Riverdale S01E03 – Body Double

 

Chapter 3, “Body Double”

If the story line or beautiful cast hasn’t kept you coming back, you’ll enjoy all the cameos that keep popping up. We’ve already met Archie’s Dad, Fred who is played by Luke Perry. For anyone who grew up with the original cast of Beverly Hills 90210 will enjoy seeing his face, as dishevelled as it has become. And this week we meet Ethel Mugs played by Shannon Purser, who you will remember as everyone’s Stranger Things favourite Barb.

This week the show takes some real world issues with a combination of “slut shaming” and “social media”. This is all in addition to another piece of information about the Jason Blossom murder case. But with information comes more questions, like what happened between Archie and Jughead, will we ever meet Betty’s sister Polly, how do parents let their kids eat dinner at the diner alone and what’s the deal with the 1970s decor for the city in a modern day time?

Last chapter Cheryl Blossom ended the episode by confessing she is guilty. What we find out this episode is that she’s not guilty of his murder but guilty of not telling the truth. Jason Blossom wasn’t happy and wanted to fake his death and run away. So Cheryl helped him by delivering him across the stream and pretending he’s dead. But that didn’t work out when he was found with a bullet in his head. But no one believed the story until Archie stepped up and confessed about hearing the gunshot. Fear not, he didn’t tell the Sheriff he was with Miss Grundy, rather he was with his dog, Vegas.

So the next question is who fired the gun. Well that was easier than expected when Betty is motivated to start up the school newspaper again. With Jughead by her side his first assignment is to figure out what DiltonDoiley the Scouts leader really saw that fateful morning on July 4. Doiley was only too happy to share such info but while he wanted his confession to stay between Betty,Jughead and himself he offered up some other information regarding a certain Music Teacher, Miss Grundy.

Now in between all this information coming out about Jason Blossom’s murder, you really have to question the Sheriff’s ability when it’s the students that find out this information. Despite the grim story of murder, Veronica Lodge is going on a date with the Riverdale Bulldogs Football Captain Chuck Clayton. This character takes on a very different role to that of the comic series where he and Archie are close friends. It seems they hardly know each other in the TV adaptation. While the date goes well, it’s what happens after the date where things take a turn for the worse.

Chuck posts a picture of himself and Veronica on what looks like Instagram. But she is covered in what is called a “sticky maple”. Just let your imaginations run wild and that’s probably exactly what they were going for. So Veronica takes revenge with Betty by her side. What we find out is the football team “slut shame” the girls in the school and have done for some years with it all scored in a book.

Betty tricks Chuck to visit her and Veronica where they drug him and tie him up in a hot tub. Slowly turning up the heat they get the confession they need and have Chuck kicked out of the school. But that’s not before Betty dons a black bob wig and skimpy outfit as she tortures Chuck in what seems to be a channeling of her sister Polly.

It’s becoming quite a dark show with a murder already on their hands now tackling things like slut shaming. The social commentary is very important to bring such horrible defamation to mainstream media. But the show doesn’t want to fall down that rabbit hole where that’s all they do. Leave that to Home and Away and Hollyoaks. There’s this interesting separation between parents and their children, which is becoming more and more obvious each chapter. Curious if this will actually have an impact to the story line but for now it’s funny to see Betty’s Mum forcibly wipe lipstick from Betty’s mouth.

The question does have to be asked though, is a sticky maple actually what it looks like?

Review by Jay Cook

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