Snookums

I gave up soda; I learned after one disaster of a Lent to not give up sugar altogether. My sister's got it really hard: she gave up swearing!

At one point I think Hiram did mention changing his name because his dad was a jerk? And Veronica used that name to apply to college? It was one of those "now you see the plot point/now you don't" things the show specializes in.

Old scores are settled and new alliances are forged in the series finale. Elliot makes a choice that defines his future.

With the stakes higher than ever, the Wallaces are forced to go into hiding. Luan risks his life to rid himself of Mosi.

The truth about Finn's murder is revealed - and The Wallaces and The Dumanis will never be the same again.

Marian puts the pressure on Sean to uncover Finn's killer. How far is he prepared to go in pursuit of the truth?

Darren wrestles with the chaos he's unleashed. But when mercenaries set their sights on him, will Kinney be able to help?

Elliot's loyalty is tested. Sean throws a dinner to unite the two families and Alexander is asked to meet an old contact.

Lale is asked to make an impossible decision. Sean enacts a dangerous plan and Elliot takes on a new foe.

Elliot makes a connection with the Dumani family. Meanwhile, Sean makes a discovery about his father's murder.

Unfortunately I cannot find a release date, due to, well, everything in 2020. I will keep an eye out and when there is a solid date on Cinemax or elsewhere I'll post it.

All episodes were released on Sky TV April 23 2020.

Not even ripe, red apples that fall out of your bag when you bump into Love Interest and then your hands touch as you pick them up?

So while this may have been rather unsatisfying, in our fallen world it was probably the best version of a season finale we were going to get. For you young'uns and others who may not be familiar with seventies YA fiction, this episode was a direct lift from one of that era's most famous works, Killing Mr. Griffin. While it obviously varies from that story, it contains the same elements--a kidnapping prank gone wrong, a charismatic sociopath leader, and an enraging authority figure that, in actuality, is a caring teacher who is determined the bright young minds under his direction not coast lazily or throw away their gifts, who seems to think he's shaping them to face the world. The problem is, of course, that while Mr. Honey is 100% correct in his technicalities, he has the worst possible personality to lead young minds anywhere. He's rude, he sets people up to fail (such as Betty and the yearbook). he does morally questionable things (the tape, Reggie's car), to use the most generous possible interpretation, to get his way. That he does it because he truly thinks he's helping makes him interesting, but doesn't make him a good educator. Taking away the only rewards a person or group has doesn't make them resilient or strong or grateful, it sows the seeds of a poisonous resentment that makes them band together, all right, but for no higher goal than destruction. That said, the writers as usual seemed to be biting off more than they could chew with trying to set him up as an adversary. This can certainly be blamed in part on the truncated season, but Kerr Smith didn't have much chance to bring forth either the dark side that rents snuff films from Blue Velvet or the secretly caring person who gets kids scholarships and improves the GPA of Riverdale High. If you're going to have somebody be a Big Bad he's got to have at least a couple scenes where you find out more about him. On the other hand, this one gave the gang, and Betty and Jug in particular, a real chance to stretch as characters. The casual way B&J smoothed into outright sociopathy was really pretty creepy, with Betty's enjoyment of the story as it grows ever darker and Jug's belated realization that he's enjoying this far too much, that it's coming way too easily. Veronica, for once not being Daddy's Boring Mirror, also got something to do. She starts out just kind of going along and enjoying inflicting a little rough justice, but eventually realizes she's turning out exactly like her dad, and unlike Betty's acceptance of that fate as a source of power, freaks out and calls the cops. Archie, as is his wont, goes along with things like accidental murder and body disposal while flustering around still trying to be "good." He's the moral conscience of the group but instead of leading, follows behind going "but guys, do you really think...?" Reggie, who in the last ep and this one finally exists, gets to remind people that he may have anger issues but is the only one here who hasn't, so far, killed somebody, dug a grave or kept terrible secrets that could send him to prison. As usual, the actor's comedic chops make what could be a boring role hilarious ("... and I'm going to Riverdale Community College. Maybe.") Cheryl's cool "so you won't be making that video, then?" and later hysterical sobbing are pure Cheryl. The most unusual thing about her was Toni wasn't attached to her like a remora. Interesting that Kevin, while participating in the real world prank and all the bull sessions (done out loud in a public space with tons of people around as usual) isn't in the murder story. The whole thing could be summed up when the gang are facing down Mr. Honey as he's leaving and he tells them that he really was doing all this for their own good, that this town and school are pits of chaos and dead ends, and Betty says "well, that's normal for us."

That Lincoln town car ad that has the moody blonde all sad and lonely and socially isolated in her ultra modern mansion; she then cheers herself up by ORDERING AN EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLAR CAR online. They deliver it to her door as she peers moodily yet richly out from between her costly curtains. The narrator coos the whole time about how much Lincoln understands. I don't want to hear about your problems, moody rich blonde lady. If they can be solved by ordering an EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLAR CAR online and have it delivered by some guy who now either has to walk back to town or risk infection hitching a ride, they are problems I would love to have. (The most enraging part is when the voiceover offers delayed financing. If you can order a Goddamn EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLAR CAR online like I do paperbacks and cat food, you can shell out up front, dammit.)

I've been watching tons of old film noirs and monster movies! The latest was a double bill of Stop Me Before I Kill!, a pulpy as hell title to a really quite well done suspense film. The lead character is dealing with massive character warping after a near fatal car accident, and it actually really nails what living on eggshells with a person you love but who can flip utterly the hell out over any and every tiny, random thing is like. The other on the DVD was Cash On Demand, a non-horror Hammer black and white, starring Peter Cushing as a professional carrier of sticks up his butt bank manager who's held hostage in a bizarre robbery. It was one of the first glimpses I've ever had of Cushing in a non-Van Helsing role, and he nails the whole thing. It's based on a stage play and he's carrying 90% of the film while playing a very unsympathetic (initially) character, so he has to make you care about a guy who will remind everybody of THAT GUY from their office. He does so brillianty.

Ha, you should write for this show! Scenes like this one would go a long way in improving actual character development. It must be the same shop that had five hundred elaborate Gargoyle King Game costumes available at a moment's notice last season. Riverdale reminds me of the old Batman TV show's Gotham, that had no apparent economic base beyond thousands of closed down umbrella and hot dog factories and two diamond stores.

Heh, seriously. I love how they kept doing protests and musical numbers at Pops and acting surprised when he goes you know I'm the actual adult in charge, right? And really, Sugar Daddy was great but also, as he said, proved his point. Could anyone make out what book he was reading with his little cup of green tea? Did anyone see whether Fangs had his kidney removal scar, as well? Every time he and Kevin have a scene I wait for one of them to go wait, aren't we married? Granted, cult-married but it's so weird that NO ONE ever brings that up! And, sigh....onward to the whole Betty/Archie thing. While I get that this is a soap and soaps thrive on conflict, not contentment and so on, the only real problem I have with this is that Archie and Betty have barely spoken for weeks and weeks, if it wasn't in the context of "bring down terrifying death pact in the private school nobody mentioned until now." The show did its best with the whole "recreate the dance" thing (my God, they looked so young!) to remind us of the whole grew up together secret love in Betty's heart, but in my opinion, while I get why they were reminding us, all it did was point out how much water has gone under the bridge since then. So much has happened to these characters that the idea of Archie and Betty together doesn't have the same kind of impact it might once have had. Even if they were both single it wouldn't be the same. Things I did like: For once, the show not blowing off an important character growth arc and reminding us that Archie still misses his dad, but not making it maudlin or overpowering. Ronnie lashing out at Archie while knowing even as she's yelling that she's being ridiculous and there was nothing Archie could realistically have done. And her sincere apology later. Betty holding it together when Jug is being Perfect Boyfriend, then weeping with guilt and shame. That terrifying video and Jug's reaction. Of course he'd be terrified! Questions: So Charles; do you have a superior officer? Do you ever have to report in to a field office? Does nobody notice you visiting your lover in the town jail and question your associations, being a fed and all? Why is Jug so far behind on his homework? I know Stonewall was a nightmare but no more so than any other week in this wicked little town, and he did attend classes. Couldn't he transfer his credits from the supposedly superior school? It's insane to me how many people in Riverdale have a functional top-loading VCR.

AHHHH GOTTA WATCH THIS! I was so used to Riverdale being off the air!

At which point Veronica should have been going "wait, how do you know this?"

Very true, and I'm assuming most of the ghostwriters, having undergone such a ghastly audition, stuck to the job a while so things were spread out. The pattern was there but in big enough waves somebody would have to search for it. It does make me wonder how old Mr. Chipping was supposed to be; he was the last ghostwriter and wrote 4 books. If that's a book every say, two years? given the time to write/edit/publish, and he got this contract his senior year of high school, when did he go to teaching college, get married and have kids while secretly noting which of his spoiled rich brat horror shows of students might be ripe for recruitment? He must be really good at budgeting his time.

To be fair, Jug's pulse could have been weak and/or irregular--even on a healthy not bonked by a rock person who isn't collapsed in a dark wooded area, a pulse can be hard to find. And Archie did give him a fireman's carry up to the med van! This honestly summed up a lot better than I thought it would have, considering. But? Questions. 1) Why the hell hasn't four missing students been a bigger scandal than it's been? FOUR? At a richie rich school for spoiled progeny of people very very VERY used to getting their way? I get the entire point was to be perfect murders, but none of them turned up murdered or even dead--they simply vanished. What red blooded rich, connected, willing to fake test scores/slap their kid onto a rowing machine for phony photo ops parent isn't going to raise Caine in every corner of the state Riverdale is in and get the place shut down??? 2) Dupont was depending on a lot more fellow psychos keeping his slaying tendencies secret than Betty et al ever had to during this fever dream, and for decades, not a few weeks. Why the hell hadn't any of the previous ghostwriters demanded blackmail, or any of his students who didn't get the contract turn him in out of rage? 3) Charles, you are one patient man, but not as patient as your lover, Chic, who is rotting in a jail cell having been framed for the murder ALICE committed and FP helped hide, with the assistance of our favorite duo! Why the heck did the writers bring this thread into play at all? It has gone NOWHERE. 4) And seriously, JOHNATHAN. A Black student is murdered, murdered, by his fellow Stonies and people care less than...about anything else. He may have been in on most of it, obviously, but, what, was the writers' idea to make up for his complete lack of character or agency and his off-screen, footnote death by letting him grow a dubious conscience that he never once got to voice from his own mouth? Things I did like: Betty's little spin towards the door as soon as Jug said "locked room mystery." Which, by the by? That's not a locked room mystery--the term refers to a murder that seems to be unsolvable due to the apparent lack of ways for the murder to commit the crime and escape (that is, the victim being murdered in a room locked from the inside and being found alone), not the rich tradition of gathering all the suspects in the parlor and recapping the crime. Brett getting the pudding beaten out of his stupid face. Nice how Joan had an ambassador daddy and Donna was all self-confident while Brett relied on gross videos and bravado. Serves you right, asshead. Jughead's neat row of forehead stitches, which don't make much sense since Joan hit him in the BACK OF THE HEAD. That actually was a win for the writers--the fact that this driven lunatic could pour so much of her life into this sweet revenge and at the very last minute end up with nothing. Really, no prison could be worse for her particular personality, and Betty knew it.

Alice is particularly qualified to make this doc considering she MURDERED SOMEONE and used Jughead, Betty and FP to cover it up. Love how she keeps deflecting her own psychosis onto poor Bets! "I'm not saying you did it on purpose, honey!"

Betty actually did hit him with a rock while being mind-controlled, but luckily for him, the beanie cushioned the blow. Wait, though, did Betty actually hit him or was it Johnathan (who is now apparently DEAD, WHAT THE HELL) and she just found the rock and picked it up?

Let's ask Mary, who apparently is both a defense and business contract attorney! Remember, in Riverdale all lawyers know about/practice every form of the legal profession just like every Professor is an expert in everything from Ancient Egypt to quantum physics in monster movies. But yeah, that is super ridiculous. Hiram deciding on Jug's (fake) funeral as the place to tell FP to take some time is typically him and this show, but FP should never have been within a country mile of this entire thing from an investigating standpoint. Any actual lawyer would have pointed that out in a hot second. (I am hugely amused at Betty/FP/Jellybean all keeping this from Alice and watching her run around with her cameras and shit the whole time.) Why the hell was Hermosa helping Ronnie with anything? Does she think uncovering Donna's Enormous Secret will get R to leave town or something? Why go through all this investigating and then throw in with Core Four? I do NOT want any kind of love triangle crap, but since even this show can't pretend they can stay in high school/Riverdale for much longer I assume they're trying to set up Long Distance Relationship Dramas. Blah. Nice to see so many past players in Alice's documentary: Hi, Nana Rose! You can tell that actress is having a ball with her crazed gothic granny lines and outfits. "Riverdale was booorn in blooooood and has bathed in it ever since!" Hi Pops! When are you going to see the light and move out of this lunatic asylum? Hi Reggie! Miss you actually being on the show but you proved your comic chops once again! Hi Kevin! Man, you scored multiple scenes here! Thank you, show, for not bringing up the whole tickle porn grossness again. Hi, Toni and Cheryl! Great to see you both; both Toni's eyelash game and Cheryl's overbearing nuttery get an airing in a very Riverdale way; not to mention the whole "totally NOT JEALOUS" face and statement from Cheryl, right before being the most honest person in town about Jug's death. Sorry I called you a hobo. FINE, I'm REALLY sorry, okay? My lipstick is perfect! Donna and Brett snapping like old candy canes is fun to watch. Also, did they kill Johnathan? Did anybody know he was dead? Has anyone reported him missing?