Tag: Archie Comics

Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 5 (Heart of Darkness)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

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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Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 3 (Body Double)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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

Episode directed by Lee Toland Krieger

We’re back with another episode of The Way Too Young and the Restless!  When we last left things, Cheryl was FINALLY getting arrested for being the most OBVIOUSLY SUSPICIOUS PERON IMAGINABLE, but chances are that those charges aren’t gonna stick considering we’re only on the third chapter.  What mysteries will be uncovered once Cheryl tells us what REALLY happened on the Fourth of July?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with a recap of what happened at the end of the last episode which, as stated above, was Cheryl Blossom FINALLY being dragged away in handcuffs.  Why?  Well I could probably give you a laundry list of reasons, but SPECIFICALLY she’s being hauled in for questioning because her story about what happened to Jason on the Fourth of July has a few holes in it.  Namely ONE hole that ended up in Jason’s head!  Sheriff Keller (Kevin Keller’s dad played by Martin Cummins) begins to question her in Principal Weatherbee’s office, and we find out what REALLY happened that day, or at least the CURRENT version of the truth before the next big revelation upends everything we learn here.  Jason wanted to run away from home and fake his death.  He and Cheryl took the boat ACROSS the river and I guess Jason just wandered off into the woods with no bags and presumably very little cash (a dead man wouldn’t be using a credit card and a big withdrawal right before he disappeared would have been suspicious) while Cheryl waited around for someone to find her so she can tell the story about Jason drowning.  How she knew that Dilton and his scout troop (I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a scout leader in the books, but whatever) would JUST SO HAPPEN to pass by is still a mystery, but maybe that’s the NEXT big revelation.  While the two of them were sharing their tearful goodbye, they heard the gunshot.  You know; the one that Archie and Miss Grundy heard?  Yeah, they heard it too which means that we now know two places were the gun COULDN’T have been fired from.  Now that’s a decent chunk of information to build off of and presumably this take Cheryl off the hook for the murder.  Why the sheriff didn’t ask Cheryl WHY Jason wanted to run away is beyond me, but whatever.  We’ve still got a whole season of shows to fill up, so we can’t be giving away all the surprises NOW!

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“That whole thing where I said I was guilty?  Yeah… not really what I meant.  Still made for a good cliffhanger though, right?”

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Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 2 (A Touch of Evil)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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

Episode directed by Lee Toland Krieger

We’re back with another episode of Riverdale: The Next Generation!  Now the first episode didn’t give me a WHOLE lot of hope that this is gonna resemble the original comics in the least, and adding some questionable subplots and story decision on top of that only lessened my enthusiasm.  Still, Betty and Veronica are great and Cheryl is fun if completely over the top and goofy, so there are definitely some things to like about it and room to grow as the series goes along.  Does this episode build off of what was good in the first one, or are we already getting the best that this series can offer?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Jughead Marlowe as he narrates to us the events of the last episode with that same pulpy film noir style that continues unabated from the last episode.  Raymond Chandler, this guy is not, BUT it at least adds SOMETHING to the standard PREVIOUSLY ON recap that you see in front of shows like this and we also get a few details on what has happened since last time.  What DID happen last time anyway?  Well it turns out that the body of Cheryl Blossom’s brother Jason finally washed up on shore but it has a bullet hole right between the eyes which points to MURDER instead of merely an accident which is what Cheryl has been telling the police this whole time (the boat tipped over and he drowned) so I’m sure they’ll be wanting another chat with her sometime soon.  Of course, there’ still one piece of the puzzle that the cops aren’t aware of yet and that’s the secret Archie is hiding from everyone.  On The Fourth of July which is the day that Jason went missing, he was at the river where Cheryl and Jason were, and while he didn’t SEE anything, he definitely heard a gunshot.  However, he hasn’t told anyone yet because he was with his WAY older music teacher Miss Grundy (you can read my recap of episode one if you want my thoughts on THAT situation) and she’s convinced him that he can’t go the police.  Of course, finding out that Jason bid farewell to this cruel world with the help of Smith & Wesson isn’t making it any easier to keep this secret from eating away at his hunky insides.

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“All this deception is making my abs sad…”

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Super Comics: Sonic the Hedgehog 8-9

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Sonic the Hedgehog and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Archie Comics and Sega of America

It’s time once again for everyone’s favorite hedgehog rear his spiky head once again and mildly amuse us with woodland critter shenanigans and an endless barrage of painful puns!  The last two issues did show some marked improvement as the series seems to be slowly heading in the right direction, but issue six also had the inexcusable Christmas Carol retelling so there’s definitely lots of room to improve.  Is there anything that terrible in these two issues?  I doubt it considering how deep of nadir that one story carved out for the series, but let’s find out!!

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Issue 8 (March 1994)

I guess after seven issues without getting cancelled, the writers of the Sonic comic felt they could start taking shots at the competition; hence why the first story in this issue is about cracking wise at the entire superhero comic book genre.  The justification for this is that one of Robotniks robots is caught with a huge stack of comic books (a crime punishable by death in the glorious robo-empire) but the leather clad beefcakes on the covers start to give Robotnik ideas on how to stop that pesky hedgehog!  TO THE ROBOT-A-TRON!!

 

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“This guy is such a box office draw that I plated him in solid freaking gold!”     “Meh.  I preferred the ‘66 model.”

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