Morbidly Beautiful

Your Home for Horror

Posts

We continue our recap of the entire Riverdale series with episodes 8 and 9 of the first season, “The Outsiders” and “La Grande Illusion”.

Join us for our weekly recap of the entire Riverdale series, starting with the first episode of Season 1. This will be a bi-weekly column (every Tuesday and Thursday), with two episodes reviewed each time, until we get caught up with the latest season. Catch up on everything you might have missed using the links below, or just dive right into to episodes 8 and 9 of the first season of Riverdale.

Season 1
Episode 1: The River’s Edge
Episodes 2 and 3: Touch of Evil and Body Double
Episodes 4 and 5: The Last Picture Show and Heart of Darkness
Episodes 6 and 7: Faster Pussycats! Kill! Kill! and In a Lonely Place


Episode 8: “The Outsiders” Synopsis

The Lodges host a baby shower for Polly at Pembrooke, where the Blossoms and the Coopers feud and Polly has to choose which family she wants to stay with. After much debate, she chooses to stay with the Lodges. Alice and Betty mourn this after Alice kicks Hal out of the family for trying to force Polly to have an abortion.

The Blossoms steal Fred’s crew out from under him for construction work, leading him to see them as enemies. Archie and pals try to help —  only for Moose to be attacked and for some of the construction equipment to be destroyed. Theories bounce over whether it was the Serpents or the Blossom family — only for Hermione to discover that it was Hiram sending down thugs from Montreal. He knows about her and Fred’s relationship.

Observations

— I enjoyed the Lesley Gore cover during the Cooper family portrait. I kinda wish it had continued into the exploration into Polly and Jason’s romance, because that would have been leagues better than Jughead’s narration — exposition giving as it was.

— It’s good to see that Polly’s been doing well enough to talk to the police while staying at Pembrooke. It’s also nice to see that Jughead is settling in at the Andrews home.

— Veronica’s plan is good on paper, really bad on execution. So is Polly’s plan to get Penelope Blossom to like her by inviting her to the baby shower. I don’t see her staying at Thornhill ending well. The Blossom parents are not good people.

— I feel like Nana Rose might be right about the twins. As iffy as the whole ‘gypsy blood’ thing is, twins do run in the Blossom family tree, and it would make sense if Polly ended up having twins. I just hope she’s in a good place when she has the baby, whether there’s multiples or not.

— It’s good to see Betty standing up to her mother again — and Alice making a genuine effort to fix things with Polly. That includes kicking Hal out of the house when she discovers that he tried to make Polly have an abortion.

— Fred’s clearly doing his best, but the man needs more financial help than just Hermione as a bookkeeper.

— Good petty revenge for Hiram for trying to destroy the equipment, and better work on Hermione’s part for bringing in people from other towns to help fix things.

— Bursting into the baby shower was a big faux pas on Archie’s part. I can understand why the information about FP was important, but could he at least have taken Veronica and Betty aside instead of airing out the dirty laundry to a ton of people, including Betty’s mother? Another notch on the ‘Archie’s an idiot’ tally.

— Good for him on starting to date Valerie though. They’re a sweet couple!

— The whole thread with Joaquin and Kevin makes me genuinely really sad. I wish Kevin could find someone nice…someone who isn’t closeted or using him to get information.

— When are we going to actually physically see Hiram Lodge? It feels like they’re dangling him over our heads the same way they dangled Polly over our heads.

— Riverdale Parents Ranking: Fred, Hermione, Alice, The Blossoms, Hal. The Blossoms and Hal are neck and neck for worst parents.

Quotables

Top cursed lines from this episode:

War is hell.” “No, Archie, hell is other people.” – Archie and Jughead respectively.

“Betty, c’mon. An impossible situation is being invited to the Vanity Fair Oscar party and Elton John’s Oscar party on the same night. Which happened to me one year, I know.” – Veronica. (Also she says it like ‘Vanity Flair’, which I’m surprised no one caught.)


Episode 9: “La Grande Illusion” Synopsis

The Blossom clan and board of trustees all gather together to find out what’s going to happen to the maple syrup company now that Jason is dead. Archie’s invited by Cheryl to be her ‘escort’, only to be courted into the friendship of Cliff Blossom for more prestige and a chance to get into a very good music school. Valerie breaks up with him a while after she confronts him over what he’s doing with the Blossom clan, but not before Cheryl kisses Archie and tries to get him to be with her instead of with Valerie. Fred, meanwhile, learns the truth from Hermione as she plans on transferring the drive-in land to the Blossoms, and breaks off their relationship after working out a business deal.

Polly’s working undercover to find out what’s going on with the Blossoms, something Alice and Betty find out late in the episode after trying to get her to come back home. Alice tries to expose the Blossoms for who they are, but Hal blocks her from doing so by first keeping her out of the Riverdale Register computers and then firing her. She proceeds to throw a rock through the window of the newspaper.

Veronica, still wondering whether or not she should speak on behalf of her father, befriends Ethel Muggs and tries to help her after discovering that Ethel’s father was so badly affected by Hiram Lodge that he tried to kill himself.  Ethel assures her that it isn’t her fault and that she’s still her friend.

Observations

— What is with this show and maple syrup? I get that it’s how the Blossoms got rich, but it’s just maple syrup! Why are they drinking it like wine! Does it have a deeper meaning, or did the show just pull it directly out of their collective rear ends? Who knows anymore!

— Also, if she hates the Blossoms so much, why does Alice buy their maple syrup! Other brands of syrup exist! If it’s a licensing thing, just make up a name!

— The Blossom family’s trying to turn Polly against the Coopers, which I expected would happen. I really don’t want Polly to have that baby — or, as we discovered in this episode, babies — on Blossom soil. I called it on Nana Rose being right.

— The Cooper family is almost all in mystery directions this episode! Alice is trying to expose the Blossoms, so is Polly, and Betty’s trying to figure out why her sister won’t talk to her. The only non-mystery oriented one is Hal, and Hal’s my least favorite character. He’s like someone took a bunch of sitcom dads and stuck them in a blender, then made the contents sentient and evil.

— Cheryl flirting with Archie and kissing him freaks me out. I feel like it’s connected to Jason somehow since he looks so much like him. It brings me back to the incest-y vibes that happened at the very beginning of the series. She has gone down a tier as my favorite character today. She’ll make her way back though, I can feel it.

— Ethel came back! I love every time Ethel comes in, and seeing her and Veronica bond is a wonderful thing. Although, considering what happened between her father and Hiram Lodge I doubt whether this friendship will last. That makes me sad, because I want that trend of Veronica making friends in town to continue.

— It was also good to see Kevin showing up, I hope he finds out the truth about Joaquin soon.

— Fred’s the best parent this season. The ranking has remained firm with him as top Riverdale parent for this entire season, so good for him! The Blossoms have taken over Alice and Hal’s former place at the bottom of the syrup barrel. They clearly hate their daughter. At least with the Coopers they think they’re doing what’s best for their kids. The Blossoms just hate their child.

— Veronica’s going to speak on behalf of her father, I’m calling it now. She’s too attached to what she had in New York to abandon it for Riverdale completely. She’ll speak on behalf of her father and everyone will hate her for a while.

— Good on Hermione for finally telling Fred the truth, but I don’t blame him for ending their relationship. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who lied to me that much.

— Valerie and Archie’s romantic relationship lasted a grand total of three episodes. It’s a shame, I liked Valerie!

— Riverdale Parents Ranking: Fred, Hermione, Alice, Hal, the entire Blossom family except for Cheryl. Almost all of the Blossoms suck.

Quotables

Top cursed lines from this episode:

“Cool with you being a gigolo now?” – Jughead

Leave a Reply

Allowed tags:  you may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="">, <strong>, <em>, <h1>, <h2>, <h3>
Please note:  all comments go through moderation.
Overall Rating

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Hungry for more killer content? Sign up for our FREE weekly newsletter to ensure you never miss a thing.

You'll never receive more than one email per week, and you can unsubscribe anytime.