Therapy episode of Riverdale one of my favourites for so many reasons like the Betty and Alice conversation, Gina Torres as the guidance counsellor who doesn't get paid enough for this shit, the Cheryl of it all and Toni's reactions. But the Veronica section is so interesting to me because I think it misses the mark slightly on what it was going for and as a result accidentally does something more interesting.
Like this is a Stating the Themes episode and I can see what they were going for with Veronica. She hates her father but she still loves him, loyalty is a huge character trait for her. She goes against her father and fights against his abusive controlling schemes but when it seems he's going to die she's willing to put it all aside because. She's a kid. She doesn't want her dad to die she wants him to go away and work on himself and come back changed and reformed and ready to be the good normal father she thought he was when she was younger. It's never going to happen but she's young and hopeful enough to still long for it and it's only when she's older and an adult that she's capable of accepting he's never going to change and then killing him. (Which was amazing. Good for her!)
And the way they go about it in the episode is Veronica stating all the fucked up things her dad has done and the guidance counsellor going well why do you still live with him? Why haven't you cut all contact? You need to let him go completely. And I do get the overall point they're going for but when you stop and think about it what Mrs Burble is accusing her of doesn't. Actually fully line up with what we've actually seen so far.
She's already tried moving out and it didn't work. She tried sending him to jail and cutting him out of her life completely and it didn't work. He showed up and told her not to bother changing the locks because she can't keep him out. And she changed the locks anyways! Even if it's futile she has to try. There's a fundamental power imbalance between them where Hiram has all the control and even if Veronica wants to keep him out, even if she cuts contact, he keeps finding ways to worm back in. The law can't stop him, she can't stop him, he is simply too powerful. The show ignores that part of their dynamic this episode and it makes it so much more fascinating.
Because instead of what they were going for what we get is something resembling the attitude a lot of people have towards abuse victims, aka why don't you just leave him? It completely ignores the conditions that cause women to feel trapped in these relationships. Financial control, social control, stability, fear of retaliation. And it's usually directed at women who stay with their partners but this episode it's directed at a daughter who won't leave her father and that's kind of even more fascinating because she's literally a high school student. "Just move out and cut contact." should not be her responsibility there should be like. CPS involved. But this is a show where the teenagers have to deal with things they shouldn't have to because almost every adult in their life fails them so of course CPS was never an option.
So instead of what they were going for this episode where Veronica gets someone who tells her the reality that her father will never change and she needs to let him go, we get someone who listens to all the messed up things Hiram has done and then goes hmm. Sounds like you're both obsessed with each other. Are you jealous when someone else gets his attention? (An accusation her father used to manipulate her only recently when she expressed concern and outrage that her mother had gone back to him. You're not concerned because I'm abusive and have hurt her in the past Veronica, you're just jealous. Don't be jealous it's not a nice look on you.) Like Veronica needs to break the cycle this is true but the way this was expressed to her was the most fascinatingly gross victim blaming I've ever seen. She even pulled out Sigmund Freud and diagnosed Veronica with an Elektra complex, which should have probably gotten her license revoked on the spot even though it was mainly just stated to foreshadow Veronica killing him. It's fucked up because accusing her of incest is quite literally a tactic her father uses to undermine her genuine concern and rage at him, to dismiss it and mess with her mind and cast her intentions as something evil and wrong instead of genuine concern and rightful anger. And the guidance counsellor who hasn't even met him reinforces that!
And I'm glad it does miss the mark slightly! I'm glad we get something much darker in it's place. You reach out to an outside adult for help for the first time in 4 seasons and they tell you to suck it up and get over yourself. Just walk away, you're doing this to yourself. Your emotions DO stem from jealousy he's correct. And then they diagnose you with incest and don't seem particularly bothered in doing anything about it or stopping it if it's going both ways. (Which it is! Or rather, it's going one way from Hiram to Veronica. His obsession with controlling her and isolating her and playing with her is indeed emotional incest but that's not what's acknowledged out loud. Instead the blame is put on the child and the accusation is that this teenage girl is obsessed with her father which is a personal flaw on her part and not. A mentality her father is keeping her trapped in by literally never letting her escape him.)
All this to say Veronica is a better person than me because if all my friends got useful therapy this episode and I got Sigmund Freud quoted at me and told to do things to escape that I already tried which don't work because he's a rich powerful adult man and I'm 17, I would have killed way more than one man that season. The whole school would be gone, maybe even the whole town. They're so lucky she doesn't want to be evil and is trapped by guilt complexes because otherwise I don't think Riverdale would survive.
Don’t let the naysayers get you down! They told Betty Cooper she could never go to Heaven because she was the Harlot of Babylon but they didn’t know jack shit about anything because her buddy Narrator God Jughead just made a new heaven from scratch and collected all of their friends’ souls there over the years and then waited until she was ready to join them in blissful childish ignorance at the big bright chock’lit shop in the sky for all eternity
Something funky’s going on. I give you a book… then suddenly I can’t read? I call Veronica a black widow and then the egg I gave her was filled with spiders even though when I checked it it was empty . 🫵 What are you? A wizard?
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