Cinema Dispatch: Before I Fall

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Before I Fall and all the images you see in this review are owned by Open Road Films

Directed by Ry Russo-Young

Oh look!  It’s that movie that looks like that one movie that came out two decades ago!  Okay, so maybe it’s not a TOTALLY original concept, but it at least looks more interesting than other YA novel adaptations like Divergent or The 5th Wave, and it does so without having to be set in the apocalypse!  The trailers seem to be leaning into the central conceit of the movie, and while it still has that YA aesthetics that look more drab and cheap than anything else, there seems like there’s some more effort thrown into this one than you’d typically expect.  Does this manage to rise above its peers and be one of the better examples of the genre, or are they just getting better at marketing these kinds of films to the general public?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Samantha Kingston (Zoey Deutch) waking up on CUPID DAY which is NOT Valentine’s Day because these super hip and cool teenagers say so… even though it’s celebrated exactly the same way; down to the roses being handed out which I’m sure by any other name would still make this Valentine’s Day.  Anyway, she’s going through her day like it was any other; hanging out with her friends Lindsay, Ally, and Elody (Halston Sage, Cynthy Wu, and Medalion Rahimi), dodging the creepy kid who’s been pining after her for years (Logan Miller) and making out with her boyfriend (Kian Lawley) who’s honestly not much of a prize considering the dude wears his baseball cap backwards AT ALL TIMES.  Still, thing seem to be going fine in their lives and the four of them go to a party that night at the creepy kids place in celebration of Love Day or whatever the hell this is.  Hey, say what you will about his social skills; the dude has an awesome house!  The party however turns out to be less awesome because the creepy girl at school Juliet (Elena Kampouris) starts some beef with Samantha’s friend and is swiftly run out of the party by everyone there.  Feeling deflated, the four of them leave the party and WHAM!  They get in a car crash which… I THINK kills them?  Either way, Samantha wakes up the next day… EXCEPT IT’S NOT THE NEXT DAY!  She’s stuck in a time loop where she wakes up on the same morning each day and has no idea what it would take to break out of it; if that’s even an option.  Can Samantha find a way to escape the purgatory that she’s found herself in?  What can she learn by having to repeat the same day over and over again, and is this a wake-up call for her to become a better person?  I feel like I’ve seen this in a movie before.  Have they done this in a movie before?

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She’s not the only one feeling Déjà vu!

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Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 6 (Faster, Pussycats! Kill! Kill!)

Riverdale and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros Television Distribution and The CW

Episode directed by Steven A. Adelson

We’re back with another episode of CSI: Riverdale!  When we last left our intrepid sleuths Betty and Jughead, they were getting one step closer to solving the mystery of Jason’s death, but now the evidence is point to Betty’s parents which makes things a lot more difficult to say the least!  Oh, and Archie was doing stuff too I guess, but JUGHEAD AND BETTY!  They’re next plan is to find out where Polly was sent and see if she has any clues that can lead them to the killer!  Will the dynamic duo manage to save Polly and find the truth that has been eluding them for so long?  What will Betty’s parents do once they find out what she’s been up to with that Jughead boy!?  And uh… is Archie gonna do something of mild interest?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Betty and Jughead who are about to initiate their master plan to find out where Polly’s been locked up.  Step one, have breakfast with Betty’s mom!  Okay, that doesn’t SOUND too hard, but this is Lemon Mom we’re dealing with who has just gotten back from her Women in Journalism retreat and is ready to tear everyone at the kitchen table a new asshole for the indecency and bad taste of merely existing in her presence.

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“THIS BREAKFAST… IS UNACCEPTABBBBBLLLLEEEEE!!”     “WE GET IT!  You hate everything!  Would you PLEASE shut up about it!?”     “The funny thing is, this is still better than breakfast with MY dad.”

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Cinema Dispatch: The Shack

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The Shack and all the images you see in this review are owned by Summit Entertainment

Directed by Stuart Hazeldine

Geez, first we had Jennifer Gardner do one of these last year, and now ACADEMY AWARD WINNER OCTAVIA SPENCER?  And the thing is, I had no idea what this was about until I walked into the movie!  I thought it was Nick Sparks fluff piece or something like that, but no!  Alright, so I didn’t have the best attitude once they movie let me know what it was about within the first five minutes, but it’s not like there aren’t ANY religious films I like!  Certainly Noah counts, right?  Anyway, does The Shack manage to rise above its contemporaries and be a thoughtful examination on religion and spirituality’s role in working through grief, or is it just like every other mediocre or downright offensive Christian film we’ve gotten since Pure Flix managed to make a few bucks at the box office?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with the wholesome Phillips family led by the father Mack (Sam Worthington) who one day decides to take the kids on a camping trip which couldn’t POSSIBLY go awry!  Oh wait.  The youngest of the group Missy (Amelie Eve) goes missing and presumed dead.  I THINK the body is found in the titular shack in the mountains, but the movie is a bit coy on that detail; presumably so they can avoid showing a dead body in this wholesome family film.  Anyway, the tragedy shatters the whole family including their son Josh (Gage Munroe) and their other daughter Kate (Megan Charpentier), but Mack is taking the brunt of the guilt; leaving the mother Nan (Radha Mitchell) to pick up the slack while he’s moping around the house.  One day however, he gets a mysterious letter telling him to meet God in the shack where Missy’s body was found which sounds suspiciously like the opening to Silent Hill 2, but unfortunately we’re not in for that kind of movie.  Instead, he steals his best friend’s truck (played by Tim McGraw) and drives up there thinking that he’ll find the killer waiting for him.  No such luck so Mack has a near suicidal fit of rage and fury but is saved from blowing his brains out by some dude who JUST SO HAPPENED to be walking by at just that moment.  Not only that, but the dude seems to know Mack and invites him to join his family in another nearby cabin.  What’s odd though is that the weather instantly changes from the dead of winter to a bright spring day, and on top of that, the dude’s father is played by Octavia Spencer.  So why would this guy played by Aviv Alush call this woman The Father?  And who is this mysterious third person there played by Sumire Matsubara?  Wait a minute… meet God in the cabin… there are three of them… oh.  Okay, so we’ve got The Father (Spencer), The Son (Alush), and the Holy Spirit (Matsubara) basically pulling a Christmas Carol on this dude to get him over the death of his daughter by… sort of answering his very obvious and leading questions about the nature of God in a world that isn’t perfect.  Uh huh.  So then… does Mack manage to find a reason to live after spending a few days with these three charming fellows?  What insights do they have that can apply to YOUR lives as well as his?  Is there a book you can buy to go along with the movie that will shed ADDITIONAL insights and unlock the secret to true happiness!?

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All this healing can be YOURS for the low low cost of $49.95!  It’s what GOD would want!!

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Cinema Dispatch: Logan

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Logan and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Fox

Directed by James Mangold

Dude has been playing this character since the turn of the millennium.  It’s no wonder he looks so damn tired in this!  For many people, the first X-Men (as well as Blade in 1998) can be pointed to as the start of the modern superhero genre as a mainstream endeavor instead of the one off success stories like Batman and Superman.  Sure, Superheroes have ALWAYS been a part of the film industry (There only maybe a dozen or so fewer superhero movies made in the nineties as in the decade that followed) but with X-Men it proved that more modern and varied superheroes had a shot at connecting with a wider audience; especially with powerhouse actors like Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and Hugh Jackman on hand to sell it to them.  I mean say what you will for the X-Men film franchise in general, it’s managed to have a decent amount of staying power with a solid decade lead on the MCU.  For all its ups and downs, it’s stayed pretty popular to this day and that’s double true for Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine.  However, all good things inevitably come to an end, and this movie is here to remind us all of that fact as Hugh Jackman swears this is the last time we will see him in this role.  So is it a proper send off for the role that started a global phenomenon, or has all semblances of life and effort left his franchise a long time ago like it has to the main character in this movie?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Old Man Logan (Hugh Jackman) barely scraping by as a limo driver who ALWAYS seems to run into assholes wherever he goes.  Maybe those Adamantium claws of his are magnetized to attract douche bags or maybe it’s because he parks his fancy ass car in gang territory.  Either way, he’s living the Max Payne dream of self-loathing, self-medication, and self-assurance that nothing is going to get better no matter what.  At the very least, he IS managing to take care of Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) who’s stuck with him after some incident about a year ago that no one is too keen to bring up and to make matters worse he seems to have a degenerative brain disease that is making his powers unstable as well as his memories.  With a stable job and the responsibilities of taking care of Charles, somewhat helped by a new friend of theirs named Caliban (Stephen Merchant), he’s at least managing to put off putting an Adamantium bullet in his head from the time being, though I’m pretty sure the OTHER X-Men movie confirmed it WOULDN’T kill him if he did that.  However, if everyone else is still okay with pretending that one didn’t exist, then so am I.  Of course, things can’t stay that way for long as a little girl named Laura (Dafne Keen) enters the mix and throws all their lives into chaos.  See, apparently mutants stopped being born a few decades ago, and most of the ones who are still alive have died off for one reason or another.  Laura though is herself a mutant, and not just any mutant to boot.  Her powers are almost exactly that of Logan’s and there are a lot of people that want her dead.  And so the chase is on with Logan reluctantly dragging both Laura and Xavier (Caliban isn’t so lucky) through the United States to find some sort of refuge in Canada from the evil organization hunting them down and to possibly find some shred of redemption for the life that he led.  Can Logan complete this one last mission before finally finding the peace that has eluded him for so long?  Where exactly did this girl come from, and how is she a mutant in a world where they are effectively extinct?  Seriously, does every Dad FigureTM nowadays have to have those beards!?

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It’s not even like he needs to find a razor to shave it!  Even if he cuts himself with his Adamantium claws, it’s not like he wouldn’t heal right away!

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Super Recaps: Dragon Ball Super Episode 3 (Where Does the Dream Pick Up? Find the Super Saiyan God!)

Dragon Ball Super and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Funimation

We back with another episode of Dragon Ball: The Next Generation.  Wait, didn’t they already do that with A Hero’s Legacy?  Anyway, the last episode managed to get a lot of point from me for giving us a decent side story with Vegeta and his family, but it started to turn for me once we started focusing again on Beerus and what we KNOW he’s gonna end up doing in just a few episodes.  Sure, if you HAVEN’T seen the two movies that came out already then it might be a bit more interesting to watch the guy wreck shit across the galaxy, but I can’t bring myself to care about that half as much as I care about watching Vegeta awkwardly trying to be a decent father.  So does this episode give us more character moments that reveal or expand upon what we already know about our heroes, or will this instead focus on keeping the plot train running as it heads towards a conclusion we’re all already aware of?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Lord douchebag… I mean Lord Beerus, on his way back to his Space Palace; all the while trying to remember what it was he saw in the dream he had in the last episode.  Spoiler Alert: It’s Goku.  Also, this marks the point in the series where I start to notice those heavily criticized animation shortcuts this show seems to be famous for, and… yeah.  Whenever they go for medium shots of the characters, the detailing takes a HUGE nosedive and it makes the whole production look cheap which PARTICULARLY sucks considering how good the original shows looked.  Now this kind of streamlined approach to the detailing can work for LONG shots (you don’t want something small to have too many lines), but at this distance it’s incredibly noticeable.

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What happened to Beerus’s thumb!?

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Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 5 (Heart of Darkness)

Riverdale and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros Television Distribution and The CW

Episode directed by Jesse Warn

We’re back with another episode of Everybody Hates Cheryl!  The last episode thankfully finished off that abysmal Grundy subplot which means we can FINALLY get to what this show SHOULD be!  Archie solving weird mysteries throughout town!  What is that not good enough!?  I want this show to become the next American Horror Story, damn it!!  AND WHEN DOES SABRINA SHOW UP!?  Well for NOW at least, we still have to find Jason Blossom’s killer which… I GUESS is a kind of horror story even if it’s not supernatural… OR IS IT!?  Can this show manage to stay afloat now that its worst subplot has been jettisoned from this sinking ship?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with yet another Jughead monologue as he tells us all about the Blossom home which looks like the unholy lovechild of Roger Corman and Tim Burton that was delivered by Vincent Price in the Westin Hills Insane Asylum from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3.  What I’m saying is that it’s gothic as fuck, and I ABSOLUTELY love it!  Hell, I can’t even tell if it has electricity, though you’d think it would HAVE to considering how many fog machines they’d need to keep that place constantly engulfed in THAT much foreboding atmosphere!

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I don’t know what’s more amazing; that this show now has the Gothic sensibilities of a Guillermo del Toro joint, or that it all makes perfect sense for Cheryl.

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Cinema Dispatch: Get Out

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Get Out and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Jordan Peele

2016 turned out to be a fantastic year for horror movies; not just for the ones that ended up on my best of the year list, but also the ones that aimed to be middle of the road seemed to step up their game and try harder than you’d normally expect from the genre. Now sure, 2017 started with The Bye Bye Man, but even 2016 had some low points with The Forest and Incarnate.  Plus, we’ve also gotten the excellent, if problematic, Split not too long ago which is already one of the better films this year; horror or otherwise.  Now we’ve finally gotten to the BIG one which is Jordan Peele’s directorial debut that’s been getting a lot of positive buzz from when it was first announced all the way up to now with those Fancy Schmancy “professional” critics who are raving about it after they saw the “Critics Screenings”.  Well I had to drive thirty miles in the rain AND hail to see this damn thing, so it BETTER be as good as everyone is saying it is!  Is this thoughtful and well-crafted horror film that everyone says it is and that we desperately need right now, or did the hype machine get out of control with this movie which admittedly can sometimes happen with horror films?  Heck, I wasn’t the biggest fan of You’re Next, and that movie was instantly touted as a classic of the genre!  Anyway, let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) and his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) heading off to meet her family for the first time in what is sure to be a painfully awkward experience for everyone.  Sure enough, Mr. and Mrs. Armitage (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener) are just as “down” and “hip with the youngsters” as you’d imagine from older white people, but Chris seems to know what he as getting into and is just taking everything in stride until he get back home after the weekend is over.  Of course, things only get worse as Rose’s brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) enters the picture is an obnoxious dweeb as well as a bunch of the Armitage’s other white friends who are VERY excited to meet Chris.  On top of that the Armitage’s have two black servants, Georgina and Walter (Betty Gabriel and Marcus Henderson), who look to have gotten the Stepford Wives treatment, though only Chris seems to be noticing this.  Tensions mount higher and higher as more clues are uncovered by Chris and it’s starting to seem that he may be in more danger than he initially realized.  Can he get out before he becomes the victim of whatever these white people have planned?  What happened to Georgina and Walter that has them acting so strange?  Did we SERIOUSLY get one of the best movies of the year from the guy who co-wrote Keanu?  That wasn’t a BAD movie, but god DAMN is this a step up!!

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Fucking white people.  Not only are we pulling this crazy shit, but we’re doing it in the rumpus room!?
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Cinema Dispatch: Rock Dog

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Rock Dog and all the images you see in this review are owned by Huayi Brothers and Summit Premiere

Directed by Ash Brannon

Okay, so maybe saying The Great Wall is some bold new step in Hollywood/China co-productions was overselling it a bit as stuff like this movie, which was animated in the US but made for the Chinese film market, have been happening for quite some time now.  Still, The Great Wall is unique in how hard it was pushed to try and make an impact on the US film market instead of just making all its money in China which usually isn’t the case; including with this movie that barely got any promotion leading up to its release.   That said there’s still some really solid talent behind this, including an all-star cast of voice actors, the studio that animated The Book of Life, and even the co-director of Toy Story 2!  Okay, he’s not the co-director everyone remembers (that would be John Lasseter), but still!  Is there enough talent in this internationally minded animated film to be of some appeal on this side of the globe, or was this all just a cynical cash grab from everyone involved.  You know, like when celebrities do those insane Japanese commercials and hope no one in the US will see them?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins in the town of Snowville… I mean the Village of Snow Mountain, where the local sheep population is protected from wolves by Tibetan Mastiffs which is a breed of dog.  Well okay, it’s just ONE dude named Khampa (JK Simmons) who has mastered the Kamehameha and used it to fend off a wolf raid several years ago.  Yes, you read that right.  Motherfucking dog shoots energy beams from his hands because reasons.  This would be AMAZING if it wasn’t for the fact that he did all that in the past and hasn’t had to for some time now because the wolves know better than to attack while he’s on watch, so he doesn’t have much cause to use it nowadays.  Still, he’s kept the sheep safe and even managed to raise a son named Bodi (Luke Wilson) who will one day take his place as the town protector, even if he needs a bit more practice before he can ACTUALY do a Kamehameha of his own.  It’s too bad that the writers of this have seen The Gods Must Be Crazy as one day a plane drops civilization right in front of Bodi in the form of a wireless radio that’s fully charged and able to catch a signal.  How about that!?  On the radio he hears a sick track from the one and only Angus Scattergood (Eddie Izzard) which inspires him to pursue his dreams, and with just the right amount of buttering up of his old man, he manages to get a bus ticket to the big city which is… actually pretty close by.  How has Bodi never been to the city before?  WHY IS THERE A BUS STOP NEXT TO SNOW MOUNTAIN IF NO ONE IS USING IT!?  Anyway, his leaving manages to catch the attention of the wolves who are gangsters in that big city, and so the big bad one named Linnux (Lewis Black) sends his slapstick prone henchmen to kidnap him and… I guess get information about Snow Mountain so they can finally kill all those sheep.  Will Bodi be able to live his dreams of a rock star, or will he ultimately get lost in the cruel and uncaring world of professional music?  Will the wolves finally get what they want, or will Body manage to outsmart them… somehow?  For a movie called Rock Dog, he’s not much of a rock star… so why aren’t we following Angus Scattergood instead?

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“Look, I’ve just downed two bottles of tequila and chased it with an irresponsible amount of Chimichangas, so I expect you to do a lot of the heavy lifting here, alright?”

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Cinema Dispatch: A Cure for Wellness

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A Cure for Wellness and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Fox

Directed by Gore Verbinski

You know, Gore Verbinski is a much more versatile director than I think he gets credit for.  Sure, he made three Pirates movies and then that Pirates movie in the old west, but he’s also got The Ring, The Weatherman, and Rango under his belt too; all really solid movies.  Hell, even his big blockbuster films are at least interesting if not always good!  Okay, The Lone Ranger isn’t even that much, but I’ll give credit to those Pirates movies for being fantastically well-crafted even if the story wasn’t always there to back up the designs.  Now he seems to be going back to his roots in a way as this is the lowest budget he’s had to work with since The Weatherman, and he’s also heading back to the horror genre which seems like a pretty good idea considering how well that Ring remake turned out.  Is this a new benchmark in horror that all others will be compared to, or will this be a catastrophic failure the likes of which we haven’t seen since The Lone Ranger?  Or you know, it COULD be somewhere in between those two.  Anyway, let’s find out!!

The movie follows an up and coming… business man of some sort named Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) who’s sent to some faraway Wellness Center somewhere in the Swiss Alps to retrieve the owner of the company he works for.  You see, the board of directors got a strange letter from their boss Mr. Pembroke (Harry Groener) that he’s found the cure for what ails him at this facility and that he’s never coming back.  Of course, if he REALLY didn’t want to be bothered anymore, he would have included official documents removing himself from the company to go along with that letter, but if he did that then Lockhart wouldn’t have a reason to go and we wouldn’t have a movie, now would we?  It also helps that Lockhart did some illegal… business stuff I guess that he thought he had kept secret but the board knows ALL about it and is holding that over his head to get him to go to Switzerland.  Once Lockhart gets there, its IMMEDIATELY clear that something just isn’t right about this place.  Is it the creepy staff that acts like condescending zombie vampires?  Is it the strange girl named Hannah (Mia Goth) who’s comes and goes with seemingly little understanding about the world around her?  Maybe it’s the fact that the head of the facility is named Dr. Heinreich Volmer (Jason Isaacs) which is probably in the top ten villain names of all time!  I’m guessing it’s that.  Well any normal person would just bolt it to the airport at this point, but Lockhart JUST SO HAPPENS to get in a nasty car accident on the way back from the Wellness Center and wakes up back at the facility a few days later with a cast on his leg.  Well since he isn’t GOING anywhere for now, he might as well try to find Pembroke and see if there’s some shady shit going down in this Wellness Center that puts a little too much emphasis on water and for some reason uses REALLY outdated medical equipment.  Will Lockhart get what he needs from Pembroke and save his job?  Just what is going on in this creepy facility with so many creepy people and creepy equipment?  Is the cure that everyone is looking for… love!?

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“I don’t remember them covering THIS is sex ed!”     “Hey, which one of us is the doctor here?”

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Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 4 (The Last Picture Show)

Riverdale and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros Television Distribution and The CW

Episode directed by Mark Piznarski

We’re back with another episode of Riverdale 90210!  So things are still pretty rocky for this series, what with its severe mishandling of dark and weighty subject matter, but even with that we at least get some awesome Betty and Veronica moments here and there as well as a Jughead who’s starting to come into his own for this series.  Still, as long as the Miss Grundy subplot is around, I’m not convinced this show will manage to pull itself out of the mess it put itself in by having that serious miscalculation.  Are we in for another uncomfortable slog through boneheaded choices and obnoxious self-seriousness, or can the series put itself back on track before it’s too late to salvage any of this?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Jughead reminding us that Jason Blossom is dead and that everyone is apparently a suspect as he ACTUALLY died a full week after he disappeared on the Forth of July; meaning that everyone had the opportunity to do the deed.  Motive is still a bit murky though as I doubt most people would want to kill a teenager, even if he is kind of a creep (at least that’s what the flashbacks seem to imply), but I’m sure whoever’s responsible will have convoluted and completely out of left field reason for the murder that we just can’t see yet.  For now though, we have much more important fish to fry than the death of Cheryl’s brother; namely that the local drive in theater is closing down (NOOOOOOOOOOO!!) and that Betty now knows that Archie and Grundy were at the river together on the Fourth of July which honestly isn’t all that relevant anymore since we’ve pretty much solved every relevant mystery about what happened that morning.  Archie and Grundy heard a gunshot from Dilton Doiley while Cheryl and Jason bid a tearful farewell to one another as the guy ran off into the woods to who knows where.  Oh, and because the show makes damn sure you notice this, Betty apparently has a diary where she’s writing about what she knows.  Considering who her mother is I’m guessing that THAT little book is going to come into play sooner rather than later, but for now it’s just a plant for a future payoff.  What’s relevant now is the sort of love triangle forming between Archie, Miss Grundy, and his dad who thinks she’s REALLY hot!  Hell, I would too if I didn’t already know she was a total monster!

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“Look at this kid!  Getting all dressed up to see you perform!”     “Dad!  You’re embarrassing me!”     “Well you better get used to it, cuz you might just be looking at your future stepmom!”     “DAD!!”

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