any universe - genuinely asking, can someone direct me to that? If so, I feel like it's bad writing not to emphasize that that's why Caitlin is afraid of her powers. I still don't see why turning on the Frost should change her personality. It removes any potential internal conflict that might make that character, I dunno, interesting. As much as I like some of the characters on this show, I think the writing for the female characters has been weak from the beginning and hasn't gotten much better. I do suppose this could be the lead-in to the fulfillment of Cisco's vibe of him and Killer Frost battling it out. (Also, I looked this up because it was bugging me: the minimum enlistment in the British army is 4 years. Julian is either one hell of a multitasker or he's secretly 45 years old.)

He's half the reason I'm still watching. I don't know how he manages to sell some of the ridiculous things the scripts put in his mouth when not everyone in the main cast does, but he's just incredibly good at this. I am still wondering how old Julian is supposed to be since now not only does he have multiple degrees, one of them a doctorate, field work experience, and a career switch that probably required something other than a Ph.D in archaeology, but now he also somehow had time to do a stint in the Army? If he was in Afghanistan or something, he should have had plenty of experience dealing with shrapnel. (I really really hope she doesn't kill him and he gets to stay on the show.) It would be nice if, instead of the team agreeing that trying to get Savitar's name out of Kadabra was Barry's decision, they maybe acknowledged that Iris might want to have a say in this sort of thing? The women continue to operate as satellites of the men; even Gypsy is motivated by a man. I was half expecting her to tell Cisco that it was his Earth-19 doppelganger who was her partner. How exactly would knowing Savitar's identity actually help here, anyway? Speaking of Cisco, I found his attempt at game in this episode really off-putting. If that's the way he talks to people he's interested in, no wonder he doesn't date much.

We loves Gordon Lightfoot. Gordon Lightfoot is good doog. I bet Gordon Lightfoot would appreciates donations to roller derbies.

<3 GORDON LIGHTFOOT GUEST APPEARANCE <3

I work in an office and I use that style of letter opener for Tyvek envelopes, the blade style for paper envelopes. Vendors are always giving us those things with their logos on them.

It is VERY hard for me to get with the "Joe might never play football HOW AWFUL" storyline that Brandon is trying to sling here, given... oh, given so many things. Among SO MANY things, if he were that hot a prospect, no college would care about some stupid misdemeanor fighting charge. I agree Val should for once just mind her own business in this matter, but I commend her on her restraint for not laughing when Kelly attempted to threaten her with karmic justice in that awful smug baby voice.