S01.E12: Chain of Fools

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

With the Pepper Plant opening, Pepper is excited to finally show it to off to Katy, Josie and Jorge. Thinking Pepper is in trouble, Josie tells Katy and Jorge what is going and on and they are starting to see that things aren't adding up quite right. Katy finds some unsettling information about Guy's past and must decide how to handle the situation. Meanwhile, Jorge takes on a few extra jobs to help with his parents' financial predicament.

Promo:

Original air date: 5/7/20

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Requisite music reference:

 

[alexa]

1 hour ago, LemonSoda said:

I keep holding on hoping it’ll return to the whimsy of the pilot episode but this is all over the place. Which sucks because the show has so much going for it. 

Exactly this.  What I loved in the pilot quickly disappeared, and is making me dislike half the characters.  lol!  If Pepper went to jail for good I wouldn't miss her, and Josie can go wherever she wants to and that will be fine too -- esp if she takes that boring family she works for with her.  And Jorge needs to dial it in a bit to his first couple of episodes personality.  Have I covered all of the characters now?  Okay so more than half of them, lol.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Josie singing She Bop at the party was kind of an odd choice.

It's hard for me to feel bad for Pepper because she dug this hole for herself. No matter what she said about how the persona she created as the kind of person who could introduce Katy to Guy, she was scamming people long before she met Katy so it's not really fair to blame her current friends for all the lying and stealing that she's been doing. I couldn't believe that Josie convinced Jorge and Katy to forgive Pepper so quickly. She stole a diamond encrusted purse knowing that Katy could get fired for it. As Katy said, friends who love you don't lie to you and steal from you.

Man, Alex sucks. One little bump in the road and the goes running right back to daddy. I'm honestly surprised he was able to cut the apron strings for this long. It's been, what, a whole week?

I thought the guy who wanted a lapdance was going to end up being a cop who arrested Jorge for solicitation so I was relieved it was just his dad who caught them.

I felt bad for Katy when she realized that Guy had stolen her design. I don't care if that's the same thing that happened to him and he was flattered by it. That 'doesn't mean Katy should let it happen and take it as a compliment. She has already given him way too much. She shouldn't let him see anything she sketches, designs, or creates anymore.

[Artsda]

After Pepper tried to blame Josie for everything during the house meeting, Josie should be done with her. They all should be with the stealing of the purse also.  I really don't feel bad for her at all.

Guy being a stealing jerk? Shocking. No idea what Katy saw in him. 

 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

17 minutes ago, Artsda said:

After Pepper tried to blame Josie for everything during the house meeting, Josie should be done with her.

I agree - when she said, "Do you really hate me this much?" I was like BITCH, PLEASE.

[tennisgurl]

I dont feel bad for Pepper, and I dont care that she is supposedly loyal to her friends (even when she really isnt) and helped Jorges parents, she has still lied to and manipulated her friends, stole from them, and when they tried to confront her, she plays the victim and tries to make everyone else feel like jerks for saying anything, even trying to act like Josie is doing this because she "hates her" or whatever. Stealing from Katy's work could have easily gotten her fired, even if she did feel bad, she still did it, and its pure luck that Katy didnt get in trouble. She has clearly broken the law a ton of times, she should probably be arrested! If I was her friend, I dont think that I would be so easily forgiving. 

I do like that Josie is the one who put it together, Josie is from Riverdale, she can smell a crook from a mile away! 

KO is such a good guy, he is better than fashion guy in every way imaginable, beyond his very questionable taste in post Katy girlfriends. 

[sweetandsour]

Count me in as another person who had zero sympathy watching Pepper's house of cards come crashing down.  Just because she doesn't engage in violence doesn't mean she doesn't deserve every single consequence from her actions, especially because she's stolen from and defrauded so many people in the past and gotten away with it.  OK, we get it, she came from humble beginnings and feeling unwanted, but that's no excuse for stealing from people to climb in stature.  I never cared that she was sometimes a good friend.  And she was never committing fraud to help her friends!  Yeah, right!  Only as an ancillary act if it benefitted her!  So she embezzles money from Kiss of the Spider Woman and doesn't pay Jorge or Josie.  How is that helping them!  Later she gives Josie a stage and Jorge a screen at the Plant, and then it's all, "ooh, ahh, I can't believe you did all this for me!" ?????  In a different type of show, she would have been murdered already.

I also found it odd that Jorge's dad took a bunch of money from Pepper.  Is he supposed to be such a proud man that he struggles to take it from his son, who does live in the building, but is happy to take money from his son's friend, who doesn't live in the building? Is the difference that Jorge's dad perceives Pepper as having a lot of money, so it's NBD to take some from her?

I don't know if this show will be renewed and how its chances look relative to CW's pilot scripts, but if it does come back - the writers need to go back to square one, badly.  I keep up with the show bc it's an easy watch, but that's not a positive thing, really.  It's easy bc I'm not invested.

Edited May 9, 2020 by sweetandsour
lol, I meant sympathy, not empathy

[NeenerNeener]

I dropped by to ask if I was supposed to like Pepper, because I hate that she's such a shifty, thieving bitch. It's nice to see that I'm not the only one who has a problem with her. If I'm supposed to root for her like she's Saul Goodman the writers are going to have to do a lot better.

10 hours ago, alexa said:

2 hours ago, LemonSoda said:

I keep holding on hoping it’ll return to the whimsy of the pilot episode but this is all over the place. Which sucks because the show has so much going for it. 

 I'd forgotten how cute the pilot was until you guys mentioned it. It's gone down hill steadily since then.

[tabularasa]

What happened to the show if you could name it? Episode 1 was good, if I remember correctly second and third as well. What went wrong?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

On 5/8/2020 at 12:26 PM, tennisgurl said:

I dont feel bad for Pepper, and I dont care that she is supposedly loyal to her friends (even when she really isnt) and helped Jorges parents, she has still lied to and manipulated her friends, stole from them, and when they tried to confront her, she plays the victim and tries to make everyone else feel like jerks for saying anything, even trying to act like Josie is doing this because she "hates her" or whatever. Stealing from Katy's work could have easily gotten her fired, even if she did feel bad, she still did it, and its pure luck that Katy didnt get in trouble. She has clearly broken the law a ton of times, she should probably be arrested! If I was her friend, I dont think that I would be so easily forgiving. 

Stealing is always a crime, but it's worse that she did this to people like Jorge and Katy who are barely getting by financially. Pepper wasn't stealing from a faceless corporation with piles of money. She was not paying Jorge and Josie, both of whom are working multiple jobs and are still barely able to cover their own expenses (like rent), and her actions could have gotten Katy fired from the only job she has.

Pepper claims she cares about them but she was literally keeping much needed money out of Jorge and Josie's pockets and she almost lost Katy her only source of income because she cares about herself and her image more than anything else. She is selfish and ruthless. Displaying three of Katy's dresses in the corner at her opening night doesn't make up for that IMO.

[geauxaway]

17 hours ago, tabularasa said:

What happened to the show if you could name it? Episode 1 was good, if I remember correctly second and third as well. What went wrong?

I haven’t watched in a few weeks, they are piling up in my DVR and I’ll binge through them at some point, but at the beginning I was watching them the same week they aired.  For me, there is too much singing for starters.  Then the characters of Jorge and Pepper became just too extra for me.  It’s just kind of gone over the top off the rails, which is why I quit Riverdale this year (after I watched the Luke Perry tribute episode).   I liked the whimsy yet kind of “realistic” tone they started with.  But then again, I also liked Carrie Diaries, and this kind of in some way checked that box for me.  

So, for me, that’s what’s went wrong.  
 

Also, one other nitpick I noticed while cruising thru my DVR, the episode titles are taken from song titles which makes this the 3rd show in my queue to do so (others being Mixed-ish and Greys).   Not sure why but it irrationally annoys me.  Be original!

[LemonSoda]

On 5/13/2020 at 11:24 AM, geauxaway said:

But then again, I also liked Carrie Diaries, and this kind of in some way checked that box for me.  
 

Now that’s a show I feel deserved more than it received! They could’ve given us a third season. I re-watched a few months ago and it’s still whimsically adorable. I loved the energy of the pilot, Carrie experiencing the city for the first time, that first night out where you don’t want the night to end. Magical! 
 

I really loved the pilot for this show. It has so much going for it. Even the set design for the apartment is pieced together perfection. But after what, 12? 13? Episodes it’s all over the place. 

[NeenerNeener]

On 5/12/2020 at 5:54 PM, tabularasa said:

What happened to the show if you could name it? Episode 1 was good, if I remember correctly second and third as well. What went wrong?

Too much of the Jorge and Pepper shenanigans starting around mid-season and not enough of the title character. Maybe there wasn't enough to say about Katy Keene to justify a whole show. Hence it's cancellation.

If Katy wasn't solving crimes or commiting crimes there wasn't much for a one hour show named after her.

Edited September 7, 2020 by NeenerNeener

[LemonSoda]

On 9/6/2020 at 1:43 PM, NeenerNeener said:

Too much of the Jorge and Pepper shenanigans starting around mid-season and not enough of the title character. Maybe there wasn't enough to say about Katy Keene to justify a whole show. Hence it's cancellation.

If Katy wasn't solving crimes or commiting crimes there wasn't much for a one hour show named after her.

Absolutely! I’ve been rewatching as background noise and this is more and more evident each time. I wish they would’ve focused more on Katy, then slowly added in the roommates.