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Sep 4, 2022

Riverdale S6 Ep 22 (#117: Night of the Comet)

Here we are at the Season 6 Finale which is fittingly also the apocalypse!

Jughead is at “ground zero of an extinction level event” looking irritated and nothing else. This is highly entertaining to me. He died in a demon plague while his other dimension self looked on in interest (probably thinking- Ooh more material for the STORY!), was perfectly content in heaven and then got yakked out of it by Cheryl Blossom (whom he does not like). So his casual, I Am So Tired That I am Bored By My Exhaustion approach to this latest disaster in his disaster-filled life just fits.

So everyone is assembled in Archie’s house. Shout out to Cheryl and Heather for sitting with the exact same leg crossed pose. Tabitha looks very much like a Mater Dolorosa statuary.

Toni and Fangs, still looking like Minnie and Micky Mouse, report that the Serpents have been testing the weird magic dome into which they are sealed (Simpsons Did It First). Betty says a version of fandom commentary that has been making the rounds - that Riverdale the town itself is a character, whose sole motivation is to hoard all these people and keep them trapped within itself. Betty describes it as “a roach motel” because you can come in, but you can’t leave.

Veronica asks Jughead about his portal powers, but even those are limited by Percival’s magic dome. Archie asks Tabitha about her time travel, and Tabitha says the comet is their inevitable future no matter what. Kevin is confused about why someone else isn’t doing something, which is a very Kevin thing to ask, to which Heather patiently explains that Percival’s spell was very well wrought because he even took care of what the outside world thinks is happening with the comet. Moose, who was called in to help Kevin with Kevin’s issues, is now also doomed to die but he is being a perfect saint and not spending his time screaming at Kevin about how he’s ruined his life.

Archie, being invulnerable, and Not Baby Anthony, being immortal, are the only two who are going to survive being hammered directly by a comet. Toni mentions that she’s suggested to Archie that he take Not Baby Anthony into the Bunker when the comet hits.

Archie is determined to not be beaten by Percival. He’s so fascinating and kind of horrible. Archie is so focused on WINNING that even the prospect of everyone he knows being obliterated doesn’t affect his emotions. Heather and Cheryl offer to do consult other, more knowledgeable arcane powers to see what can be done, but Cheryl doesn’t believe this will work. She’s the only one who has the honest reaction - scoffing - when Archie says he’s going to try to find a way to dig their way underground out of Riverdale.

Alice and her two daughters are in their house having a lovely heart to heart. I’m sorry but I hate it. Alice is making her daughters parent her. Betty is being a total angel here. She looks at her weepy useless mother who has been such an agent of pain and terror in her life with kindness and understanding. Betty Cooper gives her mother the absolution and healing that woman does not deserve. By the way, this has been bugging me - did Polly ever show herself to Juniper?? Does Juniper know her brother and mom AND DAD that she never met and her grandgrandma are all alive again? Where is Juniper?

At the Babylonium, apparently all or most is forgiven between Reggie and Veronica. She’s head honcho and he’s her henchman again. He says he saved the giant portrait of Hiram from the fire at Percival’s. When confronted with it, Veronica’s very kind reaction is to smile about it, instead of chucking a shoe at him. She even thanks Reggie. The show misses Hiram, I guess, and maybe the Hiram actor has more power than the Jason actor, so he’s saved the indignity of a doll bearing his likeness being hauled around on set.

Next morning at the Diner, Jughead and Tabitha are sharing a basket of fries. This is how you know Jabitha has to be endgame. Jughead to my knowledge has never, ever shared a plate of food. Taken things off of other people’s plates, yes. SHARED? No. Jughead is chipper about being ‘taken out’ by a ‘magic asteroid.’ He was destined to die anyway so he is trying to find the good in having the end not be ‘banal.’ He also says that he’s accomplished almost everything on his bucket list, but before Tabitha can ask what that is, in comes trouble.

Alexandra Cabot wearing an outfit that takes body consciousness to a whole ‘nother level has a magically easy sounding (!) way for Tabitha to realize her long held dream of making Pop’s a franchise (that she alluded to when Veronica was in doldrums about her stalled life). Jughead prevents Tabitha from both outright refusing and spilling the beans about how they literally only have like, 12 hours left until the comet hits. Alexandra is going to be in town for another 10 hrs, which means she will die with them if nothing else changes.

Then we cut to Fangs giving a very unsanitary looking Serpent tattoo to the Not Baby Anthony at the Whyte Whyrm as Toni looks on. He hasn’t had to do the gauntlet, or the thing about shouting the rules at Tall Boy or getting bit by a defanged snake (WHY DID THEY MAKE JUGHEAD DO ANY OF THIS) so Anthony sounds uncertain when he asks if he’s really a Serpent now. His parents (who both look younger and less physically mature than he does) tell him he’s the hereditary Serpent King because of what they are. Everyone in this creepy little family is teary eyed, the show is playing sad music over it but none of this is earned and I want the comet to kill these three off specifically, please.

Heather and Cheryl summon Abigail Blossom, currently trapped in a doll trapped in a cabinet. The sheer number of candles that are lit can only be explained by the phoenix powers Cheryl has because I think even with two people working fast with a mechanical lighter, the first-lit candle would burnout by the time the final candle is lit. In any case, Abigail has a solution to the comet that Cheryl (and the Riverdale writers?) finds “Basic, but also Genius.” You’re a fire starter so just MELT it, because it’s ice. As to whether she can undo the binding spell trapping them all in Riverdale, Abigail says that she needs something more than freedom from the doll.

Cheryl goes to collect the “underworlders” trying to dig their way out of town using the mining tunnels and everyone is gathered now at Thornhill. “I may have divined a pathway through our little conundrum.” I love Cheryl’s syntax.

I am horrified and intrigued by the gloves that are attached to Chery’s long sleeved turtleneck. It looks so extra, which is very Cheryl. It also makes me wonder if she finally cut those nails, being a lesbian and all. Cheryl says that she needs something special from Toni later, to which she gets a very reluctant response.

And then we learn that essentially, Cheryl is a species of god. She’s the one that is keeping all the resurrected Riverdalers alive. It’s HER POWERS that is keeping their bodies on earth rather than in heaven. So when she uses all her phoenix powers to melt the comet, one or more or all of them might also throw off the mortal coil once more. (She doesn’t say this exactly but she should’ve.)

When Cheryl and Toni have their tete-a-tete in the sitting room, we are treated to the view of an overhang wall full of very weird art that I am hopeful a more hawk-eyed, technologically competent and knowledgeable fan will one day explain to me. One of the paintings is what looks like a giant black crow with a crown menacing a little redhead boy and girl pair. Cheryl explains to an increasingly speechless Toni that she and Toni are going to be sex vessels for Abigail and Thomasina whlie Heather will keep each of their souls safe in a jar. Cheryl wants to vomit every time she has to say the name FANGS (girl, SAME) but does point out this interesting technicality that it’s ‘not cheating’ if their souls are not in the bodies that are engaging in the sex. This is a metaphysical version of the bullshit “I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doing” argument but okay sure.

Archie comes home all dusty from digging in the tunnels all morning, followed by being told that he was being kept alive by Cheryl’s God Powers to discover even worse news: Mary Andrews has stopped by unannounced for a visit. Over pizza and beer, Mary says one of the reasons she came to visit was to tell her son she’s getting a divorce from her wife. It sounds amicable enough. I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life with Mary Andrews either. When Mary says that life is precious and so not to be wasted, Archie looks thoughtful.

Veronica’s absinthe absolutely looks poisonous, don’t you think? She’s talking to her dad’s portrait while day drinking, which is an interesting way to spend your last day on earth. Veronica is still quite Catholic. After expressing a sensible sentiment - she hopes she and her father that she murdered don’t cross paths in the afterlife - she feels guilty, so she gives the portrait a kiss. Veronica’s kiss is so toxic it literally burns an entire layer of paint with a sizzle. Damn. Then Archie fucking shows up and in his customarily brutal manner he asks Veronica to give (?) or sell (?) him a diamond ring with which he’s going to propose to Betty.

How can people like Archie when he does this sort of thing to people? Veronica looks miserable as soon as her back is turned, poor thing. The thing is, half of this situation is on her, isn’t it? Why not just say what she’s feeling - if not a full on confession, then pointing out that asking your ex girlfriend that you cheated on back in the day who has had to bury two male partners AND CAN NEVER KISS ANYONE EVER AGAIN for a WEDDING RING when she’s obviously alone one day of the apocalypse is something that is a terrible thing to do and send him packing? Why pretend you’re fine when you’re not? (Uh, self reveal.)

Thankfully the show is merciful and treats me with Jabitha cuteness immediately after. In the bright light of the diner as they clear a table, Jughead is trying to talk Tabitha into accepting the franchise offer, come hell or high water. Or comet. Tabitha isn’t sure. Then she says he’s trying to be Jack to her Rose and Jughead - of course- says he has never seen Titanic because he’s partial to “early James Cameron.” Such growth he has had, our boy, no? He doesn’t say it’s because he’s a weird weirdo! He also just says ‘early James Cameron’ rather than drop words like oeuvre. Tabitha’s favorite movie of all time is the Titanic. They HAVE to watch it, she says, and he looks so cute and adoring as he mimics her tone - “We *have* to?”

At Thornhill the ceremony is afoot! Souls look like glowing jellyfish. Heather really does trap them in a big jar. Thomasina and Cheryl get it on, complete with Kissing With Tongue! I don’t like Toni but I really do like the idea of someone like Thomasina even if she feels historically kind of impossible. They look very happy and very beautiful together. Heather, though, is having qualms about this.

Archie’s campaign to be my least liked character continues to succeed. After springing on the rightly alarmed Betty that Mary Andrews is continuing her path as Terrible Parent by suddenly appearing right this day to unload her issues on to her son, he suddenly proposes. Way to set the mood, dude.

Betty is startled, but apparently what Betty wants to be on her last day on earth is kind to everyone she loves. So she is that for Archie - understanding, helpful, hopeful, loving. Betty tries to relieve Archie of his Rescuing Hero complex. She also straight out refuses to marry him. Whatever Betty wants to do with life, it’s not being married to Archie. That’s interesting. Because she doesn’t say I Will Marry You When Everything Works Out (If It Does). What she says is, in the nicest way possible, This is a Shitty Time to Be Asking This You Piece of Shit. It comes out like this: “Ask me again after Cheryl melts that comet, and you and me and everyone else survives. Or we find another way out from Riverdale.” I mean, for Archie and Betty to get married all that really is required is for the two of them to survive, you know? But she is predicating it on everyone ELSE surviving.

In short, she is saying no, and forever.

Archie refuses to take the hint. Or maybe he’s just too dumb to pick up on an bald statement. He runs out of there saying, in a terrifying way, “I’m going to break through that barrier so I can marry you, Betty Cooper.” His eyes are blank, his face is empty and his voice is devoid of hope or romance or even much emotion. Archie has just decided this is what the next step is, so he’s committed to it, without joy.

Cheryl and Toni wake up in bed post coitus in underwear that’s very different from what Thomasina and Cheryl were wearing. Cheryl thanks Toni, and Toni says it was just to save the town. Cheryl has yearnings.

When Cheryl checks in with Abigail, Abigail is very happy, and shows her a pile of knots which have to be untied to undo the spell.

Drake has called Betty! She has wonderful news - or so she thinks. Director Wilcox wants the two of them - Drake and Cooper - to HEAD UP the Serial Killer division. Betty refuses this offer too. Drake insightfully asks if this is about Archie or because of her bad experiences with TBK. Betty says it’s neither. She is ‘moving to the light.’ She doesn’t want to be a hunter of hunters anymore. That’s very… interesting. Did Betty meet her DNA quota of killings or something? Is that why she doesn’t feel drawn to crime solving anymore?

Reggie and Veronica are making nice. Poor Reggie. His pattern of always being a step behind Archie after Archie has done his damage to Veronica continues into this last day on planet Earth. Veronica is so sick of everything that she’s decided to work on friendship skills, i.e. being friends with exes like a good lesbian, ‘dating a lot’ without getting into relationships which has been her pattern her whole life, and focus on her absinthe business (much like her first true love, the Rum business). She hands the casino over to Reggie, and offers to keep him company during the apocalypse. As friends. He agrees. Reggie is so cute though. He still finds Veronica hot and would so want to rekindle any sort of sexual connection, even if he is officially fine with being friendzoned by her. His shifty eyes over his teacup as he covers up his disappointment at being rejected was marvelous.

Even nicer, we are treated to Jughead getting weepy over Titanic. Oh they are so adorable, with their his n hers cozy blankets, and a well established movie watching set up (her head in his lap, all snuggled up). He loved it, which is good, but then Tabitha says to Cole Sprouse, who has done at least one photoshoot where he was styled specifically to highlight his physical resemblance to Leo Di Caprio that the character Jughead Jones is “cuter than Leo” and it’s kind of a lot and I’m both giggly and embarrassed for everyone at the same time.

Jughead says that he can’t die OR live with himself if Tabitha doesn’t make a grab for her big opportunity to take Pop’s into the franchise business, so without saying it in so many words, she agrees that she’ll try.

As a reward and a gift to them both, Tabitha takes Jughead with her on a time traveler’s epic date where she takes him through a timeline in which they both live into old age, happily married to each other, with a son that takes after him and a daughter that takes after her. Pop’s stays in business forever, they run it together into their old age, and I guess they just grow old in Riverdale in this blameless lovely life. They’re both crying at the end of the minute long experience. I love them. They kiss tenderly.

Meanwhile, Archie is bashing a barrier with a hammer while his mom comes to yell at him. Which is about the right speed for Archie. Betty told on him to his mom. This is very Archie, to be unable to accept or give tenderness to anyone OR THE TRUTH TO HIS MOM until he’s done a spot of useless violence. Mary calls it straight - “It’s not ok to be out here hiding from the world.”

Mary thinks that Fred would’ve fought to the end too, but adds that Fred (because he was smarter than Archie) would’ve come home to spend time with his beloved.

Veronica is talking to her Daddy’s ruined portrait and drinking alone. Her nonstop alcohol consumption concerns me because I’m a prissy puritan. But I am wrong and she is right apparently because Veronica sudden has a brainwave. She’s a dialysis machine (says Drake)! She stayed in Riverdale for a reason (says Tabitha)! She’s gonna go “save her friends!”

At the Diner, under Pop’s and Jughead’s proud gaze, Tabitha signs the documents to take Pop’s national. Alexandra is thrilled, but when she says they start ‘tomorrow’ all the Riverdalers simultaneously get sad . She asks what’s wrong, but before they can drop the bad news on her head belatedly like a ton of bricks they are all summoned to Veronica’s apartment.

Heather is such a good soul (and also has no choice at this point I guess, but no matter) because she is helping Cheryl untie all the knots to undo the magic holding the town hostage. With much sadness (for me especially, because I like Heather a lot, and I love how she calms Cheryl the fuck down at all times), Heather says that she’s going to be leaving after it’s all over. She says Toni and Cheryl are “Forever Soulmates.” Heather “saw” something and says Choni are “written in the stars.” In the middle of this sad moment, their phones chime, summoning them.

Betty has Archie in bed with her, which is the only place he really listens to women at all. Betty’s egotism can’t help but come through though, when she tries to reassure Archie that his long dead father (the one he betrayed and hurt all the time) would be proud of him. Fred would be super proud of Archie, according to Betty, because he “supported me, comforted me, loved me unconditionally.” I’d rather think that Fred who wanted his son to get out to the big world away from Riverdale by earning a football scholarship to university wanted something different from his son than being a good man to just one woman but sure. OK.

Archie FINALLY takes back his fail proposal, promising not to pressure her ever again. Betty for her part says that what she wants is to marry Archie after all, and he accepts her proposal. This is SO MUCH NICER than how Archie did it. They too are summoned by Veronica.

Veronica has a plan! There’s a way to ‘augment Chery’s phoenix energies so no one has to die,’ she says. She’s going to absorb everyone’s powers to give them to Cheryl. Poison = Strength = Superpowers are all the same, according to Veronica and Riverdale. Powers combine! She says she needs to share blood, “wound to wound, blood to blood.” She even has Percival dagger to stab Archie with (she thought this through). Does this mean the general concern about AIDS has died for good? I remember reading materials for a research paper once where a scientist at the height of the AIDS crisis, which is when they figured out that straight people could get and give AIDS to each other (before then it wasn’t treated like a worldwide crisis, yay straight people!), that children would never again be doing thumb-pricked blood oaths. Well we’re doing them again!

Cheryl refuses to be cut for any reason whatsoever (she must have keloid tendencies like me) and Veronica has thought of that too! She will transfer the collective powers to Cheryl with a kiss.

I mean.

I’ve said this several times before so I might as well repeat it. VERONICA LODGE WILL ALWAYS CREATE A PARTY EVERY SEASON IN WHICH SHE INTERACTS SEXUALLY WITH A PRETTY GIRL.

So we’re ticking that box in Season 6! Yay!

The in-universe justification for these shenanigans is (a) it’s not queer baiting if it’s saving the world and (b) fire trumps poison (this must be rock paper scissors logic).

WHO are they queer baiting by the way? Do they know they’re on a tv show? Because nobody present wants Veronica to get together with Cheryl, or for Veronica to be gay.

Jughead narration breaks in right as they’re all painfully cutting their palms to voice his worry that doing any of this might make it all go terribly badly. Invulnerability, aura-vision, mind reading, portal opening, and time travel powers get absorbed by Veronica.

When Veronica approaches Cheryl for her kiss, Cheryl looks EXTREMELY excited. I thought you said this was Queer Baiting, Cheryl! Did she literally mean I’m Queer and You’re Baiting Me? OH! Maybe she did! The way Cheryl smiles delightedly into the kiss confirms my suspicions. As I knew she must be, Veronica is a wonderful kisser. Cheryl looks high.

THEN THE BEST TURN HAPPENS.

Betty, who has also kissed Veronica (and in a different world and time also Cheryl but not in this universe), asks if it worked.

Veronica thought of this too. She points a gun at Cheryl, to everyone’s alarm. (Jughead the most). Cheryl can see her ‘threatening’ aura! Then Veronica, who apparently is a crack shot, shoots Cheryl right above her right breast. The bullet didn’t penetrate! Jughead’s the MOST REASONABLE PERSON: “Veronica is nuts! What if that hadn’t worked!!??”

Tabitha and Archie think about themselves - “I should’ve stayed in Chicago!” and “I guess that means I’m not [invulnerable].”

I love Cheryl Goddess so much. She opens a big portal to go confront the comet, and her exit line is TOODLES. Cheryl, please restart your cult!

Cheryl puts on a super hero costume change to confront the comet. She looks awesome.

And then, everything is ruined because we join the Fogarties in the Bunker and Toni starts singing at her scared son whose developmental status irritates the fuck out of me. Why is he so childlike in his fully grown man self body that looks like he could be Toni’s mom? They’ve lit too many candles.

Wonderfully, we don’t have to spend a lot of time with them. We jump to Jabitha’s apartment, where they sit as a family unit with Pop’s, having had their final diner meal, hands held together in prayer. Tabitha has a wonderful singing voice.

Barchie are in bed post-coitus. They call each other primal animals, which is not wrong at all. I hate this song though.

Veronica and Reggie are sad together, as friends. Kevin and Moose are holding hands, Kevin asking if he could make Moose happy, through song. Probably not Kevin. You suck.

And Cheryl is all alone, facing the terror by herself. This is a burden. So straight (ahem) dude Archie expended a huge amount of time and energy coming up with very upper-body dependant solutions, but two women are the solution: Veronica with her strategic thinking and capacity to synthesize everyone’s abilities into a joint solution, and Cheryl with her lesbian courage and fortitude. This tracks.

Cheryl is apparently thinking about Toni, and Heather is shown alone in the Thornhill house.

I really hate this song. It’s really very terrible and cheesy. JUST IN TIME, Nana Blossom, Heather and Britta (summoned for this purpose??) untie all the knots, to a gratifying WHOOSH sound as the dome is lifted.

So in the last few minutes some questions that I had are answered.

They show Polly with Dagwood AND Juniper. I guess they never told Juniper about her dad who was resurrected and then died again because he was killed by Aunt Cheryl. And Polly never grieved the second death of Jason, maybe? I don’t know.

The Andrews and the Coopers meet the apocalypse in the living room together. Jughead closes his eyes to the incoming comet while turning his face up to it, while Tabitha glares at it directly. Reggie and Veronica hold hands in her apartment, refusing to look at what’s coming. Kevin and Tom Keller hold hands with Moose in the Champagne Suite (I think?) to meditate their way through it. Cheryl can fly while she fights the comet. She’s frantic and weepy.

So what happened next? Jughead asks, flat and unamused.

We’re shown a goldfish in a bowl.

The last minute plan that Veronica put together and executed together with Cheryl worked, he tells us, but things look weird.

All of that did something “wholly unexpected and yet also utterly inevitable.” Calling it inevitable is the Riverdale writing staff telling the audience to shut up, as though that’s ever worked. Nice try, Jughead.

It’s looking very 1950s. Archie puts on a letter jacket, looks into Betty’s window, and she’s weeping under a poster of James Dean while Alice comforts her.

Jughead tells us they are in a “simpler time” before Jason Blossom’s murder, before the Black Hood. “Back to a truly innocent time.”

When Archie bounds down the stairs, the homosexual Mary Andrews is in pearls in a 1950s kitchen also weeping over the death of James Dean. For women like her the 1950s was absolutely not a truly innocent or simpler time.

“Somehow the year is 1955.” Jughead is in the Ye Olde Blue & Gold offices, wearing his crown-and-sweater costume from that 1950s style nightmare he had a while ago. He angrily operates a very old school typewriter.

“And I’m the only one who remembers what our lives were like BC. Before the Comet.”

Jughead looks pissed.

Dun dun dun! I’m very excited for what’s going to happen in S7, assuming this ending is supposed to be an indication of what comes next, like all their season finales have always been.

#archie andrews negativity #betty cooper negatitivy #anti barchie kinda #except i also think barchie are right for each other #jabitha #anti fangs fogarty #anti tangs #anti toni topaz #wow i am being negative as fuck #riverdale opinion #riverdale 117 #riverdale season 6 #Riverdale s6 #riverdale recap #riverdale episode recap

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