After everything, all the serial killers and cults and furtive bang seshes in the sex bunker, that this was the only way it could end. Though “end” is more like “an especially momentous juncture of the middle,” as the whole gang will be back next week, albeit with six years having passed in a flash. And by “this,” I of course mean Archie delivering an agonizingly sincere cover of Green Day’s graduation day staple “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” to no one in particular.
It’s time to move up and out, not just for the kids on the precipice of an adulthood that will demand far more maturity of them than mere college. Everyone has picked up on the sense of ceremony in the air, the reason season finales (or woulda-been finales) orient themselves around events with built-in gravitas, like weddings or births. The grown-ups can also see change coursing through the town, and even if they may not be completing another year at Riverdale High, they feel compelled to start something new and evolve along with them. Archie’s so desperate to feel like he’s not going to spend the next year in a holding pattern that he’s willing to resort to extreme measures placing him in harm’s way, right where he likes it.
He commands the most substantive emotional arc of the hour, as the inept student comes to grips with the news that summer school will not be sufficient to earn him a diploma, and that he will have to repeat senior year. It’s Archie’s worst nightmare, a lack of prospects for higher education turning into a complete elimination of any future for another twelve months. We can practically see a pit forming in his stomach, a sharp actorly flourish from the usually blunt-edged K.J. Apa, as Jughead suggests a reunion in one year’s time and Archie realizes he’ll have nothing to share with his ambitious, adventurous friends. The well-meaning galoot has always regarded military service as a serviceable plan B, and when the excavated time capsule from the class of ’45 includes a photo of four Army buddies, it doesn’t take long for their ghostly apparitions to get him moseying on up to the local recruiter’s table. Aside from the risk of mortality and the complicity in America’s campaign of imperialist destabilization abroad, it may not be the worst move for him. At this point, it’s the fastest way for this constant fuckup to find purpose and earn a little respect.
While his friends express due concern, Veronica’s the one who puts up the biggest fight, in part because she and her man haven’t quite gotten closure. The one-for-the-road hookup can only do so much to smooth things over between them, requiring an additional last-minute dash to the bus stop for a properly cinematic goodbye. While it ain’t the end of Casablanca, that’s the heartstring-yanking register the scene has been pitched at, and the Riverdale version of that devastating lip-lock succeeds just fine on its own terms. With the deed to Pop’s signed over to its rightful and grateful owner, Veronica goes off to spend some quality time “with my mom and Andy Cohen in the Hamptons” before starting freshman year in the fall.
While scheduled to do the same at Highsmith in the coming semester, Cheryl Blossom plots a change of course after discovering that her “hothouse flower” of a Mumsy plans on turning herself in for the laundry list of felonies she’s committed over the past few years. In a noble sacrifice—so noble that one wonders why she’d make it, aside from mechanics of the plot—Cheryl Blossom decides to put off college, torpedo her relationship with Toni Topaz, and stick around to restore the good reputation of the Blossom name. Dropping out to cultivate your empire casts her in a very Mark Zuckerberg light; she’s sure to wield a great deal of power once we rejoin her in the distant future.
With “Varchie” vanquished and “Choni” choked out, “Bughead” is the only relationship left to dissolve so that everyone may be freed up for their next phase in life. As long as she comes clean about her smooch with Archie a few weeks earlier, their breakup can be accomplished easily enough. She does, and it is. Just like that, the central pillar holding up this show has been leveled, if only so that it can be re-erected with a restarted courtship in the world of tomorrow. Jughead’s whole life has been blown up, with his dad and little sister leaving the show in a seemingly permanent capacity for the friendlier greens of Toledo. (Skeet Ulrich has been reported to have grown “creatively bored” by his work on the series.) While he’ll be busied during the coming days with classes, he’s got nothing to come back to except the group hang at Pop’s that time next year. That no one shows up lands as a genuinely bruising moment, the camaraderie between these kids a foundation for the show that it has now pulled out from beneath us.
This episode wisely leaves room for one last chill in the school’s common area, a reminder of how much time we’ve spent with these people in this space, and the rich bond we’ve formed with it. (Likewise, we get a farewell peek at the sex bunker while Jughead crashes there between homes.) They’re leaving their youth behind and we’re going with them, entering an uncertain new age undoubtedly distanced from the milieu of teens and academia that has thus far defined this show. No one knows what this show will look like as soon as next week, and for once, we viewers can share in the uncertainty that the grads feel instead of watching them improbably stick together, as in Gossip Girl. Betty’s commencement address articulates Gen Z’s despair about being forced to live in an era characterized by relentless life-claiming crisis, but her unease works more broadly than that as well. Everything’s going to be wiped away and redrawn from scratch, and for real this time. No retcons here. This could be the death of the show or the beginning of its revitalization. I have no idea, and I can’t wait to find out.
Stray observations:
- I am fascinated by Veronica’s exhortation to Archie of “You do know there’s a war going on, right?” Which war is she referring to? Because we’re in, like, a bunch of them. In the Archieverse, are American troops being deployed to an invented international conflict? My hope is yes, and that we will get flashback scenes of our boy’s undoubtedly traumatizing experiences on the front. Nothing quite like camp homoeroticism mixed with Army aesthetics!
- For a school with a much-discussed hoodlumism problem, you’d think Riverdale High wouldn’t pay tribute to the student body’s many organized gangs in the pages of their yearbook. But you would be wrong!
- Penelope emerging from some nearby shrubbery to accost her daughter sneaks in a delightful stroke visual comedy to an episode with a stonier face than usual.
- Naturally, Cheryl Blossom must walk at graduation in a blinding red gown while the rest of her classmates wear the school color of blue. I enjoy imagining all the parents unfamiliar with her HBIC status asking around about why one girl who wasn’t even the valedictorian wore a different color, and students trying in vain to explain how Cheryl Blossom works.
56 Comments
Well…it was emotionally manipulative, but it resonated with me. Looking forward to the time jump, which is much-needed.
Jughead was homeless when he was introduced and ends up full circle.
Wonder if it’ll suffer from the pretty little liars “how do we keep them here problem?” when, by being adults, they can just leave town anytime if they really wanted to.
Also super weird how Kevin and Fangs are together, and yet we know nothing about them or their relo… like at all.
Its the problem every show depicting teenagers has after season 3-4. Going back as far as Happy Days. The producers want to keep a show going but the genre has a limited natural shelf life.
Riverdale will have a harder job due to all the murder. Why would a sane person willingly stay in town with multiple consecutive serial killers… not to mention all the crime/drugs flowing through town.
“One thing about living in Santa Carla Riverdale I never could stomach; all the damn vampires serial killers.”
One word: Tontine.
Who says any of the leads in the show are sane? Granted there is a bit of a spectrum here. If I had to rate them from “Eccentric to Batshit Cray Cray” It would be:JugheadVeronicaArchieBettyCheryl
*insert Jughead “I’m weird. I’m a weirdo” speech*
A self aware statement which shows he is the sanest of the bunch. Notice how my scale didn’t start with “Sane” but “Eccentric”
It’s hard to know what the end of Season 4 would have looked like had it been allowed to proceed without the intervention of the coronavirus, but the returned episodes have all had the feeling of a somewhat rushed deck-clearing exercise as they prepare for the time jump — I suspect the original plan would have felt at least a bit more natural, all things considered. But it is what it is.And I won’t deny, the final bits with the big four going their separate ways got me. Onward into the future, which will more or less equalize the main actors with the characters they play (Apa and Reinhart will go from being older than their characters to younger).
Yeah, I think the covid hiatus hurt it a lot. Like I wouldn’t be super surprised if Jellybean’s role as the auteur was written in between seasons so they could write FP out in a more convincing way. Maybe I’m wrong because I don’t remember how many episodes got cut short and I’m too lazy to look, but that just didn’t seem like it’s where they were going.
Last season had 19 episodes so I think they only cut three episodes which is the same amount of high school episodes they had at the beginning of this season. My guess is what we got is pretty similar to the original plan.
I prefer the time jump over everyone going to Riverdale U
But if they did that they could all take psychology classes together until their professor tried to kill them with a government funded Frankensteins monster.
Could you imagine Cheryl and Betty vomiting up all of their family drama onto the psychology professor to show him/her just what major psychosis really looks like?
Somehow I am picturing the psych professor curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth, muttering repeatedly “tenure isn’t worth this”
Well now I want that.
Especially since, even with the time jump, a number of the actors will still be older than their characters.
Agreed. This was an unexpected and excellent twist. Get rid of all the adults, time jump so they don’t have to find a way to get everyone to go to Riverdale U (Betty loses her spot at Yale! Jughead can’t afford Iowa! Veronica needs to run her speakeasy! Archie… stays in town). It’s basically like they just launched their own spinoff show.
The funny thing is, even with the seven year jump, Cole Sprouse is STILL older than Jughead’s supposed age. By a good bit.
As much as I love Choni, Toni might have dodged a bullet with their breakup. Cheryl is a lot
error
“Which war is she referring to? Because we’re in, like, a bunch of them.” – Er…“There are now 2,500 U.S. service members in Iraq and 2,500 in Afghanistan. It is the lowest number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan since operations started there in 2001.”That’s not zero wars, but it’s hardly the Vietnam era, or even a few years ago. But Googling is, like, hard, I guess.
https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2473884/us-completes-troop-level-drawdown-in-afghanistan-iraq/
Eh–it’s Riverdale. No need to get into research mode for it.
We have always been at war with Eastasia.Alternate: Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future of Riverdale, there is only war.
Riverdale is the primary front in the Great Canamerican Maple Syrup War.
What is particularly on-brand for that big lug Archie is that he saw that pic of the Riverdale grads joining the army in 1945 and going off to fight and off on some grand adventure and figured if they could do it, he should. When in reality, WWII was basically over by then. Hitler was already dead. Japan would surrender in another two months. They probably weren’t even out of basic training by then. Archie probably could’ve just asked Nana Blossom what happened to them. They’re probably still living in Riverdale.
Yes, but there were still two nations to occupy, new bases overseas to man, the Soviet Union to keep an eye on, and lots of service members whose drafting/enlistment was up, and were due to come home if they so chose. There was honor in joining the military in ‘45, and there’s honor in it now. (And the Post-9/11 GI Bill is nothing to sneeze at.)
I don’t think there is any denying that this episode would work A LOT better as a season finale, like, time of year when the episode would air aside, a seven year time jump just doesn’t work as well when you’re going right into it next week. But, overall, despite the fact it had the sense of being another episode that needed to get a lot out of the way quickly to get to the time jump, I liked it and thought it was a nice wrap up for the first four seasons of Riverdale (I know we’re in season five, but obviously this was intended as the fourth season finale). Archie joining the army: ah, yes, the bottom 10% of our high school class is off to fight another battle (yes, that’s from Family Guy which stole it from the Onion. There are some other great ones in that episode but this one is the most appropriate because of how dumb Archie is)Veronica’s comments about America at war: Ronny, they’re America, they’re always at war with someone (yes, that’s from Veep)Archie’s choice to join the army over take another year of high school: hey, if someone told me my options were spend another year in high school or possibly get shot, I would absolutely choose the latter (this one is all me. Fuck high school).
This was the best episode in a long time. It actually felt like a season one episode, in terms of quality. I hope they can keep it up after the time jump. I doubt it, but I hope. Also, please, no more Hiram. I blame him for when the show started to deteriorate.
Because the Zoomers watching this show need to be educated:
I could watch Betty driving the jalopy with Juggy and Veronica waving at Arch on a loop all day.
I found the ending with Jughead both totally absurd (there’s literally no reason he can’t stay at Betty’s house, seems unlikely the four of them don’t at least have a group chat or something going) and actually very effecting!
He also could’ve gone to Toledo for a bit to visit his family. Toledo is near Iowa. But, whatever.
Five seasons in and I still can’t believe we don’t even have a real hint where Riverdale actually is. The opening shot showed a river but also a sprawling coastline. It has a good climate for maple syrup production, is fairly close to NYC, you can get to Toledo on a motorcycle, and Jughead sort of derides Iowa’s midwesterness, so… upstate NY? On a big lake with rocky cliffs and waves? But also swamps where you can stash cars with bodies in them?
Toledo is two and a half states away from Iowa, nearly a seven-hour drive according to Google maps. Close? I dunno, I guess that’s a bit subjective.
Not only that, but Mama Andrews let him stay there, THEN had the water and power turned off. That’s cold. (Not to mention that no one sells an empty house. There’s always things to use in it, because it makes it easier to sell.)
I wanted Pops to come up to him and say “Gosh Jughead, I’m sorry they didn’t show up. It’s just a shame that there’s no electronic technologies out there that would allow you to contact them from a distance, or remotely see updates on their lives. But that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?”
THANK GOD BUGHEAD IS DEADFor some inexplicable reason, the show immediately locked in its core relationships, despite the tradition of Archie inexplicably being caught between Betty and Veronica in the comics. Now that Varchie and Bughead are dead, maybe we’ll finally see some of the fabled love triangle (or is it a quadrangle with Reggie?). I’m pumped for the time jump and ready to see what the show has to offer.On another note, I’m not too macho to admit I teared up when Archie had that dream that his dad was at graduation. Godspeed Luke Perry.
Is it really that inexplicable? Nobody wants the lame girls-fighting-over-the-boy dynamic. And Cole is attractive.
They dont need to fight but its high school people just break up etc. The show started with the triangle but it fell apart instantly
Yeah, that was deliberate I think. The triangle was hackneyed, so they dismantled it immediately to go in a different direction.
well the girls couldnt be both best friends and cutthroat for Archie at the same time. Archie should have fallen for “Dark Betty” at one time or another!
I don’t think the writers ever intended bughead to be a long-term thing, it’s just that the ship absolutely BLEW UP in popularity with the teens so their hands were kinda tied.I remember some viewers asking the “wait isn’t Jughead supposed to be ace?” question at the time and Cole’s response was a winking “he’s still a teenager, he’s got a lot of time left to figure that stuff out”. Maybe that’s an avenue they can explore now but at this point it feels like we’ve deviated way too far for that.
I recall that (ace) at the beginning of the show but yeah hard to see that happening now I guess. And yeah the ship went through the roof (didnt help the actors dated for a long while) and it just hammered the creative options available to the writers.
I think the writers definition of asexuality is just someone who isn’t having sex right now. I wouldn’t expect them to know enough to get it right.
I think the only reason Betty and jughead lasted so long is because they were dating in real life and now that they’re broken up the writers are free
“A fork stuck in the road” is just the dumbest attempt at profound metaphor in existence.
Yes. Exactly what comes to mind, lol.
Veronica calling out Betty and confronting her kiss took a lot longer to happen than I thought it would. I was starting to think it wasn’t going to happen because Veronica had been chummy with Betty up until that scene.
‘’These are the rules. Everybody fights, nobody quits. If you don’t do your job I’ll kill you myself. Welcome to the Roughnecks. Archie’s Roughnecks!’’ Nothing quite like camp homoeroticism mixed with Army aesthetics!
I’m still annoyed that in all these seasons we didn’t once get Madchen Amick’s character saying, “Welcome to my nightmare.” There were so many places where they could have fit it in. Or even a “School’s out forever” would have worked in this episode.
I wonder where Toni’s grandfather is. I love Graham Greene but having him play Toni’s grandfather meant nothing for her character. Toni’s desire to be serpent queen seems pretty sudden though Betty being serpent queen just because she’s dating jughead is a joke. I don’t think the show needed the pretty poisons and if they’re going to be forgotten why were they introduced at all?
Considering that the show will skip the college years Cheryl not going makes absolutely no sense
Just popping in many weeks later to say that that sidecar Jellybean rides away in with FP is everything! Doesn’t FP have a truck that would be more practical for the road trip? I don’t care!