sweetandsour

Hmmmm, okay. 1. I don't think Svenson/Conway was the real BH. He clearly was involved in some capacity, as the things he did by the burial plot were not ambiguous or forced enough, but this wasn't a one-person operation. Other shows will set up a patsy that initially looks like the bad guy (like sending an innocent person out in front of armed police with a gun taped to his hand and his mouth glued shut so he can't say, this is a ruse), but Svenson did and said too much to be a set-up. By all accounts he seemed alone in life, but I guess it's possible that there was someone he really cared about that the BH threatened to extort Svenson into doing what he did. 2. If Svenson really is the BH, I really need to know more about how he knew about Betty and her childhood Nancy Drew reading. I will not be satisfied with anything short of, he's the janitor equivalent of Mr. Feeney from Boy Meets World, who started out as a janitor at Riverdale Elementary, followed Betty to work at Riverdale Middle School, and then followed her again to Riverdale High School (or whatever the north side's HS is called). 3. The only way Archie could be any dumber about the real world and the $86,000 hospital bill is if he thought he could pay it back in the form of his fabulous acoustic slow jams. 4. I'm looking forward to the Lodges talking about driving a Waudi and wearing Lecrouton shoes. 5. I really wish Jughead had addressed the Penny problem with his brain and using the breadcrumb that Penny gave him earlier (about how every snake has a soft underbelly). Surely she has a weakness of her own. I wish Jughead had uncovered and leveraged that. And if he wanted to physically nullify her Serpent tattoo, I wish he had just taken a permanent marker and drawn a happy face over it. I don't know how you walk him back and redeem his character after ganging up on a woman and physically shedding blood and disfigurement through brute force. I'm all for characters evolving over time (vs. for anything to be viewed as in-character, it has to work with how the character was in season 1), but Jughead is going off the rails. 6. Cheryl being broke means she's going to have to rely on only free/cheap ways to stalk Josie and chase away other people who like her. She'll have to make purchases like pig hearts work in her budget. Though Cheryl strikes me as enterprising enough to get complementary pig hearts from someone.

Finally watched this episode along with tonight's, so I hope I'm not confusing the two. Really just came by to comment on the striptease, mostly. If the objective was to trigger a lot of chatter about the show, welp, they achieved that. I was very uncomfortable and I was watching it by myself. If I was watching with another person, like a boyfriend or a parent (do people watch this show with boyfriends and parents???), I think I would have felt like time had slowed to a crawl and the striptease lasted five years. I didn't know what to make of the one-piece lacy lingerie Betty was wearing. The show in general gets a pass on fashion choices because they play some things so old-timey while also being totally inappropriate for the real world (like wearing shorts at school where your ass is falling out the bottom), so I'm not sure if the one-piece falls into this. 16-year-olds just don't have underwear like that. Or do they??? Are we to believe Betty already owned that and chose to wear it for her striptease? Or that she went out and bought it for the striptease??? I'm also wondering if the one-piece was a production choice rather than a character one, like, OK we're gonna do this, but we'll keep the fully-unveiled flesh to a minimum because we're not doing this to be gratuitous and exploitive like that. I'm betting for the actors, doing take after take wasn't as uncomfortable as it would be for many viewers to watch the scene again and again, but ugh. And even if the scene had been taped back in October, if Andrew Kreisberg had been an EP on this Berlanti show, you can bet your ass that they would have edited that scene out altogether. Also, wtf, once again, we have the teenagers going to the scary isolated house in the dark of night. The first time Betty did, it was at the BH's summoning - she didn't have a choice in timing. But this time, Betty and Archie did, but they just HAD to go to a creepy, very potentially unsafe place in pitch black? Because it's so much better to fumble around there, looking for clues in the dark than to wait until sunlight and take a much better look around? More scenes manufactured for the scary factor than any reasonable plot. Skeet Ulrich in the Pop's diner uniform. He's a skinny guy, and his arms are so skinny. They're skinnier than mine, and I'm a short girl.

Char-les. I kind of wish in the scene where Charles is saying bye to Rosa and tripping all over himself that he doesn't mean bi, that they had built it around Bye Bye Bye by nsync. But that's the teenager in me talking. Singing someone's first and last name over and over again always sounds better with a guitar accompaniment. Not only is it nice to see Rosa's "softer" side with her parents, and that there are things in life she is afraid of, but also how far she's come with her privacy. In earlier seasons, she didn't even want her friends to know where she lived, and now she's happy that they're coming over and going to keep coming over (except for her toilet, I guess). How in the world does the Diaz family normally do Game Night? They only had four people, with Jake this time. How do they do this with three people? Danny Trejo is a one-person team? Makes sense.

LOL last night's episode was pretty bad. I loved Tanner's self-righteousness about the other CEO still coming after Sara and her non-compete clause - he had the audacity to say it was a problem she created. Um, no, as was well-established, the non-compete clause in Sara's contract was his idea, and even if it wasn't, non-competes are pretty standard in tech, so it still wouldn't have been the other CEO's doing. Her choosing to enforce it is completely reasonable. It's not because she's a weasel (although she's a weasel). I also laughed hard when Tariq came in to Tanner's home with his hacking discoveries of the reduced payroll of live reviewers. What was that 5 inch binder!!! What was in that 5 inch binder!!! Then Tanner brings said 5 inch binder to the other CEO's office to make a deal, and they flip to a page and it's blank! Was that empty paper in there just to show the absence of payroll? What even was that! Highlight of the episode was the same actor who played the Sinnerman in last week's Lucifer popping up here as another gravel-voiced killer. And also David Hull from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend making an appearance, except that donut employee was written so badly. The entire engagement of the donut employee in stalling the killer was ridiculous. I was second-hand embarrassed for the characters and the writers during that whole scene. I'll say something nice ... but it can't be about any of the internet celebrities because they were all terrible ... so ... um ... I don't know ...

I rewound Ray's citing of everything that's real multiple times. Ha! I just wish the baby dominator had been able to take a Beebo with him as a parting gift from Earth a few episodes ago. I wouldn't have been able to stand the cuteness. Though I guess he has his musical dance moves as a souvenir.

Kevin's one of my consistent favorites on the show, and he didn't disappoint in this episode. They use him in the right doses. I loved that he had the gall to pull out that game with Veronica of all people, and that he slept on the floor at a sleepover at his own damn house so V could have the bed. Obviously they didn't show how that came to be - maybe V helped herself to it vs. a gesture from Kevin - but I was into it. I just don't understand how these kids are always out at all hours of the night when they (a) all live with parents who exert a certain level of control, except for Jughead, (b) there's a serial killer on the hunt and they're clearly in his crosshairs (unlike some rando kid at school), (c) they're only sophomores in high school, and (d) it's a small town, so it doesn't take much for someone to see them and rat them out to their parents. This isn't a deal breaker by any means, but it's just odd and only done to enable more questionable hijinks. I know that kids have that feeling of invincibility, but why oh why could Sheriff Keller and Mayor McCoy, two highly visible people that no doubt the BH keeps tabs on, not suspend their affair during the BH's 48 hour call for no sinning? Is this supposed to be another case of how Betty, a high school reporter, can get more info and solve more mysteries than the omniscient BH? I like the idea of redeeming Chuck, because as awful as he was in s1, those were actions and mindsets and behaviors a young person can learn from and move away from with conscious effort. I was just sorry to see him shit on by Cheryl's framing, and I hope he doesn't see being a good guy as pointless if people are always going to think you're a bad guy anyway. Cheryl, you need to get a hold of yourself. Maybe if she sublimates some of her craziness by lifting weights in the Kellers' basement? Archie did hit the nail on the head once this episode. When he said to Jughead, "I have this stupid idea that after high school, we go to New York, and I'm a musician and you're a writer." Yep. Very stupid, Archiekins.

I don't understand the timeline. Jane had her baby before 2000, and Patterson said the ink on the documents she analyzed really is 18 years old. There was also a two-year time jump so it's more like end of 2019 right now. I don't remember what were the documents Jane was given - I guess they were adoption papers, not birth records - but her baby wasn't adopted as a two-year old. The baby was adopted as a tiny baby, back in early 2000 at the latest, so the ink should be 20 years old. Maybe Patterson just meant it's not fresh forged ink when she vouched for its approximate age. I don't know, I feel like the writers forgot about the time jump when they plotted these dates and times. Not a big deal, but it did bother me as I was trying to figure out, OK how old is this kid now? Which was only compounded with the reveal that her daughter was looking for her in Berlin six months ago. How old is this kid?? You'd think at least 18 to make it totally clear she's not globetrotting in her search for her mom as a minor in US terms. But she was probably barely 18 six months ago if her little-baby adoption papers are 18 years old now. Ahhh whatever. Also, aren't there ways to tell that a woman has given birth? If via c-section, there would be scar tissue. If via vaginal delivery, the hips change in a way where you can tell the person has delivered a child. But that's just what I've seen on other tv shows, so maybe that's tv science, not real world science. But I think it's more likely that the writers don't know about this bit. The whole thing with Patterson coding Wizardville in a way where she just could not avoid including code that allows her to spy on any user continues to irk me. I know it's just convenient to push along plot and solves but it bugs. I think Roman is the new Miss Cleo with his uber-omniscience.

Agreed, and I deleted the episode from the dvr already, but were Oliver and Laurel wearing gloves when they were touching the laptop and hardware inside the server room? If not, their prints are all over them, and not in a way even Oliver can explain. He works in IT, but why would his be the freshest prints on the laptop keys? Obviously in case of a physical data breach, C&G would investigate the scene of the crime. Maybe they could explain it away by saying they wiped everything they touched down, but I doubt it. And even if C&G doesn't have cameras installed within the office, there's no way the lobby of a building that would house C&G doesn't have operational security cameras. After what happened with Simon, police will definitely pull that tape and identify anyone suspicious, i.e. doesn't work for C&G, wasn't on the C&G guest list, or doesn't work for another business in the building. Did Laurel sneak in through the chimney? Don't think so. But I'm sure that'll be ignored, too. I don't mean to be hard on the show because all shows have holes, but when they get so convoluted, it's so hard not to see the things that don't add up.

Doodled next to my running list of potential future baby names will be this sentiment, to be uttered in or out of my kid's earshot, whatever works. "My [son/daughter] is a basic bitch." Btw, in the scene where Holt revealed Kevin as the pie thief, Holt used contractions all over the place. "I should have known you were lying. There's nothing better than a plain scone." "That's exactly how you always throw away garbage." "There's only one thing I can't figure out. Why'd you do it?" "Why didn't you just tell me the truth?" "I don't know why we can't still make the drive next year." That being his tell was obviously just for (very believable) plot purposes - not that it's actually consistently true - but now that it's out there, I couldn't help but notice it when Holt was accusing Kevin of lying. I didn't pay attention to his speech in scenes with other characters and I'm sure he actually uses contractions quite a bit with them, but I'd love it if Holt uses contractions with Kevin because he's so in love he gets that relaxed.

In the opening credits, you can see Adam in a bulletproof vest, holding a huge gun and walking in front of a SWAT truck, so I think he's going to straight-up join the team. Not sure what the catalyst will be, but it might be an extension of the organized crime reference in this week's episode. I'm sure he'll have a hard time readjusting to the island without Kono, and as they've shown in previous seasons, after he dismantled his father's criminal empire (I think he dismantled it, vs. just walking away and letting other people run it), he's had a hard time finding a real job that gives him any sense of purpose or utilizes his skills. So I assume Steve will pick up on that and invite Adam to join Five-0, possibly at first as the organized crime expert but then fully integrating with the team. I laughed so hard at the girlfriend discussion in the stress management episode. Steve so does not have sex with Lynn five times a week. I did notice that he said something about being on and off with her, which made the five times a week part that much less believable.

LOL *dun dun DUN* "It was Jeffrey's idea!!" Oy. Like it was supposed to be a source of potential conflict between Jeffrey and Sara, or that Jeffrey was the one responsible for such out-of-the-box thinking. Really, it only serves to shine a light on how dumb Jeffrey is, on top of how dumb Sara is. Jeffrey's the one who departed AllSourcer and took certain IP and personnel assets with him + he's the one who put in the (standard) clauses, but he thought it was a-ok to operate Sophe with assets that he can't fully utilize? Because he didn't know that? And this guy was CEO of a highly successful company? Uh-huh. But this is also a man who didn't think through at all how Sophe was going to operate with constant expenses yet no revenue coming in.

Yes, I felt the same way about what she feels entitled to and the mistakes she's made as a savvy industry veteran and leader. We don't read every bit of contract documentation we sign, and in a way that can bite us in the ass later (like I don't know who reads every word of the stacks of mortgage papers), but the non-compete and ownership of IP is pretty standard stuff. And when someone develops IP as a major part of their activities, there's no way they don't know this. It isn't like a garbageman who suddenly has an idea for an app. (Not picking on garbagemen; just an arbitrary job that doesn't involve exposure to IP.) The way Sara acted so shocked about who owns what she worked on at Stanford while AllSourcer paid for all of her tuition was ? to me. Whether she thinks that's fair is a completely different issue than the fact she took the full tuition payments as compensation. I would be pissed if my company had taken claim to anything I had done outside of my workplace while I was getting my MBA, but that's not what the limited tuition reimbursement terms were and who really wants my barely-real-world papers anyway? IP is different. She gets so self-righteous about this stuff that at times, I expect her to yell, "But my work helps the children!! What about the children?? Do you hate the children??"

Agree, but it really annoyed me that of the three suspects, the two men quickly rebuffed the prisoner's dilemma while the female immediately crumbled and confessed her understanding of the events. I also found it really bizarre that Josh, or any employee, walks away from his station and doesn't lock the computer? These people work in IT??? Maybe I just don't understand the culture at start-ups or start-up like companies? And on that note, I found it extremely bizarre that Prudence jumped on Josh's station like that's acceptable and then set up a loud, annoying prank in a workplace that isn't her own?? Maybe that's just another thing I don't get about these environments? And back to the COTW, I didn't really follow (and was not going to spend any time rewinding and rewatching) why the three suspects got their stories straight in terms of the last thing Ron yelled out, but everything leading up to that was recalled differently? That didn't make any sense. I guess they were just trying to establish the same story about Ron telling everyone to go home and create the appearance none of them were there when he died, but telling such different stories otherwise seems suspicious. Sure, they could attribute that to their drunkenness and substance use, but then that just makes the fact that they all, under the influence, recalled Ron saying the exact same thing suspicious. Part of me wants to like that their stories included "Fight for Your Right" but performed by different artists, I guess. And this constitutes hundreds more words and way more thoughts than this show and Piven's hair plugs deserve.

Oh gosh. I mean, the show is always entertaining, but it's so far short of coming together. 1. Well, to start with a moment of (comparative) levity, I enjoyed that they showed us Oliver's dodging of Lazlo twice with "bathroom emergency!" which is the acceptable way to say "explosive diarrhea!" when people are eating, have just eaten, or are going to eat. The first time they showed it, I thought, "that's gonna seem weird to get in the elevator if you have to go to the bathroom, because obviously there are bathrooms on the floor where the party's being held." But actually it makes sense to take a dynamic shit on another floor where you can get some privacy. Not that Oliver had the presence of mind to think that, but I'll give the show a pass on that not being believable since it is. Oliver was panting so hard that that also inadvertently made his BM emergency plausible to others. 2. Not only did Laurel bring a gun, she didn't have the safety on. She wasn't wielding it at the time in self-defense, thus prompting her to take off the safety. Simon didn't take the safety off. I honestly doubt he has ever handled a gun before and would even know how. So Laurel's a pregnant woman carrying a gun around in her purse, with the safety off, when the gun may accidentally go off and who knows, be unfortunately pointed at her stomach when it does. OK. Perfectly logical and safe, Laurel! 3. Asher reacted in panic, but it was a mistake to touch anything at all since it truly was an accidental GSW and none of them actively did anything. Simon's the only one with gunshot residue on his hands. Actually, the gun probably had Laurel's prints on it already, and if she loaded the gun herself, the prints are probably on the bullet casings inside. (Unless she bought it loaded and never touched anything but the exterior of the gun.) So it does kind of make sense for someone to wipe it down to get rid of her residual prints under Simon's, but when they wiped it down after Asher touched the gun, they really should have put it back in Simon's hand to refresh his prints. The GSR tests on Oliver, Michaela, and Asher will come back negative and who knows, the angle of the bullet entry may be concluded as compatible with the slip and fall accident (i.e. not a possible angle and distance for one of the others to have shot him). They would have to explain why Simon even had a gun with him, but that seems like one of the least far-fetched efforts all season. I'm hoping they clear this up quickly instead of dragging out the false arrest for the sake of drama. 4. They were smoking crack to think they could blame it on Simon, had he lived/not been critically wounded. They didn't control for other variables and their logic was highly flawed. The idea that he would try to make a deal as a whistleblower instead of fight for his own fundamental innocence was dumb. Had he been the chief suspect of the data theft, it wouldn't be hard AT ALL for him or his lawyer to put together that someone's framing him for stealing data from the dedicated Antares server room, and the CEO of Antares is Laurel's father. That is not a hidden relationship. Hmmmm, who has more of a relationship with Laurel and her father - him, some student who happened to go to school with her, or the people who are actually in her life? Then just track all of their cell phone activity that night, and the circumstantial evidence just keeps piling up. Never mind if someone at Caplan & Gold saw Laurel at the office party that night, even if it was just getting off the elevator. They wouldn't know who she was then, but once fingers are being pointed, it doesn't take much to connect the dots. Anyone still want to think Simon's the guilty party? And once Simon had been cleared, he could easily secure a job offer from C&G to get his visa sponsorship in exchange for staying quiet about the debacle instead of making a big stink of it. There's no need for him to concede as a whistleblower even though he wasn't involved at all. Also, they wanted to frame Simon as the one who had accessed the data, knowing it took nearly five minutes, but they didn't control for Simon's whereabouts. How easy would it have been for him to say, after being accused of using the keycard at xyz time, "That's not possible. I was talking to this person and that person and that other person during that window." They didn't trap him in the bathroom like the door was stuck or tell him to go up to the roof for some kind of surprise or anything. For all they knew, he could have been standing in the front row of the crowd opposite of Tegan. Michaela left partway through Tegan's speech, so she wouldn't know whether Simon was or wasn't there. Never mind what many others brought up re: how could Simon even get the key card if Michaela was securing Tegan's purse in her own hands. 5. Simon's a jerk, but not a "destroy his life by framing him" kind of jerk. I didn't appreciate how they kept rationalizing it, but I understood it, since they're terrible people. Based on their justification for their shitty behavior, I hope they take it gracefully when a loved one of Simon's destroys their lives and/or kills them all for killing/seriously injuring him. Hey, Laurel feels perfectly OK doing all of this for Wes, so she better understand if someone does the same for Simon. And at the end of the series, her child (if he really survives) can be an orphan and then her father can get custody and ruin that kid's life. (Even if the paternity test shows Frank as the father and he's killed, too - no way can his modest family beat Mr. Castillo's resources in a custody battle.) Full circle, guys! Hope she's happy about that idea! I could go on and on about this show, but I'll try to do something more productive with my life instead.

Ian Anthony Dale is such a beautiful man. I first saw him in something probably ten, or almost ten years ago, and he's still as gorgeous now as he was then. I also really enjoyed his dynamic with Steve this episode. Steve has peers (true peers, not teammates) in Danny and Grover, but there was just something different and healthy about the Steve/Adam interaction. He'll be new to the team, but he's the most developed prior-recurring character so they can just keep building on that instead of only trying to get us to like some totally new person. I'm quite pleased to see where they slotted Ian in the opening credits. He deserves that third billing ahead of the newbies and Jerry. Steve is all of us when he perked up 1000% on the topic of Eddie. What a mindfuck it would have been if, after discovering the dead police officer wasn't really a police officer and shooting out the driver in the final standoff, the car that the driver hit/drove over/smashed had an innocent occupant who was killed. But this is Five-0 so that will never happen. Junior really needed the added dimension with his old girlfriend, but I still don't find him to be likable and I don't enjoy him. He exhibits problems following orders this episode, which is for sure a liability, and they've established he's having trouble reassimilating, which is completely fair. But I don't think the answer is let him dedicate himself to Five-0 until he shows a real commitment to working on those issues and can accept the orders he's given (especially since he'll be the lowest man on the totem pole). I am not sure Alex is going to re-up his contract for another season, but I really wouldn't mind if Junior was a one-season character at most. If he joins Five-0, I hope it's not premature. Adam's already going to join the team and I doubt as a pure office team member like Jerry. So between him and Tani, Five-0 is already light on people with actual previous law enforcement experience. And I'll be mad if Junior is like, "you guys let Tani join even though she didn't finish the academy, and you let Adam join even though he didn't go to the academy at all, so you really should let me join, too!" Jerry's sister also dabbled in criminal endeavors! (With the elephant kidnap/rescue, though that's peanuts compared to the rest of the siblings.) So ... does anyone think Steve might have really needed that stress counselor from last week, or her perky tips, if he really had killed a non-criminal?

I've always thought a reliable marker that your Hollywood stock is really up is if you have a less-than-straightforward name and people pronounce it correctly. I feel like Keanu enjoyed a certain level of success before the average person knew how his name was really pronounced. Lots of kee-new thrown around at first until people started getting it right and it was clear, "dude has made it." Cheryl's mistake doesn't surprise me, but that was a perfect opportunity for Nick and/or V to keep posturing in their education of the rubes, except I don't think they know the pronunciation, either. In hindsight, I don't think this meant anything on the show itself. I think the actors and production just think it's Gah-doe, too. Though I've noticed a couple of odd pronunciations/emphasis/inflections from Cheryl before, in particular in the pilot. She put weird emphasis in taboo and hostess, but maybe that was intentional - like a hoity-toity rich person accent. That's how they grew up at Thornhill.

I don't remember the last episode of MF I saw that felt even remotely fresh. Gloria laboring away to hit 100k steps in 4 inch heels was ridiculous. This isn't a realistic show, but geez. I'm a big heel wearer myself, but I would never wear them while walking/stepping solely for the sake of more steps. And her clipping that stepcounter to the back of Claire's shirt and Claire being unaware it was there the whole times was ludicrous. Um yeah, okay, Claire never felt it, even as it obviously bounced against her back as she ran the race. I don't even know why it was such a big deal to everyone that Claire was doing a 10k when it was well established in earlier seasons that Claire is a runner. Also, if she really only ran about 4 miles, that's only 8000 steps, give or take, that she logged for Gloria unwittingly, implying that Gloria legitimately logged 92k steps herself. After she'd already done that work, why was earning that 8k herself such a big deal? Can't be that she was tired or her feet hurt - she was choosing to step/dance around in those heels, which would never happen if she was struggling.

One of the easiest ways to tell if an episode was originally a season 2 ep added to season 3 is whether Tom Welling is in the opening credits. While some shows don't include a series regular in the episode's credits if they don't actually appear in that episode, Lucifer is not one of those shows. (So Scarlett is always in the credits even though Trixie is probably in half the eps, at best, and Lesley and DB's names always appear, too, even though they've missed eps.) My digital tv guide includes the episode numbers in the descriptions, so it's been easy for me to identify original season 2 that way, too. It is so odd how they have been mixing 2.19 - 2.22 in with season 3. When those four episodes got bumped, I assumed they would play them in order and then start actual season 3. While that might have been a false easy assumption, I did not think they would mesh the way they have. Next week's is 3.05.

One observation I forgot about earlier - when they were all partying with jingle jangle at the next-level "Five Seasons" and Nick and Veronica were tossing around stories about their party days. They told some anecdote that included running into Gal multiple times, and then clarified they meant Gal Gadot. I don't remember who exactly clarified (Nick or V, but I think it was V), but I think they pronounced Gadot like Gah-doe when it's really Gah-dot. The "t" is not silent. I'll admit for a long time I thought the "t" was silent, but it just makes the story seem really silly if you know they're pronouncing it wrong. The whole point of the story is how they rub elbows with these famous people on a first-name basis and have to explain to these rubes who the famous friends are, but they mispronounce the name.

Just read the whole thread so I hope I'm not repeating anything. 1. Re: too much happening at once and too quickly, I suspect this is in part due to the fact that the show got 22 episodes this year. Plotting out 13 episodes last year was a much different endeavor, and I'm not sure how long they'd been mapping that one out in advance. (Typical that a first season is a long-stewing brainchild and then you get so busy executing on that, by the time you get to a season 2, you have comparatively so much less time to pull together a comprehensive game plan.) Now with 9 more episodes than last year, the producers may have overestimated how many storylines they need to have and how to pace them. 2. One of my favorite Kevin Kellers so far is jingle jangle Kevin Keller, who couch-dances like he's a robot with attitude! 3. I found it a little odd that Betty told Archie about the Black Hood calling her. I guess she told him because the Black Hood didn't explicitly bring him up like he did others, but it would've only been a matter of time until Archie's on the chopping block. Also, this is a guy who's been going nutso all season about the Black Hood nearly killing his dad, so how did Betty know Archie would be able to control himself and not do stupid stuff upon finding out the Black Hood is communicating with Betty directly? I guess we're to think Archie has truly dialed it back and gotten sane after the fight climax and the Red Circle apologies, but this is Archie. Not the brightest bulb out there. 4. I know I'm not supposed to condone violence in any fashion, but I did really enjoy the girls kicking the shit out of Nick. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. 5. The St Clairs "came up from New York." Are they trying to imply now that that Riverdale is NOT in New York state? I assume they meant it like the St Clairs "came up from New York [City]," but they keep playing it so ambiguous. 6. Five episodes in and "I miss hearing Archie's music," said no one, ever.

Yes, someone saw it. After the operators cleared the room Jimmy had been in, Thea saw the fabric on the ground, swept it aside with her foot, read the message, and said, "they were here." Thea is what makes the "people" side of the show the most CW. I'm sure the actress is fine when she's correctly cast, but saying things in a certain tone of voice does not make one a CIA officer. I think Melissa Roxburgh is like, 24 in real life. I can barely believe she's in the CIA as a newbie, let alone that she's running anything or trusted with anything. The know-it-all way she talks and carries herself -you'd think that Thea was the one with the senator mother and an easy pass, not Porter. I'm only still watching this bc I was like, "no way is this getting a back-nine order" (I didn't even think CW had room on the schedule for that, until Dynasty just got a full season), so hey, I can hang with this for 13 episodes. I'm going to see that through, and I assume the showrunners know at this point renewal is very unlikely, so hopefully they wrap up storylines and plant seeds for a second season vs. leave big things unresolved and cliffhanger-y.

I think it was "small pearl" and below that "tokyo" (I'm positive about pearl and tokyo, less so about small). Tokyo was a message to his wife, and she was supposed to understand that it meant hope. Or maybe both were a message to his wife, I'm not sure. I really only came here to comment that this show's production values and sensibilities (if you can call them that) are so CW in a BAD way. Non-teen shows can have CW vibes and appearance and still be quite enjoyable (like the hospital in "Emily Owens MD") but here, it's just. Yikes. Thea is already requiring extreme suspension of disbelief, and then when you have her on her first field mission, barking out orders and surreptitiously carrying out secondary missions while wearing tons of mascara, I'm like, "okay, this is just straight up nonsense and I can't make any excuse for this." Those are just really dumb choices, not limits on production or budget, and it's just that much more embarrassing because of the other military shows this season.

OMG it WAS terrible, that's why that kind of bananas makes me laugh! It would be a real Jump the Shark moment on any show, though. OTH took it so seriously, too, it was like yikes.

It just occurred to me that I would love if "Riverdale" pulled a "One Tree Hill" with Betty's brother - he comes to town posing as her brother, only it turns out that he's NOT really her brother and he's a crazy psycho stalker who's totally obsessed with her - killing in her name - and wants her all to himself! Bonus points if he has bizarrely huge tattoos and he chases her through her own house in a dramatic showdown. All the points if she pushes him out of a second story window and when she checks later, he's no longer lying on the front lawn. I don't even care if it's a blatant rip-off; I want it!! Every single point in the present and collective TV future if her real brother comes to town and he's black! Not sure how they could do this with Alice around (I'm assuming she knows enough about her child's race to not mistake a white actor for her non-white son), but if any show can do it, it's Riverdale. They've already suspended ultimate belief by making people fawn all over Archie's music.

At first, I did a double-take in the premiere for the same reason when Cheryl came into the hospital with her mother on the gurney with burns. When Cheryl was at her mother's bedside later, threatening her in the most ominous way I've ever seen her, Cheryl basically said they were going to keep secret how the fire really started and how Mrs. Blossom ran back into the house to rescue this God-awful family portrait from the fire. (The public story is that Mrs. Blossom went back into the house to rescue Cheryl and a breeze from an open window + knocked-over candle started the fire.) Cheryl told her mother that if she doesn't comply, Cheryl will tell people what really happened in the barn with Mr. Blossom. So I guess at some point we'll get back to that barn mystery ... like in episode 2.14 ... Maybe by then, they'll also address a hanging thread from season 1 - Archie and his weird feelings about wolves / wolf masks / whatever that was???