Page 7 - Riverdale Roundup Ch. 105: This Is Like the 5th Time She's Been Mind Controlled

Episode Date: April 24, 2022

MJ and Jackie decide that Jackie should become the folk hero of LPN, and some more mind control stuff happens. Support us on our Patreon page and get weekly bonus Patreon-exclusive content! Patreon.com/Page7Podcast Intro song by Green Dreams Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit. Have you been dying to see us live? Then get psyched about the last podcast network, Country Jamboree, at the Rhyman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee on June 18th. Jackie, we're not at the Country Bear Jamboree, but I am grinning like a possum, eating a sweet tater. Because we'll have all your favorite LPN family out and performing live, including last podcasts on the left, page seven,

Wizard and the Bruiser, No Dogs in Space, Brider Side, fraudsters, someplace underneath, the story must be told, and more. Tickets available now. Again, that's the Rhyman Auditorium on June 18th in Nashville, Tennessee. The last podcast network, Country Jamboree! Oh, this season of Riverdale is swinging for the fences. I might dare say swinging for the fences more than it ever has before. It's trying to do a lot. You know, we're all trying to do a lot right now. And Riverdale, I think, is just following suit.

Like, oh, are we just kind of living in the end times and descending into like a just a subtle madness? Yes. Riverdale has always been leading the way on that. And I feel like it just the chaotic energy of this season. Last week I hated it. This week I was like, I'm loving it. And I was sober as a church mouse when I watched this one because I fell asleep within minutes of trying to watch it last night. And I still enjoyed it.

It was good. I dare say it was a good week on Riverdale. Yes. Do you think that being sober is the key to enjoy it? You know, no, not to enjoying it. No, absolutely not. In fact, I would say being sober is an obstacle to enjoying it, which is why you know. that this week's episode was good.

It was good. But I will say that being sober is certainly helpful to being able to talk about it. Yes. You know, because when you're not sober, you can kind of just like revel in the feeling that Riverdale gives you. You know, whether it's hotness, sexiness, ghostiness, superpoweriness. And it's a feeling. But if you want to be able to talk about the literary themes and, you know, the various plot points, I think sobriety does help. But it also hurts.

The river in Egypt. I tell you what. Can I just say that I did forget completely about the serpent dance, which we will get to. But don't put Tabitha next to Tony. Tony's the hottest woman of all time. You can't. Like, no. and I feel I felt bad for the actress of Tabitha dancing the sexy serpent dance next to Tony when that would be honestly, and I'm saying this is someone that like, that would be like putting me next to Megan the Stallion.

I'm just like, well, I can see where she like Tabith is a beautiful, beautiful woman. But when you put her next to sexy dancing next to Tony at the white worm doing the serpent dance with just, oh my God, that course. outfit on my god i slipped off of the couch there was no sex in this one but watching tony doing the serpent dance i just want to say thank you riverdale yes because that did get my horns a juice in i tell you what thank god for tony and yes i often think tabitha why are you here and i did think that during the serpent dance she's just like i just can't quite tell as we've discussed often play the We have been wondering, what is Tabith's deal for quite some time? And this episode was no different.

But yes, thank God for Tony and her hotness. And while we're talking about slipping and sliding, I just have a question for you, which is, did you have any sort of stirrings in your loins for Percival when he was shirtless and fighting? Not a second. No, me neither. I just wanted to check. I just wanted to check because I did think, okay, I had about 10 seconds. have it for him at all. Like, I can't even conjure up my orny for Percival Pickens. At least when he was shirtless and sweaty and fighting Archie, I was like, I guess perhaps

this actor is a handsome person. He is a handsome person. Which I had not been able to see before. Yes. And so I was like, this actor might be a handsome person. But I hate him so. But the utter lack of charisma slash interesting things going on with Percival has rendered it still Desert City over here. Completely, yes. For both of us, absolute desert city, I can't. Because that's what, honestly, I'm looking at a picture of him right now. He's got like a great turtleneck on.

He's got a plaid little coat on. For all intents and purposes, he is a very hot person. And I can't. Yeah. So, okay, we're talking about Percival Pickens. Yes. The Percival Pickens, who can have mind control over the entire town. but he's he's starting to learn

he's starting to find those holes in the Riverdale weave and the holes lie within the superheroes of the town the superheroes that he didn't know were superheroes until this episode because he tried to use his mind control on them and he tried to get Archie

which actually was a very upsetting scene up top like Juggett and Archie are like we got to get rid of Percival this has been the same thing for the last like four episodes fine. It's like, okay, now we know his mind control. And he tries to mind control Archie to take a box cutter and slit his wrists. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good. It was very upsetting. Yeah, he comes in and he, we, we, we, we get to have a little glimpse of what it's like to be mind

controlled by Percival. It's a lot of echoing. A lot of echoing. It's mostly echoing. They just, that's all they did was put an echo on everything personal says, which, You know what? To be fair, it does distinguish it. Yeah. We are now in the mind control realm. And so Archie picks up the box cutter and is fully under his control and is going to cut himself with it. But then two things happen. One is that Archie is indestructible. So the box cutter breaks off on his rock hard arm.

And two is that there was conveniently always in this show, the portraits of your fathers in every room. There is a portrait of Fred Andrews conveniently hanging in the boxing gym and that grounds Archie, as we have learned from Jughead. It's an emotional tether. To resisting mind control. I love the way that Jughead is the vehicle for like presenting like the logic that Riverdale creates. Like, oh yeah, this is the thing that helps you escape mind control. And it's always presented as like Jughead's like, I went to the library and found this in a book. all like, well, that must be it. Wow. And so the emotional tether... Don't even get started on the

fucking spontaneous human combustion. We're not even there yet. We're not even there yet. I also loved that. I actually loved... I loved it. I loved Darius. I loved it. I loved it. And I even loved the... Yes, I did love this episode. Yeah, you know, there's a lot like the, the framing, this episode goes in and the framing is Jughead decides that the town needs a folk hero. And honestly, one of the things I love about... Because that they need someone to believe in so that they can take down Percival Pickens. Yes. And one of the things I love about Riverdale is when they decide to just like take like a single lesson plan from a junior like year English class and be like, let's just explore this. And I feel like they do this every so often. They'll be like, let's just,

uh, folk hero. And then they just like teach about the literary concept of a folk hero. And Junkhead and kind of acts as like the, you know, he uses that as the, you know, he uses that as the, foil to set up everything in the episode. And I like it. I was thinking last night, I was like, if I had a high schooler and I was like, you know, I feel like Riverdale should be like a reading rainbow edutainment thing where it's like every episode they just choose a different, you know, kind of literary archetype and use that. While also having like serial killer genes and murder vision and spontaneous combustion because it's so much. It's kind of fun. It was this, this was Riverdale doing doing things that it's best.

at, which is just making shit up, like, spontaneous human combustion. But with, like, doses of reality. Yes, enough reality to make it feel like you're not completely fucking lost at sea, which is where we felt last. Yes. And so sometimes they got to set them up so they can knock them down. So all of this really gets started because, for some reason, which I don't know zoning laws, Riverdale is zoned.

The town, not a town anymore, if you remember. the town is only zoned for one billboard. That is the Riverdale billboard that we see, the entrance to Riverdale that we see at the beginning of most episodes. And it always says, Home of Pops chocolate shop on it. But Percival, with his mind control, now that he's on the town council,

decided to change the sign. And instead, it says... Something else. Yeah, what does it say? But he wants it to say, home of Babylonium, the casino. Right. And he wants to have a casino billboard and not a pop's chocolate shop billboard. And you know who that pisses off?

Tabitha, who is also on the council for some reason. Yes, Tabitha, which is a big who? Oh, yeah, her situation. Yeah, she owns a chocolate shop now. And all poor Pop Tate, who didn't he retire years ago? Why is he still working? I was surprised to see him. I thought that he was blissfully checked out of the violence that is maintaining Pop's chocolate shop.

But this does bring me to another thing I liked about this episode and something that we did call for last week. So thank you Riverdale Writers for hearing us between last week and this week. Always listening to us. More evilness from Veronica. So yeah, if you're going to have a fucking villain that you want us to care about, which I won't, I refuse to care about Percival Piggins. but if you're going to try, have them link up. Not since Edgar Ever Never. Edgar Ever Never was my last big bet,

and anything Penelope Blossom does. Oh, yes. I think they do them. They're my favorite. Penelope is, you know, can do no wrong. Edgar Ever Never was a great villain, despite the comprehensive plot line around that season as well. But, you know, tie in your new villains to our old villains.

And Veronica is our truest and dearest old, you know, villain, not villain. So finally, they're giving Veronica something to do, which is completely betray her friends and collaborate immediately with no resistance to this fucking outsider personal. You got to remember it was mind control. There's also double-speak mind-control happening, but honestly, not even that much.

Was she difficult to get? I think that he tried to mind-control her and then she naneated it. And then she was like, yeah, I'll work with you anyway. Yes, and then continue to work from anyway. but I think that she sees the power of his control, and she knows where her bread is buttered. And so I think of anything, it's more of a business move.

Because he does, like, so it wasn't mind control. This is actually the weird part. It wasn't mind control when Percival Pickens goes to Victoria, Jackie, goes to Veronica and says, like, hey, how about I live in one of the champagne sweets? Right. Uh-huh. And so now he lives at the Babixtor. And now he also is just at the casino all the time, even though last episode he was trying

to get the casino. Yeah, I thought he cared about moral decay. But I guess if you can't beat him, join him. No, you can't beat him, join him. Now I think we're really starting to see it's not about moral decay. I think that Percival, but then what is he trying to do? Right. Is he trying to just use the spirit of the town?

we talked about this. I don't think it's to destroy it. But is it because he's then turning the three, literally the three establishments that exist in Riverdale against each other in this episode. So is he trying to just level it? Oh, like, and trying to like find the holes again in the leave of Riverdale?

Right. The question isn't what as much as why. Because we do know he's trying to destroy the town. He's trying to turn it against itself. Yes. You're right. There's three establishments. which is, you know, pops, the white worm and Babylonian.

Two of the three establishments are in the same building. We're talking so seriously. I know. We have like a fucking whiteboard up, like, mapping out this shit. But why? Why does he, there is still, again, as we talked about last week, you cannot bring us on this journey without giving us some glimpse of your guiding motivation. Why is Percival doing this?

We're not going to find out. until it happens, MJ. We're not going to find out until it happens. But hopefully he can be taken down by fire, but we're not even there yet. Can't wait until we can talk about the pyro techniques. Or pyro, whatever, pyrochinesis. Because all of this is happening.

And so they're like, okay, he tried to hurt Archie, but now he knows that Archie's really strong. And Jughead's like, well, he's going to be a folk hero of the town. Instead, now that we're teaching about folk heroes, we're going to make Archie a folk hero. how are we going to make him a folk hero so that we can get everyone behind Archie naturally not using mind control. So that's kind of nice, you know, in the more healthy kind of way.

Not just dosed with the control. You're just recommending the control instead by using a folk hero. So Archie is going to become the world's strongest man. I wonder if they have some sort of in with the Guinness Book of World Records with the amount that they talked about the Guinness Book of World Records in this episode. So they invited the Gettys Book of World Records to come.

And they're like, we're going to do all these things. We're going to do, we're going to, we're going to smash them in the abs with a hammer. We're going to do all these things to show how strong Archie is. No one questions it. No one says maybe he's a superhero. How is this?

I keep wanting to say teenager, not teenager anymore, but they look absolutely no different. But now he's the world's strongest man because he's a superhero, but nobody knows it. Right. And yeah, the idea is to like change the town's sentiment about Archie, which again has been building up for, you know, at least seven years, if not. But more like more like, what, 11 years that the town has known Archie, known him to be, you know, involved with all his fucking shenanigans, punching people in alleys, you know, sometimes. Taking care of business, MJ. sometimes he's being mauled by a bear. Sometimes he's the head of the fire department.

So like the town knows Archie. They have a relationship with him. Sometimes he's being a little bitch and sometimes he's being a hero. And now Jughead's like, we've got in about like three days, we need to change the town's attitude about you, which seems to be like has landed on negative, even though right now Archie's basically just trying to be a good person. And so I like that idea, too, that you can make somebody. a folk hero in a town. You can just have a town, whoever has a history with a person,

to just completely change their minds and develop a feeling about that person just within, you know, days, which I guess is Riverdale. Can I be a folk hero, MJ? Can I be the folk hero of LPN? Yeah, dude, let's work out by tomorrow. Riverdale is nothing if not into, it's very much like the Simpsons, the way that the Simpsons understood the power of an angry mob, you know, and harness the Simpsons could always conjure an immediate angry mob in Springfield. Riverdale is very much like that in the sense that like it is very much like mob justice in Riverdale. And it's just if you can get the mob on your side, you are safe in Riverdale. And I do feel like that was what was at play.

And I feel like I appreciate that about Riverdale. It's a mob justice town. No, it is a mob justice town. And so he gets all these things. And he knows that Percival Pickens is going after the main four now. Because remember, he already went out. after Jughead and then Juggett tried to get back into his head. He's like, no, no, no, no, you can't get into my head.

So that's how he knew that he is mind control. He goes after Archie, tries to get him to cut himself with a box cutter, but he can't. And then we're going to find out that he already had mind controlled over Betty and she didn't know about the emotional tether. So she couldn't distract herself from the mind control. How do we know that he talked to Betty? because see this is where my brain gets murky mj they from katie keene the still dead television show they bring back kio kelly which remember there was that one episode where

k o' kelly came in and he is a boxer right you're like we're going to fight keel keel keel and we're going to make him lose the fight to show that he's still humble and still a you know i don't know I guess it goes with the folk hero to be able to watch their failures as well as their triumphs. I guess. So they get rid of K.O. Kelly because Percival is evil. What did they do to K.O. Kelly? Didn't they just, like, hit him? In this episode?

Yeah. Percival got rid of him, right? Percival sent him off on a... Did something to him. He got rid of him. He mind controlled him. Yeah. And then personal himself... He made him walk out into traffic.

Very calmly. That's right. He walked out into traffic without even thinking about it. Mind control. And so he is in the hospital. So Prisville Pickens, like, I'll fight Archie instead. So we got the big bad versus the folk hero. But I admit, like, I guess it's why like I never saw Percival Pickens as a sexual person. And you're right.

Even him with his shirt off, I still was like, eh. But that's because it was like, how is he possibly going to beat him? He's a superhero. Right. But he does. And the second he hits him, Jeff goes, it's palladium. It's palladium. And I'm like, okay, I know.

He's got to be a palladium. But how does you know about the palladium? But he's talking the entire time about how he's like, but it's got to, be the Palladium. It was, of course, the Palladium. See, it will be good to watch with Jeff, because I can never, strategy has never been my strong suit. This way I don't like strategy games, but similarly with shows, I'm never like, I'm never able to be one step ahead, much less like three steps ahead of the plot. I'm just like, why is it,

aren't you winning? And then at the end, I'm like, oh, yeah, they had a weakness. The Palladium, because he mind-controlled Alice to get into Betty's room in the middle of the I woke her up and was like, hey, why don't you tell me all of the weaknesses of your superhero friends? And she did. And because she didn't have her murder vision currently because she was mind controlled. But she doesn't know she did. She didn't know about the emotional tether. And so she doesn't know because part of the mind control was like, tell me all these things and then you'll forget about it. And so Archie losing the fight. And afterwards, Jughead and Archie and Betty are like, we're fucked. This was our only plan.

How did this happen? And Betty's like, I don't know. But meanwhile, it was all her fault, but she doesn't even know because she gave up the location of the palladium. And honestly, they should have anticipated this. How did they not think we should make sure that we don't even know where the palladium is or have some

sort of protection measure in place? Stay in the bunker. He doesn't even, he probably doesn't know about the bunker. So go in the bunker and stay away from him. Why would you still be living in the house, Betty? you are 28 at this point? I was thinking about that.

Why is she living with her mother? It's still in her little girl's room. But if your mother is currently being mind controlled by someone, would you stay in the house? You know that your mother is subject to mind control. This is like the fifth time she's been mind controlled in the course of your life. Like, you know Alice is not a trustworthy person.

Don't be in the house with her when there is a mind controlling sneak taking over the town. Yes. And so what ends up happening, which we didn't even bring up because we talked about the billboard, but I forgot to talk about the, the just like racist murderer general Pickens statue that Percival Pickens was trying to get up in the park. So that's where all of this started from. Yes, I forgot about that. This is kind of fun. It's like a Confederate. It's like a rip from the headlines Confederate statue. But instead of being a Confederate, he's like a murdered indigenous people. And once again, I love, I love Woke Riverdale. I love. I do. I love it. And so. of course, they're all mind-controlled, so like, yes, we should have General Pickens up. We'll have the statue, but what a jug had to do, he went to his artist friend in New York and had a statue of Archie made instead, like the Rocky statue, that he was going to put in the park in it instead. But since Archie is a man of his word, he lost the boxing match, and then he himself, which I don't think he knows how to do it, put up the General Pickens statue in the

park. So now this is I feel, oh man, I wonder if we're going to have like indigenous ghosts come back. Wouldn't that be really great to come back and get revenge? There's lots of revenge it's going to be happening because meanwhile, while all this is happening,

the serpent dance that I brought up before, he's trying to with, he's trying to get into cahoots with Veronica, which like we said, Percival did very easily without using mind control. Yeah, But we know that because Veronica's a betraying little snake.

Yeah, and so she went and she goes and he gets her to like break up with Reggie essentially, who's just playing cards with the mafia and making his own casino inside of his dad's used car lot. Reggie's spiraling. It's predictable. He's spiraling. He needs help. Yes. He needs help. They both need help. He all need help. His dad's having a hard time. He's having a hard time. Reggie's never really worked on himself. Yes. And so now she's in cahoots with Percival. But Percival, But Percival, now that he's in cahoots, it was like, hey, mind control, mind control. Why don't you firebom pops and the white worm?

And even Veronica, even though she doesn't have an emotional tether, even she, which I dare say, I am surprised that Veronica has the emotional and the mental capacity to not yield to mind control. I'm going to throw that out there. Yes. But she doesn't. does. Is it because there's the picture of her father in the room? It's only, I mean,

again, always keep a portrait of your father in the room. All right, I'll get more pictures. I don't have any pictures of my parents in the house. Do I need to have pictures of my parents everywhere in the house just in case I need an emotional tether, just in case someone comes in and tries to mind control me? I think having pictures of your parents in every room would be a different type of emotional tether. That's very scary. At least every room, like also in the bathroom. just in case they get into the bathroom. You never know. You never know when it's going to happen.

I mean, that part honestly felt like true Veronica, just like true Cheryl, which is like, I will betray you, but I won't betray you like 100%. Yeah. And I also won't like, because that's what she's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, no. Yeah. She's like, I thought I was just going to like destroy my friends for my own economic gain, but I won't bomb them. I don't want to like physically kill my friends.

I will strip all of things. their money for money, like you said, economic gains. But so she just says no. And then she's like, wait, wait, personal pickens is trying to turn the three, like, boss bitches in the town at each other because they find out, though, which is so funny, they go undercover, which is not undercover at all. Tabitha and Tony just show up at Babylonium. And they're like, why are they taking all of our people?

because they're serving, which, how sick would everybody be? At the casino, they're serving free drinks, free diner food, and free boozy milkshakes, which is like hops, but even better, and also because it's free. And I was like, how are they made? I know that the gambling makes a lot of money. Don't get me wrong. I understand that.

And I know how evil casinos are. That's like a lot of money. Like usually you pick one of those things, right? Right. But that was like, that was the, I love the feminist politics of Riverdale where like at first, Veronica turns, you know, harnessed with her power with Percival Picking. And she turns against the white worm and pops. And so Tabitha and Tony are like, well, we'll fight fire with fire and we're going to have like, you know, like sexy dancing. and we're going to become a casino too. And then like two minutes later,

they're like, you know what? Let's collaborate. And we come together instead. We'll put a pops booth on the casino floor. In that time period is when we do watch the very, oh, Tabitha and Tony decided to do a serpent dance. And it was devastating for Tabitha. And she's such an attractive woman.

Like she really is. But again, and I know that I'm attractive. But again, next to Megan the Stallion, it's just different. And also she just doesn't seem to be like, I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here. She doesn't really seem to be a dancer or somebody with a particular like physical.

Like Tony just seems suited to do those scenes. And the tough thing about, you know I love a Riverdale musical scene. I love it. I always will. But there's, it takes a, not every actor can do a random musical theater number in the middle of a regular 45,

five minute episode of dramatic television, much less when it's supposed to be this, like, sexy, burlesque thing. It's a lot of work. And it's also very vulnerable to have to do a dance like that. Like, most actors, when they have to do these dances on Riverdale, most of them look extremely out of place. And I think that was what was happening with Tabitha. But Tony, however, very well suited. And didn't she just have a baby recently? She looks fucking fantastic. She looks really fucking good. I very directed Tony.

Can you tell? Tony is the hottest person on the show hands down. It's up there with Cheryl, though. Cheryl is very up there. And Cheryl had a great day. Especially now that Skeets not here anymore. Hiram Lodge isn't here anymore. I mean, it's like we got to take what we can get.

Yes, right. And not that I'm saying that as if Tony's lesser than. But, you know, my eyes were. more at the parents for a long time. Definitely. I think Tony, I think Tony is the most beautiful person in the cast. And I think that she wasn't the one I was most wanted to F. That was Skeed-Dle Rick. But she just remains the most beautiful.

I never wanted to F. Hiram, but I, but I liked to look at him. But now it's just like, there's really not that many people left, except Tony. I'd watch Tony and Fang's tape if it was consensual. If I could watch it. And then Fangs. comes in and like slut shames Tony for dancing. Very weird. For being a parent. Because you're a parent. We're in a custody battle, which like, I guess. But like,

well, and he just went away for. Yeah. You're really trying to morally shame Tony for like having a sexy dance when you just had fucking bags and bags of guns in the house with a crawling baby. Oh, that's right. Yeah, it was the guns. Yeah. So it's like, don't you don't come in here. Oh, this looks bad. Oh, why do we have a CPS investigation? anyway, things. Is it because of your bags of guns? Guns that you didn't tell me about that were in the house in the baby's room? Seriously.

But, yeah, so they're doing Sirpananzy. But now the three badass bitches are getting together. Women help each other. Yes, they do. And it was very weird. Was it? I wrote this down of a when Percival said, I'm afraid to say, gentlemen, Tabitha Tate's not long for this new world we're creating.

very weird. Yeah, that was such like a weird, and that was like at the end, right? That was supposed to be like the bomb that we dropped on, but the Tate's not long for the world. And again, I was like, I don't really care about that. I don't get it.

Take her or leave her, I don't really care. Yeah, because he said with that hideous diner of hers, it's just a diner. I'm very, I can't wait to see where this Percival thing is going because he's doing all this shit. He's in, in the meantime, not the song.

While all this is going on, Cheryl is having problems. So you know that Abigail Blossom is trapped in the doll inside of her house, and she's having like a lot of fever problems, and she doesn't know what to do. She's like burning up. So pillow-lipped Darius comes in, which she does refer to him.

It goes, my pillow-lipped helper, or whatever she said about his lips. I was like, wow, I would be like, excuse me, ma'am, please don't be mentioning my pillow lips right now. I'm coming in as a nursemaid to help you. Because your Nana won't take care of you because she's like, that line, oh my God, I love Dana Rose so much. I love you. I was like, thank you for taking care of me. And Dan Rose is like, I'm not going to take care of you.

I'm guarding the haunted doll, but I will hire someone to take care of me. I'll hire somebody. Great, great care work right there. stood up and clapped for Nana Rose at that point. And I was like, yeah. I was like, Nana Rose is the OG, man. Nana Rose. And Nana Rose sets boundaries and keeps those boundaries.

Yes, you can say that about Nana Rose. She's either emotionally withholding or she just sets boundaries and keeps them. And also, for some reason, now I feel like this is going to come back. Britta, so to start off what's going on with Cheryl, why is Cheryl all alone? because Britta goes to her parents who kicked her out for being gay and says, well, Cheryl's going to adopt me because you guys kicked me out. And then they decide, you know what? No, we accept you.

You can stay here. So Britta's moving out of Thornhill. Nefarious. I'm slapping a nefarious sign on this. I don't like it. And I feel, Britta knows a lot. Yes. Why is Britta not living there anymore?

I think that we're going to watch that. But for now, we're going to take it. We're going to circle it. We're going to put it over to the side. Yeah. I just did that physically. Only MJ can see it. I just moved it and I moved it over to the side. We circled it. We put a pen in it. Yes. I mean, she obviously has a lot of reasons not to want to live with Cheryl.

Of course. There's a lot going on. A lot of different like murder attempts on her. And also she stopped teaching her witch school, which she was teaching. Remember where all those? Now there's probably a rove of like a horde of orphan young women that were trying to be witches. I'm going to assume living in the woods now. Yeah, a lot of abandoned girls who were living at Thornhill who are gone. They've just been reduced to kind of one character, which is, what's her name, Britain?

I already forgot her name, Britton. Well, they circled her and I put her off to the side so I understand. I get it. No, I did that. But what happens with Cheryl's fevers? Oh, is she having fevers or is she channeling the great art of pyrocanesis, which, Betty finds out because of what is presumably the Mulderan scullie unit of the FBI where she's like, no, no, no, Cheryl, it's okay.

There's a unit in the FBI whose job is to investigate these types of things. Betty, FBI. Now, why is there an FBI? Because the thing is that originally Darius, Pillar Lipp Darius, is brought in to be the night nurse. And Cheryl keeps burning up. She keeps burning up. And then she wakes up the next day and she feels better. but Darius is a pile of ash.

Yes. Remember these spontaneous human combustion S-H-C, which they do immediately shorten it to, the spontaneous human combustion, because all that's left of Darius is a pile of ash and his feet. And that's it. And Dr. Cirtle Jr., always their first go-to,

even though we've never really- Absolutely love him. He's not. whether or not he's a good mortician, but he's just like, yeah, he's usually wrong, but he's like, oh, it must have been spontaneous human combustion. But then Scully, not Scully,

from the paranormal division at the FBI. Do you think there's going to be more stuff with the X-Files because they have to, right? If we've got FBI, you're bringing in, you're sprinkling in X-Files to have to go to, what is the Agent Drake?

That Agent Drake is going to now come in and knows all it. Because, you got to remember, there's a lot of weird shit going on in Riverdale. This is not going to be the last. time we're going to need this kind of information. So do you think then? So Cheryl is burning up to like, what is it?

Like 300 degrees. 303 degrees. Yeah. 303 degrees. And she's, and so Betty is like, I think that it's this. So she puts a pile of logs and it's like, put your fire into the locks. Look at the locks. Put your fire into the locks.

And she's like, I can't, I can't. And Nana Rose just sitting there with the digital thermometer. like it's getting high. Oh, it was, 200. Now it's 300. Now it's 300. So then Betty's like, who do you hate the most? And so she takes a picture of Penelope, her mother, puts it on the logs and was like,

focus your hatred, which like, I don't have pyrokinetic tendencies. So I don't know how you would slough off your inner fire through your stare powers into the picture. But she does it. And then she has relief. I did like it. It was like, sounds like everybody just needs to come.

And maybe it's just because I really need to come. And, you know, like while watching it, it's just like, I'm all weird horny because of serpent dance. And she's all hot. She's all hot. And then she's got to let it out.

She's got to let it out. She needs the release. And then she has release. And her release is she sets her mother's picture on fire. So now Cheryl has full control over her pyrokinetic power. Yeah. So now you got to add Cheryl, but does it have something to do with the blast?

How does she, where is this coming from? Is it coming from the doll that has the ghost of her relative in it? Because they keep showing the doll, but then how is the doll, is she being given the ultimate power from her own? Wait a second, go with me. Okay. If she being given the power of fire from her own ancestors or from the town, of Riverdale to be able to keep Abigail Blossom because we do know fire.

It's fire to keep Abigail Blossom at bay. It's got to be that because there is a point, right, where Betty says, like, Cheryl, like, you have fire in your, in your... Yeah, her brother's corpse was baptized in fire. Abigail was consumed in fire. And then she burned Thornhill down and rebuilt it. Yeah, like fire as articulated by Betty for the first time yesterday. but it's kind of true.

Fire is this like part of... Which is all the red imagery. I mean, honestly, does kind of go handed in. It's fine, yeah. I like it. But remember at the beginning of this season when she was like, or was that in River Vale, when she was the, like, having like the witch powers

of being able to, remember she controlled the wind? Do you think that she's, oh, okay, that was River Vale. So do you think that slowly now she's going to start like, oh my God, is she going to put the corners together? Do you think that she's going to like that, like have like the little coveted way? I mean, if you think about it, it got Bridnight, got Anna Rose, got Cheryl, just either one. Maybe it's going to be Tomasina, aka Tony, who knows? I drop it at your feet.

I mean, I like it. I sometimes think that you have higher ambitions for the Riverdale plot lines than the Riverdale writers too. It's because I was a literature major. Sometimes I like to look for motifs when there are no motifs to be found. But isn't that fun, though? isn't that the fun part of it? I'm just like, maybe that's what it all means.

Maybe it could be this thing that would actually make sense with things that have happened in the past. No, but you're right. Like her having like her like earth goddess stuff is just one short season ago with River Vale does go hand in hand with her now suddenly being able to harness fire.

She seems very happy. She finally feels better. And she's Cheryl again. And she still has like the, you know, the doll ghost of Abigail to contend with. So I feel at peace. And it's interesting because now she has,

superpowers and the other three, you know, three of the four principals have superpowers, but the three of the four principals got them in the blast. But she, I think, has superpowers now, but totally separate reasons. Totally separate reasons. And Betty is working with her. And I love that no matter what kind of shit goes down, it's to like, cousin, cousin, I need your FBI help. Cousin, I need you. And then they just, man, they just fall right back in. And Nana Rose, even though Nana Rose did technically put the ghost of Abby. Abigail Blossom did the curse to put Abigail Blossom into her body, but let bygones be bygones. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, Nana Rose has been there for Cheryl in a way, despite betraying her many, many times. Yes. And I also forgot before when we were talking about Tony and Tabitha because I got so wrapped up in their serpent dance that Thangs was upset with Tony because of the, you know, the trial of trying to get baby Tony or baby Anthony back. And also Pops, who still works at Pops, was upset about Tabitha selling liquor at the diner. That's what it was. This is a family restaurant, Tabitha. Which also, yeah, families get drunk too.

Can we just say it? Families get drunk too. Yeah, come on now. Just having drinks at a restaurant doesn't mean it's inherently seedy. Although you'd think that if you had a problem with that, you would not love the, like, biker bar slash. gangster headquarters in the basement of your establishment, Pop. Yes, exactly. Yeah, that a teenager was running.

Yes. That used to be a speak easy for teens. Yeah, let's think about it. Check our selective morals, Popps. But then what do you think is going to happen? Okay, so I'm taking a step to the side before I take a step forward. And I want to go back to talking about Reggie because Percival got Veronica, or at least encourage Veronica to cut Reggie out because he's never there anymore, even though he is

half owner of the casino because he's always helping his dad, quote unquote. So when she goes over there to confront Reggie, he's sitting there. There's casino slots inside of the office of the used car lot. I assume it's a used car, the car lot that his father runs. in Riverdale. And those wise guys may have been, I think that was the worst, like, I say this as, and it's like a kind of fake Italian from Queens,

that was surrounded by people in La Cosa Nostra for a lot of my life. And I do know that, like, you're talking like this, it's one of the easiest accents to dope. There's so many ways in which to pretend like you are, in the mob. And what those three gentlemen were doing were none of them. Yeah, that was a disappointment.

I thought I was watching House of Gucci for a second. I didn't understand why. And they're all just playing cards in the middle of the day, which, yes, there's a lot of gambling. And like gambling and like goes to no shirt kind of going hand in hand, you know, in a lot of different ways. And I get that. So do you think that Reggie is going to use his new wise guy friends

to go in because now she's saying like, oh, well, you're not half owner of Babylonian anymore, which that's not how it works, Veronica. You are a businesswoman. So do you think that the mafia is going to get involved? Like, is Percival going to take over the mafia? Is there going to be another, like, weird mafia bad that comes in? Isn't there already a mafia that we've dealt with that isn't these guys?

Yeah, because Hiram is one of the heads of one of the families. Poutine Mafia. The Poutine. Yes. Oh, Papa Poutine. Papa Poutine. So it's like... Is Papa Poutine gonna come back? I mean, that would be great. Like, again, Riverdale, you don't need to reinvent the wheel here.

If there is a type of character that exists in literature, you've probably already had it on Riverdale. So like, just bring back those people, even if you can't get the same actors to come back, just call it the same Canadian Papa Poutine Mafia and bring in us cousin or something. Why do we have these three people who we don't even... know who they are. I was like, who are these people? Are they friends of Reggie's dad? Like, who are these people? So, yes, I think that we will have another mafia plotline, but why a new mafia? Why not the old mafia? Do you know, maybe it's just a different mafia. Maybe that was the Canadian mafia and this is the mafia from New York. I'm not sure. This is the Reggie's dad's, like, car dealer friends. But didn't we meet the mafia from New York as well when Hiram Lodge was also having

his gambling games? It's just so funny. They really do go back to the tenants of what like old, you know, it's like the idea of like moral codes of just like, well, gambling's always bad. Yeah, let's write another gambling line. And just mind control, yep, that's bad. Let's

fold that back in with a new character. I'm fine with it. I'm here for it. Yeah. I just don't know where, I feel like right now we are just in the middle of the snowball and I don't know when the ride's going to stop.

I don't even know when the ride's going to stop in the sense that I don't know how many episodes are left. That's the best thing about like, you know, usually the good thing about like understanding time as an adult is that you know like how much longer am I going to do this, you know, how much until how much time to expect. And certainly as an adult with an understanding of literature, if you're reading a book and you're halfway through, you have an expectation of what might, you know, where you are in terms of the rising action and the falling action. With Riverdale, I have no fun idea. We could be at the end of the season. We could be at the beginning. I have no idea. I'm not going to look it up.

So it's just like every day is a surprise. And every day we don't get to watch a television show that has a casino with the budget of a Baz Luhrman film. I love a bad Lerman reference. Oh, that's what I was going to bring up. So we've got Cheryl reading Firestarter. Right. and we had in the up top there's also which is Stephen King up top they also made mention of Percival Pickens starting to own a curio shop like an oddities store that he also purchased in the town

that's fun I like that that is also similar to needful things which is another Stephen King book where it is the devil who owns a curio shop who uses like the things in the shop and controls the people in the town and it like it's like the deep like they give like the deep it's like a wishmaster kind of thing like the deepest desires of each shopper but then like the price they pay is much heavy.

Oh this is like the Simpsons Monkey Pot episode. See all of my references come from the Simpsons but all the Simpsons are references to actual things like the initial movie or books. And then, yes, and then they all turn on each other in needful things. So I'm assuming that this is what, so that he will be the only one left then. So maybe that is what all of it.

But then how many Stephen King plot lines, like, is there going to be a clown in the sewer soon? I mean, there's no shortage of them. So that's great. I'm like, honestly, like, whatever texts you need to mind from Riverdale, just pick like six. per season, you know. But also you got to remember, too, I was reading some recap of Riverdale talking about how, like,

but the, if you think about it as well, the Archie Comics did nab from current day. Right, right. Pop culture, zeitgeist. Right. So they are still, weirdly enough, even though they are not in high school, still aligned with the original ideology of what Riverdale started as. Totally. And that's actually, and we've talked before about how it's actually, like, the, all of the reference, Riverdale is just like a, you know, 200 references per episode and like illusions to, and that's actually great. So it's not, if they're just doing Stephen King stuff, it's not that they're mining from it for plot. It's like they're doing this purposeful, you know, like allusion to Stephen King. That's why I'm excited to see, are they going to bring in more Stephen King? Like, that would be fun. Let's make it a Stephen King season. It would also, oh my God, is it going to be like a desperation kind of thing, which like that's like in a small town where the sheriff's.

was really evil. And did you notice who was behind? I mean, and I know it's mind control, but who was behind Percival Pickens when he was boxing? It was Sheriff. Sheriff Keller. Sheriff Keller. Yeah. Yeah. No, Sheriff Keller has been around with this season. He's very mentally weak, apparently. All of them are. Well, that's a fun framework going forward. Let's just keep that in the back of our, wherever our minds are as we watch Riverdale. could it be a Stephen King reference? Maybe. No.

No, it's not a... Where are all of the home improvement references? I am still waiting for them. Thank you guys so much for joining us on this journey. I was so tired when I watched it that I felt like I was remembering it for the first time. And isn't that nice? Well, we'll see how much I remember of next week's episode. Oh, that's.

also too, I forgot that when Veronica showed up with Percival to spy on Tabitha and Tony, she was wearing the Monica posh wig as if again the people that have known her in her entire life would not recognize her walking in, but then Percival just like didn't have a, I just needed to bring up the Monica Posh wing again. Monica Pash. And I liked, again, we called for bitchy Veronica and she's back. So I support that. She's back.

I love you guys. We'll see you guys next week, and we'll be talking about more of this bullshit. Where is it going to go? Bye. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors. You can support our shows by supporting them.

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