S04.E19: Chapter Seventy-Six: Killing Mr. Honey

[Chaos Theory]

Wow I am surprised that no one has made a topic by  now.     I thought this was a fun episode.  Although Jughead’s original college essay/story was waaay better then the alternative.    I loved the darker versions of Jughead, Betty and Archie.   The group kidnap and accidentally kill Mr. Honey and then murder Reggie and then turn on each other.    It makes for a far better story then they get lucky when a school prank goes horribly wrong.

Plus I don’t buy Mr. Honey was secretly a ok guy.   But I do like the reveal he ended up writing a letter for Jughead.  It works for all the versions.  Real,  dark.  And boring version of the story.

[Snookums]

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." 

 

[Auror]

Regarding Mr. Honey... not buying the insinuation that he’s overall okay. We know Honey's twisted regardless... he might have a Hitler-like way of actually wanting to prepare students for the real world but it doesn't excuse his other actions. What he did to Reggie's car, the weird way he has cancelled prom at every school he's worked for (and this last bit with the videotape, wtf), the child porn stuff that he was directly around (this hasn't been addressed at all), and the weird interaction he had with Kevin that one episode. Some thought he wanted to have sex with Kevin, he was acting so bizarre and strange. The audience has eyes and brains. We saw what we saw. So even if most of his behavior was just stern, he still has tons of shady behavior that cannot be explained away. The Stonewall Prep thing is just weird. It is like that place is haunted with evil and it keeps circling around like the wind. Who would have hired him? Stonewall Prep might want law and order right now but I still don't see why they would hire him, at triple the salary on top of it all. 

I love when Jughead realized he was letting Riverdale tear him apart and changed the story at the end. I LOVE this. RAS made it seem like future seasons won’t be as dark. 

They brought up Minetta's murder again. We know the actors of Hermione and FP are leaving after the final 3 episodes of season 4. Maybe Sheriff Minetta murder tape leads to Hermione and FP's involvement and they end up in prison. That is how you get around killing off both characters (just throw them in prison) so the actors/characters can return in the future.

Charles/Chic connection is on hold. I still think all is not what it appears. I’m still not sure Charles is bad. He might be playing Chic. A long time ago Lili made it seem like Charles was not bad. Things could have changed since then, though. 

Loved that Archie was like "we have to think tactically" then immediately turned to Betty for a plan. LOL. 

I wonder why Kevin wasn't in Jughead's story. He has just as much reason to hate Honey as Reggie.

The ending was creepy, especially when all the people on the tape looked at the camera and cocked their heads to the side in unison. 

Lili and Cole looked so devious during some of the scenes played out as a result of Jug's fiction. They did such a great job. If you look at Lili Reinhart's eyes... seriously, I have never seen such a unique color. They are so beautiful. So when you put in Dark, Devious Sociopath Betty with those eyes... man, what a crazy combination. LOL.

Prom has to be when the Core 4 blows up after Barchie is revealed. I really believe this. It’s classic TV and film to have prom, which creates drama on its own, cause chaos. I think this is the direction Riverdale is going in. 

[tennisgurl]

4 hours ago, Auror said:

It’s classic TV and film to have prom, which creates drama on its own, cause chaos. I think this is the direction Riverdale is going in. 

What are the odds that someone gets covered in pigs blood before the night is through? 

So the alternate title of this episode could be "So...maybe we`re the assholes?"

Mr. Honey may or may not be part of the sketchy video stuff (or was that just the one he used for his own ends this week?) and was cold, engaged in petty squabbling and one upsmanship with his students, and clearly had it out for some of his students...but as I've said before, a lot of the stuff he did that the kids were so pissed about arent unreasonable things at all, and the kids reactions to them are so over the top in how offended they were at the very idea of someone not just letting them do whatever they want, its kind of hard to be on their side. I mean, keeping teenagers from drinking on campus? Hiring a qualified coach for a cheerleading squad? Not wanting a bunch of teenage girls to sing a song about sugar daddies at a school event? Oh, what a homophobic (?) fascist monster! I dont know if I totally buy him as a total secret good guy, but I can buy that he did have good intentions, and while he went about it the wrong way and had a lot of personal problems, he thought he was doing what he had to do to clean up this school, a school that very much needed cleaning up. I mean, say what you will about the guy, with the exception of that mercenary incident (which is pretty low key by Riverdale standards) we have at least cut down on school sponsored murder cults and dnd drug rings and gang wars, so thats...something right? Plus, its just getting kind of hard for me to root for Jughead and Betty when the two of them are just so fucking smug. They are just so convinced that they are so awesome and anyone who bothers them must be so awful and are so happy to lord their family connections to gangs and the sheriff (one and the same in Riverdale!) and the FBI over people while acting like they're championing the disenfranchised or whatever, that they dont seem heroic so much as insanely corrupt jerks who dont think the rules apply to them. I hope that this whole mess with Mr. Honey, with Jughead realizing that he was reveling so much in the sordid nature of Riverdale that it was starting to make him like the people that he has tried to fight against, so much that he ended up screwing over someone who might not have been the bad guy. Ouch, Honey actually writes a nice recommendation letter, and then this. It sure is a dark twist, no matter which version Jughead uses. Look at your life Jug, look at your choices. Hopefully this gives him and the gang a wake up call that they cant let the darkness of Riverdale so deeply affect them.

Yeah, if Betty doesn't want people to think that she is a serial killer, maybe dont talk and act like one? I do kind of love all the kids just sitting around plotting murders like it aint no thing, and the psycho versions of themselves in the story that increasingly seems like they're actual selves, you can tell that the cast was having fun, and it was great seeing so many characters interacting. Lili has the prettiest eyes, and they can turn so creepy so quickly, its actually pretty chilling. I also like how in the dark Jughead story, it was poor Reggie that couldn't stomach the murder while everyone else just shrugs it off. 

"and I'm going to Riverdale Community College. Maybe" Aww Reggie be proud of yourself! Your trying! 

The Legion of Angry Parents and Guardians! Ugh like so many parents, they just cant comprehend that their precious perfect angel child could have done anything wrong, and it must be the schools fault.

No Barchie this week, and I am totally cool with that. If they want to do Barchie, and I assume they will one day, I dont want it to be like that, with cheating and lying to their friends and partners. 

That ending, when the masked people all tilted their heads in unison while looking at the camera, was seriously creepy, those masks are the stuff of nightmares. Was that actually Mr. Honey that got killed? 

For a finale that wasn't supposed to be a finale, that was pretty solid as a season ending. Well, it could have been worse at least. I do like that the show seems to be showing some self awareness about the increasingly awful behavior of the characters

Edited May 7, 2020 by tennisgurl

[thuganomics85]

Definitely mixed on the "Actually, Mr. Honey isn't that bad after-all" reveal.  On one hand, even if his "intentions" were to prepare his students for the real world, he still came off cold and uncaring, deliberately went out of his way to make obstacles for him (the yearbook thing), and still had some "off" scenes, like his moments with Kevin and Reggie, and the scene at the video store last week (not to mention despite his claims of making the school safer, a freaking mercenary still was able to sneak in and almost kill one of his students.)  That said, when the gang was complaining about the reasons they were barred from prom, all I could think was "Well, y'all kind of deserved it, honestly."  So, while I don't think I fully buy him being a good guy at the end, I definitely don't think he was the tyrant they tried to make him out to be.  Not sure if that was him getting killed at the end, but if so, I certainly do appreciate Kerr Smith's hilarious deadpan reactions throughout all of this, and continue to be impressed over how Honey was able one-up everyone a lot of times simply by doing the most logical thing.  For a show like Riverdale, that makes you the unpredictable one!

The story within in a story bits were fun, and the actors seemed to be having fun playing things somewhat differently.  Cole Sprouse was good at playing a more unhinged Jughead, but once again, Lili Reinhart really seems to have a knack whenever she goes dark.  She could actually shine at playing villains in other shows or films, once this show ends or her time here is done.

Interesting that in Jughead's story, Reggie is the one who can't handle the murder aspects, and almost gives it all away.  Meanwhile, despite usually being the righteous one of the group, Archie remains loyal to Jughead/Betty and that even puts him at odds with Veronica, who starts having doubts.  Not sure if that is how it would all really go down if something like that happened or if that's just what Jughead thinks and considers his friends to act, if they ever covered up a murder.

The Army of Angry Parents probably gave nightmares for anyone that has had to deal with that group before, but it was fun seeing the "veteran" actors all together for a scene.

Today in "small scenes that are delightful amongst the crazy": got a kick out of Archie and Jughead's reactions and playful banter when they realized they were the only ones not barred from prom.  Not exactly original material or anything, but it was actually fun just seeing them actually acting like normal high school friends, complete with goofy fist-bumps and dumb jokes about being each others' dates to the prom.

All in all, not the worst finale, but it is definitely obvious that this was cut short.  Hopefully the delay won't be too bad, because I want to see where this crazy train goes next!  Also curious about what will happen with FP and Hermione, since I know Skeet Ulrich and Marisol Nichols were suppose to be leaving this season.  Will they simply be written out next season or will they show up to film a few more episodes and get a proper exist?

[Lady Calypso]

I would like to think that this wasn't Kerr Smith's very final episode, since I feel like they showed him at the end of last week's episode for a reason...but this is also Riverdale, where they like to drop plots as soon as they start them and then only go back to them much, much later, when everyone's forgotten about it (see: Charles/Chic). 

But still, it was a fun episode, even if it wasn't a great finale. At least Kerr Smith got some awesome material to work with in this episode alone, which is more than I could say for poor Sam Witwer, who only got to jump out a window. 

I think what made this episode fun, even with the shitty writing, was the fact that almost all of the teen characters were actually hanging out together. Sure, even in the scenes not written by Jughead, there was a lot of awkward dialogue that no kid would ever say in real life, but at least they were acting like teens. They were interacting! Reggie got something worthwhile to do, both in Jughead's novel AND outside of it! 

Jughead and Archie got to joke around together! Even though it's uber awkward with the Barchie stuff that has been happening...but if we forget about all of that for a moment, it was just nice to see everyone laughing and getting along and not having weird plot stuff to deal with. 

The Mr. Honey plot was surprisingly tame for this show. Actually, it gave me pure season 1 vibes; still a bit weird, but not unrealistic. Yes, Mr. Honey has done some shitty stuff to make him not a good guy...but this is RIVERDALE. Compared to other people in town, Mr. Honey really WAS one of the good guys, even with his shady personality and weird behaviour. Plus, he's the only one who has voiced any concern about the murders in town. And we got the secretary getting a speaking role and advocating for Mr. Honey.

Also, the parents showed up! Hermione actually showed up! And got to have one line...that was about six words, but that's better than what she's gotten, or not gotten, in the entirety of 4B. Plus, I had a really hard laugh at FP's "Oh, we're the muscle." 

And Jughead's novel was very telling about the characters he sees around him. It was good insight into Jughead, in particular. He sees them all as monsters, had Veronica as the voice of reason (smart call), which is telling about his perception about Archie, and had Reggie take on the guilt-ridden role. And it was interesting to see how Jughead changed up his ending, with Archie being the one to switch roles from monster to hero. 

It was actually a fairly entertaining episode, overall. Madchen did a great job at directing it, because some of the shots she used were super cool (for example, the camera angle from Mr. Honey's dead corpse's POV tracking up to be upright).

And the cliffhanger? That's not a bad cliffhanger tiding over into season 5. 

Honestly, for a finale, it was mediocre but since it was never meant to be a finale....I can be a lot more lenient and as an episode, it was a lot of fun and one of the better episodes from this show. When the show allows their characters to ACTUALLY interact, it showcases its strength with its cast. Just poor Toni got left out...but still, an impressive track record for the show if only one character was missing. 

[SourK]

This was really funny in the LOL-at-Riverdale way that I enjoy, but I also kind of liked the twist where Jughead realized the principal wasn't evil, and the story-within-a-story format.

KJ Apa continues to impress me, since he was clearly playing Archie as imagined by Jughead rather than normal Archie, and the difference wasn't huge but it was noticeable and fun.

The yearbook thing hit close to home for me, because I've worked in print production before, and I feel both the pain of having a slow approval process when you're running out of time AND the pain of having people blow their deadlines like it's NBD. No one is the monster in that scenario -- it's an evil inherent in the process!

3 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Mr. Honey may or may not be part of the sketchy video stuff (or was that just the one he used for his own ends this week?) and was cold, engaged in petty squabbling and one upsmanship with his students, and clearly had it out for some of his students...but as I've said before, a lot of the stuff he did that the kids were so pissed about arent unreasonable things at all, and the kids reactions to them are so over the top in how offended they were at the very idea of someone not just letting them do whatever they want, its kind of hard to be on their side.

 

Same. I laughed at the sequence where all of the parents stormed the school to demand that he un-cancel prom, because all I could think was, "This is the moment Mr. Honey understands why his students are this way."

On a better show, you could tell an interesting story about the Principal who was sometimes wrong about some things, but also right about some things -- on Riverdale, he has to be all right or all wrong.

[rmontro]

8 hours ago, Snookums said:

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.

Jughead's a plagiarist!

I like this show, but I've had a few misgivings about this season.  I know this was all fantasy, but casting the leads all as would be murderers might be taking things a bit far.  But I agree the dark story Jughead wrote was a lot better than the retracted version.

I liked the exchange where Archie asked Jughead to the prom, and Kevin's comment about fan fiction.  

Nice to see them giving Reggie more to do on the show.  He was a much bigger part in the comics.

Mr. Honey acted like a jackass much of the time, but when you think about Riverdale being the murder capitol of the world, maybe they did need an ultra strict principal.  I'm not sure if he's supposed to be dead now or not.

[ruby24]

I thought it was kinda weird to do a half and half thing where some of it's imagined, but what I did like about this episode was that it had all the main kids together as an ensemble for once. When was the last time they did that (have they ever done that? Maybe the episode where they're all playing their own parents in flashback, but they rarely all get scenes together at once).

Reggie gets to be a full part of the gang like he's supposed to be. 

Am I the only person who thinks it's weird that Betty STILL calls FP "Mr. Jones" when they all live in the same house as a family? I mean, come on. Does Jughead call Alice "Ms. Smith?" Even when everything on this show is crazy over the top, that little detail strikes me as distractingly unrealistic in their situation (even more than Betty and Jughead apparently sharing a bedroom across from their parents).

Edited May 8, 2020 by ruby24

[Dobian]

11 hours ago, Auror said:

Regarding Mr. Honey... not buying the insinuation that he’s overall okay. We know Honey's twisted regardless... he might have a Hitler-like way of actually wanting to prepare students for the real world but it doesn't excuse his other actions.

Yeah the lecture the gang got from the principal's admin about how he was secretly the best principal ever was totally contrived and rang false.  A reveal like that has to be earned by showing this other side of Honey throughout the season.  Otherwise it's just cheap and manipulative.

I love the anachronisms on this show, like the 1970s style phone and 1950s CRT in Honey's office, but I still want to know how a video store can thrive in Riverdale, let alone one that only dealx in VHS lol.

I thought this was the best season so far of Riverdale up to the conclusion of the Stonewall Prep plot.  But oddly that story arc wrapped three episodes before the end, with the final three episodes featuring a throwaway musical, an awkward affair between Archie and Betty, a final confrontation with Honey, tickle porn, a new redneck gang nobody ever heard of before, and the introduction of a new threat for next season.  It just felt very disjointed and cobbled together.  So first sixteen episodes: A.  Last three episodes: C-.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Dobian

[rmontro]

14 hours ago, ruby24 said:

I thought it was kinda weird to do a half and half thing where some of it's imagined

A lot of us thought the "Betty murders Jughead" storyline was going to actually be a story that Jughead wrote, but that wasn't the case.  Then they turn around and do this Mr. Honey murder being a Jughead story, I thought that was interesting.

 

13 hours ago, Dobian said:

Yeah the lecture the gang got from the principal's admin about how he was secretly the best principal ever was totally contrived and rang false. 

If the intention was to show that Mr. Honey really was a good, caring principal, it was very sloppily put together, when you put it in context with the rest of the season.  Because it doesn't really hold up.  It's like they wrote the earlier episodes with no idea where they were going with this.  They even showed him in a creepy light patronizing that sex/snuff tape video store.  I'm still not convinced he's not the voyeur, but that would probably be too obvious.

[Diapason Untuned]

14 hours ago, Dobian said:

I love the anachronisms on this show, like the 1970s style phone and 1950s CRT in Honey's office, but I still want to know how a video store can thrive in Riverdale, let alone one that only dealx in VHS lol.

Because it sells snuff films in the back.

 

1 hour ago, rmontro said:

If the intention was to show that Mr. Honey really was a good, caring principal, it was very sloppily put together, when you put it in context with the rest of the season.  Because it doesn't really hold up.  It's like they wrote the earlier episodes with no idea where they were going with this.  They even showed him in a creepy light patronizing that sex/snuff tape video store.  I'm still not convinced he's not the voyeur, but that would probably be too obvious.

Exactly. Just last week, we see him patronizing a snuff film store, so this good guy thing doesn't exactly work.

I can buy that some of the stuff he did was within bounds, like what happened with Cheryl and the cheer coach, or Betty and the quiz team, but others not so much, like the way he trashed Reggie's car or what he did with Betty and the yearbook.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Diapason Untuned

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, Diapason Untuned said:

Exactly. Just last week, we see him patronizing a snuff film store, so this good guy thing doesn't exactly work.

I guess he could have been keeping himself informed on what kind of threats to his students there were in the town, but that seems like kind of a stretch  🙂

[Bill1978]

On 5/8/2020 at 6:54 AM, tennisgurl said:

Was that actually Mr. Honey that got killed? 

The summary on Wikipedia said it was, but having just watched the episode it looked like Mr Honey in the video was also a mask - like the others who were killed. So who knows. All I know is I am more engaged in this show when it involves a group of teenagers instead of revolving around The Boring Core 4. As someone said above, this episode felt more like a Season 1 episode, and I approve of that.

[rmontro]

16 hours ago, Bill1978 said:

The summary on Wikipedia said it was, but having just watched the episode it looked like Mr Honey in the video was also a mask - like the others who were killed. So who knows. 

I guess we don't really have enough information on whether Mr. Honey is actually dead or not yet.  The other videos had Jughead and Archie being killed, and they aren't dead.  

If Mr. Honey is really dead, it makes Jughead's application story appear to be in poor taste, doesn't it?

[HerkyJerky]

Jughead going to my alma mater?  Dreams really do come true!  GO HAWKS!!

[SourK]

On 5/9/2020 at 6:12 PM, rmontro said:

I guess we don't really have enough information on whether Mr. Honey is actually dead or not yet.  The other videos had Jughead and Archie being killed, and they aren't dead.  

If Mr. Honey is really dead, it makes Jughead's application story appear to be in poor taste, doesn't it?

It didn't even occur to me that that was supposed to be Mr. Honey. If it was, I guess it retroactively makes more sense why the show would suddenly tell us he was a great, great man -- that's what they like to do when a character dies.

Speaking of Jughead's story -- are we meant to infer that whoever's making the videos read Jughead's story? Like... maybe Dark Betty is the videographer? Or the Stonewall people put spy software on Jughead's computer? We know he changed it before he actually mailed it to the university, so...

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, SourK said:

Speaking of Jughead's story -- are we meant to infer that whoever's making the videos read Jughead's story?

That's the way I took it.  The masks of all the teens who killed "Mr. Honey" were of the same group of conspirators in Jughead's story.  

It doesn't really make sense for Mr. Honey to actually be dead, because that goes against the voyeur's modus operandi.  He hasn't killed the person that the mask represents in his videos yet.  But the way they tried to portray Mr. Honey as a good guy after all seemed odd, like they were setting him up for an exit or something.  Or maybe it was just a mechanism to walk back Jughead's bloodthirsty revenge story, so he doesn't look so psychopathic.

A bit like they walked back Archie and Betty's cheating last episode, before it went too far.  Speaking of which, there was no mention of that this week IIRC.

Maybe they didn't intend that to actually be Mr. Honey being killed, but since they had to shorten the season, maybe they'll just run with it.

[Carrots4]

On 5/7/2020 at 12:40 PM, Snookums said:

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. 

I was wondering if anyone else picked up on that. I wish the episode had not followed that book quite so closely, since it just felt like lazy writing. 

The bit about Mr. Honey being such a great principal bugged me too, but this forum was able to clarify why it was bothering me so much. The “goodness” really did just come out of nowhere. No build up at all. Some of Mr. Honey’s actions were reasonable, but there was always a whiff of vindictiveness about them that a good principal shouldn’t have.

I’m starting to suspect Jellybean as the voyeur. She has free time, and no one ever pays any attention to her.

[Affogato]

On 5/7/2020 at 12:40 PM, Snookums said:

 

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.

 

 

 

I'm not young, but I don't know much about 1970s YA fiction. Thank you, it is good to know.

The story is melodramatic, but I certainly remember judging teachers completely wrong at the time (without actually trying to kidnap or kill them) so this struck a chord of realism. 

Yah, if they were going to have him do the tape thing, or Reggie's car, we needed to learn why he did them from his point of view, I think. More development?