Riverdale: The Last Picture Show   Books Included 
February 17, 2017 10:59 PM - Season 1, Episode 4 - Subscribe

Jughead is bummed that the drive-in movie theater/his secret home is being demolished, while Hermione Lodge and the town gang are the ones working on said demolishment. But most of the episode is dedicated to "Who is this mysterious Miss Grundy who seduces teenage boys?"

Well, I've been waiting for Betty's Good Girl Snap to come on and it sorta did last week, but this week she even mentions snapping. Also, she broke into a teacher's car and stole a gun. So...I say yup, it's slowly happening.

So Miss Grundy likes teen boys, eh? Makes her a nice suspect for explaining why Jason might have wanted to fake his own death if he was supposed to run away with her or ... something.
posted by jenfullmoon (8 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
A few eps ago Archie seemed to think he would go to jail for sleeping with his teacher and the longer that goes unaddressed the more uncomfortable I feel :(

Betty was super great??? Like omigod. She has no chill and I love her. With how she stood up to her mm, I think she might avoid the Good Girl Snap. Like, Veronica is being really good for her.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 3:39 PM on February 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


So, was Jughead’s father really there in the final scene, or was he just imagining the conversation with him? (I could believe either option.)
posted by mbrubeck at 9:38 PM on February 24, 2017


Our perky detectives were great at figuring out more about Ms. Grundy, but I'm not sure they made great choices after that. They took a gun, which may have been a murder weapon, both Betty and her mom got their fingerprints all over it, and threw it just inside their front door. They decided the best solution was to tell Creepy Teacher to leave town, despite knowing that she's a murder suspect, she probably has something to do with why Jason initially disappeared at the very least, and she's great at changing her identity and becoming unfindable.

I really want to know why they haven't tracked down the other student who had independent music study yet.
posted by Margalo Epps at 8:23 PM on February 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Also, they seem to have forgotten how to Google someone in the span of like 20 minutes. Super weird.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:25 PM on February 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


I had zero exposure to these characters except being aware there is a comic book, and a stereotype of "blonde innocent" and "dark haired evil", so a lot of this is totally from scratch.

This episode is where I am *loving* the dynamic and how awesome Veronica is, and that yes, the friendship between her and Betty is fun and endearing and sort of believable, for TV Land.
posted by olya at 9:46 PM on March 25, 2017


One thing I really love is when the sheriff is like "do you have a date to the movies", and with previous episodes tension you think it's going to be the whole "why don't you like girls" thing but no, it's like "find a nice boy and settle down, stop these dangerous hookups!" And I was so happy just for a second.
posted by corb at 10:33 AM on June 7, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm enjoying this show...much more than I thought I might. I wasn't sure if I'd be too distracted by it being so different from the comics, but it turns out I don't care! I like the Veronica Mars ish vibe and I love Betty and Veronica's relationship. It's got a good feminist vibe that I like. I'm interested in the murder mystery and genuinely want to know what happened.

It doesn't hurt that it's filmed in places around where I grew up, so there's the "Hey! I know where that is!" element that's fun.

It's a bit tough seeing how much Luke Perry, Madchen Amick and Lochlyn Munro have aged...I keep thinking, it can't be THAT many years can it? Turns out it can. But Skeet Ulrich as Jughead's dad seems to have some kind of rapidly aging oil painting in the attic, because he really doesn't seem to have aged. Or maybe he just always looked older.

I'll be relieved if creepy Ms. Grundy doesn't make a reappearance. That storyline squicked me out but it's true, I can't believe they just ran her out of town without checking on her possible involvement in Jason's murder.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:19 AM on June 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Finally catching up with this show. This is the last I''ve seen of the Grundyplot so far, so let me say...

I hate that they had that plot at all (does every WB/CW teen drama need to do this plot as some kind of hazing ritual? it's cliché as hell by now even beyond how troublesome it is) but actually really like how they've handled it.

Like, we've seen it from Archie's perspective, where it's some stolen-time romantic tragedy of lost souls, and from Jughead and Betty's, which is much more clearheaded and aware of both the power dynamic at play and the implications and inevitable consequences. Alice Cooper is the literal worst so it makes sense that her angle on this is simply destroying Ms. Grundy as a means towards destroying Archie, and from there we get Fred's complicated but beautiful reaction: willing to do what he needs to to protect his son from Alice and Grundy, and at the end comforting him and telling him the truth, gently, that this wasn't his fault (with the heavily implied to the audience if soft-pedaled to Archie "you were a victim here.")

And then there's Grundy herself, who I think is written brilliantly. Maybe better than any other character in the show so far. She's a high-functioning addict torn between her fix (teenage boys) and her own self-preservation. Part of her infatuation with teenage boys is clearly that she can manipulate them, but that comes not from malice but a place of comfort in a near constant state of fear of others. I neither believe nor disbelieve the final version of her story that Archie chooses to accept. I'm sure it's partially true and partially self-serving bullshit. In the confrontation scene she's sobbing like someone at the end of a line they always knew they'd reach and nobody is paying attention to her or cares, and when she tries at a desperate lifeline of skipping town, they accept, because nobody cares, except Alice who only cares for spite, and spite not even directed at her.

And then she stops to check out some boys before leaving, because she's in no way healed.

And every bit of that, plus her actually being a talented musician who never made much of herself, is written into her and characterized by her actor from her first scene.

That's well-done, in my opinion.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:21 PM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]


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