Betty Tries To Make Do With A Rich Fantasy Life On Next Week’s ‘Riverdale’

“What better way to understand a person than to understand their desires?” Spoken like a future FBI agent or, in Betty’s case, a very frustrated teenager, as this trailer for next week’s Riverdale will attest:

Betty (Lili Reinhart) might still be hitting a wall, when it comes to getting an adult to have a mature conversation with her, but she’s not the only one being made to face how disappointing and self-serving Riverdale’s elders can be. Archie (KJ Apa) may have witnessed the ugly face of Riverdale’s homophobia last week, but his instinct is still to think the best of his home town, which is why he’s equally unprepared to learn that Riverdale is racist and only recruited Reggie (Charles Melton) because they think he’ll help the Bulldogs win games.

It’s amazing to think how Archie punching someone would’ve been just an ordinary day in Riverdale on any other season, but Archie punching Julian (Nicholas Barasch) this week actually meant something, and that’s a testament to how Apa and Riverdale‘s writers are letting 50’s Archie be his own character. The same is true of Reggie, whose personality is even more glaringly different in the 50’s from the playboy he’s been in the past/present. Melton may have been absent up until now this season (perhaps filming his guest role on Poker Face), but his return this week was a real showcase

Some other thoughts on this week’s episode:

• Maybe it’s a coincidence or maybe Riverdale‘s writers are Smallville fans, but Reggie’s new, farmboy backstory felt very reminiscent of Clark Kent’s, down to Reggie’s nickname being “The Blur” (an early nickname for Superman on Smallville).
• Ways Jughead (Cole Sprouse) failed this week:
  • Completely forgetting to follow through on helping Tabitha (Erinn Westbrook) with her homework (yet being completely absolved of any wrongdoing)
  • Not even considering that Veronica (Camila Mendes) might be hurt by him taking Tabitha to the Babylonium for their first date
• While not credited as one of the source texts for the film, Tabitha recommending W. E. B. Du Bois’ “The Comet” to Jughead  worked two-fold, in acknowledging the looming threat of Bailey’s Comet and feeling like a nice tribute to actor/singer/activist, Harry Belafonte. Admittedly, the episode was probably completed before Belafonte passed away last month, but the plot of “The Comet” sounds very similar to a film Belafonte starred in — The World, the Flesh, and the Devil — where Belafonte’s Ralph and a white woman played by Inger Stevens are believed to be the last two people on Earth. It came out in 1959 and if any Riverdale fans seek it out as a result of this episode, then that’s a win.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays on The CW.