Why are antis trying to say that Bughead is unhealthy when the show is of course not trying to say that? The hallucination showed that yes he is still upset over what happened, but he wants to forgive her. He wants to be with her and heal from it. Jessica was the toxic mess trying to distract him, whereas Betty helps in and freed him from the handcuffs.
well, listen. bughead isn’t unhealthy. they were, up to a point, one of the healthiest het couples portrayed in a teen show.
however, in my honest opinion, at some point there in season four they became each other’s entire world, which is why their breakup hurt so bad. they were lovers, best friends, they lived together, they had a family dynamic, they were everything to each other - you see how the breakup happened, it was almost like you were splitting a cell, something really painful, an unity becoming two things.
i think it’s pretty obvious that what hurt jughead is how they broke up. how they never talked about it (because of him) and how he didn’t get a chance to forgive her. i think this comes from him wanting to forgive himself too, for never talking to her and letting them fall apart. if you ask me, jug already has forgiven betty, he just can’t forgive how they ended (and that was his fault, somehow). but it is a little messy, in the broader sense, that after almost a decade he still doesn’t feel strong enough to leave this all in the past in a way that it doesn’t hurt.
but this isn’t betty’s fault, per se. it’s how they chose to carry jug’s journey. there’s obviously a lot more to his trauma other than his breakup with betty. and i think she showed up in his hallucination because he wants to be free of that pain and get closer to her again. obviously his relationship with jess was a lot more recent and a lot more enabling of his troubles.
i do think that if i could change one thing there, i wouldn’t have him so aware of how much his breakup with betty affected his other relationships - i mean, i wouldn’t have him telling tabitha that ‘not recovering’ from his highschool breakup was one of the reasons why he wasn’t ready for a relationship now. i think i’d just mention jess and leave that out. it’s one of the things that made it messier. but other than that, it’s just an angsty journey that they both have to go through - they haven’t been in a relationship for seven years, so their relationship can’t be toxic right now. they’re just now being friendly again.
