Hermione isn’t excited about Heathers: The Musical being this year’s high school musical. She tells Weatherbee as much in his office. This gives Kevin a chance to show off his pipes around school as random students dance around him. Crosstown, Veronica is singing while working her shift at Pops, Archie and Josie are singing in Archie’s room, and Betty sings to Jughead in her room. Oh hey, Glee is back, and it’s going by the name Riverdale. Side question: why aren’t these kids in school with the other kids who are in school? Is this going to be an all musical episode? Because if so, yes and thank you!
Riverdale in the Key of Glee
After the chorus breaks out into teen angst, Hermione asks Kevin if all the kids in this school are really this miserable. How is she surprised? Between the new serial murderer every season, the huge drug trade, the rampant gangs, all on top of the usual teen problems, how is any teen not miserable in Riverdale?
The real big news of the episode is Betty has a new hairstyle. Is this the first time she’s been out of her tight ponytail not counting the Polly scenarios?
At show rehearsal, Veronica’s exes look like they’re forming a club.
Toni volunteered to be the musical’s choreographer. Cheryl is not pleased. She jumps out of her seat and exclaims, “Does anybody have a chainsaw because what the…?” Wait, what word actually works there where chainsaw would be a good lead-in? It’s not f**k, and it’s not hell? I honestly don’t know. Someone fill me in.
They’re doing dress rehearsals a week after announcing the show. Say what you will about Riverdale High, but they don’t mess around when it comes to the spring musical. Cheryl steps all over Toni’s dance moves, leading to a dance-and-sing-off between Cheryl, Toni and their respective backup crews. This really is Glee.
Betty doesn’t trust Farm Girl and tells her so. Does Farm Girl own a shirt other than her Farm shirt?
Boy Counter: 1
Skeet wears reading glasses now that he’s sheriff. That lets you know he’s gone legit. He informs Jughead that someone stole their old trailer.
Hiram and Veronica sit down and talk with Veronica. They’re separating, effective immediately. Hiram says they wanted to tell her in person, though Hermione doesn’t say a word the whole time. Once Hiram leaves, Hermione says he walked out because he knows Hermione sold the drugs out from under him when in the hospital.
Shots! Shots!
The Heathers kids down green jello shots and I’m sitting here wondering which one is poisoned. Is Farm Girl trying to recruit for the Farm by throwing a party? Sure, it works for fraternities. I just didn’t think it went with the whole Farm mindset.
Reggie and Veronica seem to be back together.
Sweet Pea spots Josie and Archie making out and I get the feeling we now know who is going to make the next attempt on Archie’s life.
Yup, Veronica and Reggie definitely seem back together.
A guest spot I didn’t see coming
Farm Girl passes out brownies that she describes as “transformative.” Oh boy. Shortly after consuming one, Kevin spots a bloodied Ethel phantom hanging from the wall.
Farm Girl wants everyone to share secrets the next day at rehearsal. Kevin says he’s been haunted by Midge’s ghost. Fangs has been experiencing the same thing. Sweet Pea outs Josie and Archie. Reggie calls out Veronica as only being into him because of Archie and Josie being together. Veronica tells everyone her parents are splitting. It’s almost as if they’re all answering Hermione’s question from the opening scene.
Josie doesn’t like that Sweet Pea outed them. Reggie can’t deal with Veronica wanting to be with him because her folks are splitting. He walks out on her. Reggie, you’re an idiot.
Yet another bathroom interlude.
Farm Girl sneaks up on Cheryl in the bathroom. She wanted Cheryl to see what’s going on in the hall, which is Toni wearing an all-red outfit. This sets Cheryl off. Cheryl announces she’s expelling Toni for this signature color theft infraction. I don’t think Cheryl understands how limited the powers of student body president actually are.
Cheryl’s ultimatum has Toni ready to party. By party, I mean have a threesome with Sweet Pea and a Poison on stage in the auditorium. They’re undressing as she sings, but she stops herself and runs off stage before anything can happen.
Farm Girl called a secret rehearsal for select cast members in the Gargoyle chamber. Betty spies on it. It’s a big baptism. Are the kids in the pews wearing 3D glasses? Who is kissing Kevin? Fangs? Are they a couple now just because they both saw Ghost Midge? Betty takes photos.
Archie’s Place
Josie comes to Archie’s gym to talk. He’s worried he’s getting dumped. After they sing a song, it’s clear he’s not.
Betty brings her photos of the baptism to Weatherbee. He writes it off very, very quickly. It sounds like Weatherbee has gone full Farm too.
Cheryl wakes up in the most elaborate set of pajamas I’ve ever seen. It does not look like it could be comfortable in any sense. Toni wants to get back together with Cheryl, but she wants them to stop fighting.
Tonsils found Jughead’s missing trailer. It’s now a full fledged Breaking Bad set. Jughead’s pissed. He asks, “How did we go from wondering about who was going to sit next to us on the bus to druglord mothers?” Betty adds, “And serial killer fathers?” It’s like they’re saying what the audience thinks every week!
Toni and Cheryl and Jughead and Betty share a duet. Cole Sprouse has pipes! Guys, this is beautiful, but you’re still in a drug lab.
Later, Jughead suggests to Betty that they steal the trailer back during the play. Betty suggests just letting it go.
M’hija Counter: 1
Over hard boiled eggs, Hiram tells Veronica that the real reason he’s getting divorced is that he found out that Hermione tried having him killed twice. He seems to blame Veronica too. But he still calls her m’hija, so how pissed can he be?
Veronica wants her parents to both be at opening night together. She wants one more happy memory with them.
Skeet arrives home before the show, bloodied in the face. A G&G player attacked him. The kid was playing G&G in the the middle of the road and went feral when Skeet tried to move him. Skeet vows to find out who’s distributing drugs in town, as he stands next to his wife, the head drug dealer in town.
It’s opening night! Veronica peeks out into the audience and sees her parents sitting there stone faced, but together.
Break up. Make Up. Repeat.
Toni and Cheryl made up. For now. Because you know Cheryl, and she’s just a timebomb waiting to blow.
Betty and Jughead show up to the play covered in soot. Jughead finds out Kevin and Betty wrote him into a surprise part at the end of the play. Interesting directing decision there, Kevin, not telling an actor he’s in the show.
Betty and Jughead burned the trailer. Man, Betty is a firebug, isn’t she?
The kids sing Seventeen, while the parents take in all the angst on stage. It occurs to me that Luke Perry isn’t in the audience and I’m heartbroken. During the closing number, Jughead puts on his trademark hat, but Archie manages to keep his shirt on. You gotta give it to Jughead. No training, no rehearsals, and he nails both the song and the dance!
Heathers ends. The audience is silent until Farm Dad starts a slow clap in the audience. So many people in the audience are dressed all in white and slow clapping. This is creepy. Betty’s face agrees with me.
RIVERDALE
One of the famous lines from Heathers was “F*** me gently with a chainsaw”, thus explaining Cheryl’s line. The “only I can wear red” was also a thing with the lead Heather, and the fantasy of funeral mourners with 3-D glasses was also in the movie. Since it sounds like you haven’t seen it, check it out! Still a great film.
I had given up on Riverdale but came back just for this episode. I think it would have worked better if the musical was better known, but I like it when they try to do Glee. And I never noticed the Veronica/Veronica connection before.
Thanks for the informed reading, Johanna! I have yet to see Heathers.
How fun, that you still have that to experience for the first time! I was fascinated to find out that the makers of the Heathers musical were getting so many requests from schools to do it that they created a High School version to license (without so much profanity). I can only imagine how that would have gone over at my school!
Well, the Riverdale gang did pioneer music TV in 1969 (with that year’s most popular song):
They were early adopters, yes, but the Monkees predate them with music video like segments in 1966.
I wonder who was the first? Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips did music video like sequences on his local TV show in the late 1950s (shots of people clowning in the TV station as a song played, mostly).
It’s always dangerous to describe something as “the first.” That happens a lot on the internet (“‘Birth of a Nation’: First movie shown at the White House.” No, it wasn’t.)
@Joana – Thanks for filling in all those gaps. I guess it’s obvious that I haven’t seen Heather is a VERY long time. A rewatch is definitely in order!
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