Riverdale: Episode Thirty-Nine: The Midnight Club
November 8, 2018 7:21 AM - Season 3, Episode 4 - Subscribe

It's flashback time as Betty gets Alice to talk about the time where she met everyone else's parents in detention and started playing Gryphons and Gargoyles.

AV Club: Riverdale’s blast to the past reminds us only real ‘90s kids worship the Gargoyle King

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I think this might have been the best episode of this show ever. Go figure.

We find out that Penelope was adopted to be Clifford's sister-turned-wife (wtf?), Hermione's mom works at "the Five Seasons" (FIVE?!) and disapproves of her crush on Hiram Lodge, Fred also used to juggle music and sports, FP was an abused jock, Alice was pregnant by FP at the time with Betty's brother and yet never gets fatter or stops showing her midriff after several months in plot time, Sierra was secretly dating Tom Keller but racism happened. Oh, and they turned the game into LARPing with theater costumes in the school at night and Hiram and uh, other people's parents joined them.

Oh, and Principal Featherhead is dumb enough to leave kids in detention alone and then drink from some poisoned chalice, and Alice (also the only sober one because she passed on the 90's equivalent of jingle jangle) spots both the Gargoyle King and Principal Featherhead one night while they're being initiated by...someone. Everyone agrees to cover it up and disperse forever, making sad life changes like giving up music (Fred), giving up sanity for safety (Penelope), giving up a life without the mob (Hermione), giving up Tom (Sierra), giving up on gang life (Alice) and JOINING gang life (FP).

Alice doesn't want Betty to play the game (indeed, Mayor Lodge has banned it, so good luck with that) but OF COURSE the next time Betty sees Jug, he's obsessed with it.
posted by jenfullmoon (4 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
foreveryoungadult.com review.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:12 PM on November 8, 2018


I was ready to give up on this show, but this episode was a winner for me. Very fun.
posted by willnot at 5:23 PM on November 8, 2018 [1 favorite]


I thought Young Fred, Young Alice, and Young Penelope were the best acted.

This was incredibly silly but fun.
posted by daybeforetheday at 2:24 AM on November 10, 2018


I think the weirdest thing for me was that the old timey flashback was like...my high school years. Riverdale does such a good job with the 50s vibe I was expecting to see 20s or 30s aesthetic, but instead it’s like me and my friends! And homage to the Breakfast Club! It also made me very conscious that I am the mom of a teen which was a weird head trip.
posted by corb at 9:46 AM on December 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


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