Tag: Barclay Hope

Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 9 (La Grande Illusion)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

Episode directed by Lee Rose

We’re back with another episode of THE MOST CONVOLUTED ADAPTATION OF A COMIC EVER!  Seriously, this show is so unbelievably dense with plot (both in the hyperbolic and literal sense) that it makes Batman v Superman look damn near intelligible by comparison.  What this show has over that movie however is decent acting from most of the actors, genuinely funny moments (as well as plenty of unintentional ones) and even though everything just kind of jumbles together into one impenetrable mass of manufactured intrigue, at least some of the stories here are interesting enough to hold your attention whenever the show bothers to bring them back up (*cough* Skeet Ulrich *cough*).  So to catch everyone up, the big revelation at the end of the last episode is that Polly Cooper is now living with The Blossoms because… reasons I guess, and it’s basically throwing everyone relevant to this story for a loop.  On top of that, we get a scene of Hermione and Veronica Lodge discussing THEIR overly convoluted plot and it makes we question why I’m bothering with this if it has to take five minutes out every episode just to catch everyone back up on all the convoluted bullshit that happened in the last episode before getting into THIS episode’s convoluted bullshit.  OH RIGHT!  I REMEMBER!  There are a handful of characters that are always fun to watch on screen and we’re reminded of that as Cheryl spends the next few minutes trying to seduce Archie into going with her to some sort of Blossom family event!  For some reason I keep forgetting that!

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“Why hello there, Archie Doll!”     “Miss Blossom, you’re trying to seduce me!!”

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Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 8 (The Outsiders)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

Episode directed by David Katzenberg

We’re back from the two week hiatus of Riverdale, and while I may be one of the more critical voices out there of the show, I’m honestly glad that it’s back.  The last few episodes have been a marked improvement and the show has been on an upward swing in general since SHE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED has packed her backs and skipped town, and even when the show is at its WORST… well at least it gives me something interesting to write about!  Has the show come back from its break rearing to go and ready to prove itself, or are we in for more of the same old same old?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with a rather helpful recap of what’s been going on for the last few weeks, and not just the PREVIOUSLY ON RIVERDALE one we get every episode.  Jughead is basically summarizing the Jason Blossom /Polly Cooper love affair with some brief snippets of the both of them together before they were ripped violently apart.  Of course, if you’re just reading this then you don’t GET to see the pretty pictures, but I’ll do my best to summarize as it HAS been a few weeks since we’ve last done this song and dance.  AHEM!  Jason Blossom disappeared on the Fourth of July and was found several weeks later with a bullet hole in his head.  He was trying to run away with his pregnant girlfriend Polly who was sent to a Girl’s Home for… I guess being pregnant, but the TRUE reason is that the Coopers and the Blossoms have a Hatfield/McCoy generations long pissing match going on and her parents wanted her out of sight and out of mind.  Jason’s plan was two-fold.  Number one, sneak Polly out of the facility, and number two, deliver some drugs (given to him by the local gang known as the Southside Serpents) to an address upstate so he can have a decent amount of cash to start their new life.  Well, as famed Prussian General Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke once said, “no plan survives contact with a bullet to the head” so now it’s up to the denizens of Riverdale (mostly Betty and Jughead) to figure out who pulled a Romeo and Juliet on these two.  Now I like the way they present these details in this opening bit, but there is a part of Jughead’s narration that’s throwing me off.  The series keeps pushing this point that the Coopers are some sort of ultra-controlling and outwardly perfect dynasty within the Riverdale community, and I just don’t see it.  I mean sure Betty and Polly’s mother (who I delightfully refer to as Lemon Mom) certainly ACTS like that’s the case, but there’s never been a demonstration of clout or even that much opulence (the same way the Blossoms have been portrayed) to have this make any sense.  Hell, I don’t even know what their dad’s JOB is, let alone if it’s anything important, and Lemon Mom is a journalist… for a local newspaper.  Oh, well SAY NO MORE!  DON’T CROSS THESE PEOPLE!

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It’s like the Reynolds Family before Frank lost all sense of decency.

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Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 7 (In a Lonely Place)

~ 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 Allison Anders

We’re back with another episode of The Incredible Jughead!  Just like Bruce Banner, our nominal hero of this show (Archie certainly isn’t the star of this) can’t stay in one place for too long as trouble follows wherever he goes.  That, and his last house got torn down, so we should probably get that resolved before too long as well as the whole POLLY WENT MISSING thing from last week.  Does this episode manage to tie up some of the loose ends that have been left dangling as we enter the second half of the season, or will this show double down on making things as needlessly complicated as possible (*cough* Lodge Industries *cough*)?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with… honestly, what looks to be a better show but I guess I’m supposed to find this hilariously dated instead.  It’s a dream that Jughead is having where he looks a bit closer to his comic counterparts and they’re playing Lambs in Clover by Jack Strachey; a song that you probably don’t know by name but you’ll recognize immediately when you look it up.  First, Ren and Stimpy were doing this kind of twisted domesticity set to Lambs in Clover over two decades ago and were doing it WAY better, so I’d hardly call this edgy or even that subversive.  Second, while I will grant them that Jughead has basically looked the same since the 1940s, it’s not like the series was hermetically sealed in the golden age of Boomer Americana!  The series grew over the decades and kept up with the times, and while there were places where it took longer than it should to catch up to society, taking a shot like this feels like mocking Batman for wearing purple gloves which he hasn’t worn since before World War 2.  Granted, I know more about the comics than most people, but then I always thought the public perception of the series was late sixties youth culture; not mid-fifties suburban paradise!!

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“This is not my beautiful house!  This is not my beautiful wife!”

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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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