One of the reasons I like Jabitha so much is that for the first time in a long time, we have a ship -- that is not the core four being paired off with each other -- that feels like it developed organically, with good pacing, with actors who have great chemistry with one another, and with a sense that this could actually be a real ship. Not an endgame ship because we all know RAS is a coward not going to put aside four seasons of foreshadowing of Bughead endgame for a new ship, but a real ship that had honest build up and may last more than two episodes.
They’ve interacted in what? Five episodes already this season? And they’ve developed! It’s not just stagnant, sharing screen time with each other interaction. Tabitha starts off kind of hostile toward him. She basically insinuates he took advantage of her grandfather’s generosity, leeching off of his wifi and his free coffee refills, and tells him under no circumstances is he going to get away with that with her in charge. She basically tells him she doesn’t trust his work ethic when she refuses to offer him an application for the waiter position. Whether she read his book, or just took Pop Tate’s no-doubt nice words about what a good kid Jughead was and decided her grandpa was viewing him through rose colored glasses, I’m pretty sure no one can say that her initial reaction to Jug was a warm one.
Then he turns down Pop Tate’s offer to bail him out of his debt. And in that moment, she realizes that most, if not all of these preconceived notions she has of him are wrong. Here is a good man, who is down on his luck, but will not take advantage of a kind soul, even when he’s basically being threatened with knee-capping by debt collectors. So she decides to take a chance on him and offer him that job. And then she hears Jughead’s warm words about her Grandpa, who she obviously loves, and she is much more open with Jug after that.
She comes in with a perception of him, has that perception changed by actions that are not meant to change her mind about him -- he’s not deliberately trying to woo her here or even manipulate her into giving him a job... he’s just being Jug -- and she exercises her agency to decide that this guy? Maybe isn’t so bad.
From there, she pals around with him outside of work. They become friends. They go out, they play darts, they do things other than work together. And she’s INTERESTED IN HIS WRITING. We all know that the fastest way to seduce Jughead Jones is to be interested in his writing. And here is this new woman, telling him she’s got a story idea for him -- one that’s right up his alley! Cryptids! Weird stuff! Conspiracy! Tabitha Tate has gone from someone who thought he was a leeching bum to someone who goes out with him and gives him story ideas, and isn’t it AMAZING what Riverdale can accomplish when it lets people talk to each other?! But I digress.
And then they flirt over investigating together! Her cute little lip bite? His eyebrow waggle when he asks if she can get him an interview with Pop? Once Jug twigs to the fact that this girl is into him (because Jughead Jones has no idea what a catch he is) he is on board!
(writing all of this out, @arsenicpanda you were right: Jabitha totally invented one-sided enemies to friends to lovers)
And you know, I actually like the fact that it’s Tabitha who takes the initiative with most of this because Jug is obviously a little gun shy after what Betty did to him (and after Jessica dumped him to a lesser extent but I don’t think he was emotionally invested in that relationship -- especially when we contrast this with Tabitha, who he is obviously invested in), and it’s nice that he gets to know that there are possibilities for him outside of his high school love. But it also demonstrates reinforces a part of Tabitha’s personality as well, because she is obviously a woman who has no issues with going after what she wants. She is refreshingly straightforward with him, with both the good (this Mothman adventure she volunteered herself into) and the bad (his alcoholism).
And you know, that’s another thing I actually really like about them, especially when compared to Archoise, and I know this parallel is being drawn a lot by people who are like LOL if you ship this you’re a racist which... just say you don’t want Jug occupied by someone else when Betty decides that she wants to be with Jughead after all and keep your fake woke for something else... but unlike Archosie, where 1) we knew Josie was leaving for Katy Keene so we knew it wasn’t going anywhere anyway and 2) was framed IMMEDIATELY as her being his caretaker, Tabitha is framed as a boss, as a friend, as an investigative partner FIRST, with her caring about Jug’s alcohol issue as just something that sort of ties into all of that. But also? She point blank tells him he needs therapy. Yes, she goes with him to group and helps him get back to a safe place after the Key Party, but we also see her throw down the gauntlet about him needing therapy. She’s happy to be supportive, but seems to know better than to be a crutch. I have a feeling that as we learn more about Tabitha, we’re going to find out why she’s so capable of dealing with situations like this (I have a feeling Jug isn’t her first kind of messy love interest), but at any rate, Tabitha seems to know how to set boundaries for herself, and that’s actually great because that’s something Jughead *also* needs to learn before he gets back with Betty.
Like, don’t get me wrong: I love Betty to pieces, but not a single one of us can say with a straight face that Betty doesn’t struggle with establishing boundaries for herself, or respecting other people’s boundaries, and no, her black box of emotional pain that she stuffs everything in is NOT a boundary, it is a coping mechanism.
And this isn’t me saying that Tabitha has to hold his hand and guide him into learning to love himself so he can be in a more adult relationship down the line with Betty, but at the same time.... that’s sort of the function of romantic relationships in general? To teach us about ourselves, to help us learn to be better communicators, to respect ourselves more, to show us what real love should look like and what behaviors should twig us to what we’re not looking for. They’re apart of growing up and I know for a fact that there are plenty of adults in the Bughead fandom who recognize that the relationships they’ve had in the past have taught them a lot about themselves, and taught them how to be a better partner in relationships that came after, or even to their spouses/life partners now, and I just don’t understand why it’s viewed as some sort of bad thing for Jughead to have that experience? Barchie wasn’t a relationship no, but it WAS important for Betty to finally realize that he was never going to be what she needed, so why can’t Jughead also have that experience with someone? And the same goes for Tabitha. To be honest, I hate this obsession with the narrative that Tabitha is a ‘speed bump’ for Bughead and how that’s an injustice to her character because like... aren’t ALL relationships between your first and your last just speed bumps along the way?
Someone else pointed out, and forgive me if it was you and I’m not giving you credit, shoot me a message and I’ll happily shout you out, but someone else pointed out something else I love about this ship and that’s what the two women in Jughead’s life... the two prominent women anyway... are symbolic of. Tabitha’s association is with Pop’s... a place that Jughead has always felt welcomed and at home in, his actual home away from home where he was loved and looked after by Pop Tate (and the unnamed waitress who slides the cup of coffee toward him and calls him Juggie in an episode, though which one, I forget). It’s some place he feels safe, and right now, he feels safe with Tabitha. She’s shown interest in him, in his world, in his writing, in his issues, without judgement. Maybe some mild skepticism at worst. But he can talk to her, and feels comfortable doing so.
Conversely, Betty is representative of the Cooper-Jones house, which -- is technically Jughead’s/FP/Gladys’s house (oh wait Alice’s mortgage mention means Gladys probably sold it back to her, okay) -- and yet, he doesn’t feel at home there at all. He doesn’t even consider going there for a place to stay. He stays with Archie, he stays at the bunker... even when they were kids, that was never his family home, it was Betty’s house. It’s why he didn’t change much about their room beyond hanging up a few posters/pictures. Sure, being away at Stonewall may have also impeded that, but the point is, there was always a deference to Betty in that space, and while that is kind of cute, it’s also extremely sad that he never felt comfortable enough to make that space his home either. And now we see that play out in how he views Betty. He will defer to her -- he will stop to help her with something, and when it ties into his own issue, he will ask for her help in turn -- but he doesn’t open up to her. He doesn’t tell her about the alcoholism or the visions, or any of that. When he asks her for help, it’s not for anything personal -- it’s got to do with a student of his that he has a vested interest in because Jug is a good person, but also because the kid is important to the mothman plot. In short, Betty is someone he doesn’t trust right now... not in the way that he needs to for them to get back together... just like he never trusted the Cooper house as a home.
It’s also worth pointing out that more than any other place in Riverdale, the Cooper house is most emblematic of secrecy and lies. So much happens behind that red door that very few people know about, and the original veneer of ‘normal, loving family’ that the Cooper’s tried to put out is nothing more than a constructed lie, and what is Betty doing right now? Keeping secrets and lying.
If you can’t tell, I really like this analogy, and I think it was a really smart way to demonstrate the differences in his relationships with these two women.
Anyway, in the end, and if this ship actually sails, it will do so having more build up, more context, and more groundwork than literally any other ship outside of the core-four. And it will be good for both of their characters -- Jughead gets to learn how to respect himself and set boundaries for himself. Tabitha gets assimilated into the town, the weirdness, and maybe even confronts a potential pattern of dating messy people if I’m reading her scenes in the Lock and Key episode correctly. They both walk away from the relationship in the end as better people who are more prepared to confront what comes next, and I think that’s about the best service a show like Riverdale could do for a ship that we know -- barring RAS or the network or something falling prey to collective amnesia -- will not be endgame.
