#isolde parker

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did Penelope go trick or treating as a little girl?

She sure did!! Halloween was her favorite holiday so she would always get dressed up and go trick or treating. She didn’t have any friends to go with, but her grandfather would always take her door to door until her feet were tired and she had enough candy in her basket to go home satisfied. He taught her to always say thank you and to never take more than one candy if there was a sign that said “take one”. And once they got home he would sit with her and help her sort through her candy just to make sure everything looked safe. 

There were times Isolde would join them trick or treating but she always ended up getting bored halfway through. She preferred to just stay home and wait for Penelope and Edgar to get back. Sometimes the three of them would be sitting at the kitchen table, candy spread out everywhere, and the clock would strike twelve and they’d wish Penelope a happy birthday. 

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Did Isolde fraternize with any of the other grandparents (prudence Artie etc) or did she stay far far away from them

she must have! riverdale is a small town, there’s only so many people you can talk to. i haven’t really put too much thought into her dynamic with the other grandparents because so many of them haven’t been properly developed, but i imagine she must have crossed paths with at least a few of them at some point. this is riverdale we’re talking about…surely, there’s some history there. 

i like to imagine isolde was a wild child in her youth– not the free-spirited, confident, carefree kind but the reckless, impulsive, acting-out-for-attention kind. the girl did everything she possibly could to get her father to notice her. her mother was strict, but that didn’t stop isolde from sneaking out of the house and breaking curfew. or raiding her mother’s medicine cabinet. or having drunken hook-ups in the master bedrooms of her peers’ houses. she was out of control. 

taking all of that into consideration, i imagine she and prudence would have been natural enemies. or, at the very least, prudence did not think highly of isolde and steered clear. same goes for lewis. rodger probably viewed her as just another spoiled, northside skank. hiram’s mom, angel that she was, always shared her coke with her. hermione’s mom thought she was okay…they weren’t really friends, but she didn’t have anything against her. isolde definitely tried to put the moves on forsythe at a key party once after popping several quaaludes. whether or not her accepted her proposition, i’ll let you decide.

you know bunny and artie better than i do! what do you think they thought of her? did they ever talk?

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Penelope's worst haircut?

When Penelope was little she had bangs and this one time her usual hairdresser was out so she had to get a trim from someone else. Her mother told them not to cut off more than two inches before leaving to get a croissant down the street. So this hairdresser cuts off exactly two inches everywhere— including Penelope’s bangs.

By the time she’s finished blow-drying, Penelope’s in tears. Isolde comes back and nearly has a stroke when she sees what they’ve done to her daughter. She drops a dime in the hairdresser’s tip jar, takes Penelope’s hand, and walks out. Thank God Penelope was only four and didn’t have to go to school. She was sad for weeks.

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Did Isolde and Ernest talk about mental health with Penelope at all? What were their feelings on it?

They absolutely did not. Ernest and Isolde’s conversations about mental health were limited to: a) their reactions to stories they heard on the news, and b) brief mentions of Isolde’s mother. They were never healthy or informative or even necessarily accurate— and there was always some form of judgment involved.

Ernest believed mental illness was a manifestation of an impure soul, brought on by the absence of God in someone’s life. Isolde believed mental illness was something innate— something you were born with that couldn’t be helped. Her mother struggled with mental illness and never sought help, so as far as Isolde was concerned there was no cure. Ernest also believed mental illness was synonymous with weakness.

As you can imagine, all this talk was very damaging for Penelope to hear. It bred the belief in her that mental illness was something to be ashamed of. This was particularly difficult for her to reconcile once she was older and she realized she suffered from a few. It’s why she’s never sought help or openly admitted to having any.

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does penelope ever say something, realize she sounds just like her mother, and then horrify herself?

All. The. Damn. Time.

People used to tell her she sounded just like her mother and now that’s true in every sense and she hates it. She hates it so much. Sometimes she surprises herself with the things she says. As a child she always used to wonder how her mother could be so callous and here she is, 40 years later, echoing her words. She disgusts herself sometimes, she really does.

“We’re not our parents,” Clifford told her once. Yeah right.

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Besides having a hard time saying her own name, did little Penelope have any other speech problems?

i’m glad you bring this up because it’s definitely something i’ve considered before but never fully explored. the answer is yes! little penelope had some difficulties with speech.

for starters, it was slightly delayed. not enough to raise any flags, but her parents were concerned nevertheless. when penelope finally started talking it was a huge relief to both of them— sure, her words were a bit jumbled, but that was to be expected. after all, she was still very young.

as she got older, however, they noticed she was having trouble enunciating her r’s. she also had a habit of replacing “th” sounds with “f” sounds (ex. baf vs. bath). one of the neighbors told them penelope must have an articulation disorder. the color in ernest’s face immediately drained— he did not like the word “disorder” one bit.

the next day, isolde made penelope an appointment with a speech therapist in greendale. within four months penelope was pronouncing her words without any issues.

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was there ever a time penelope tried to bring up a personal problem with her mother? was Isolde any help?

Oh, I’m sure! Penelope was always looking for positive attention from her mother when she was a child. There were probably lots of times she brought up an issue she was having, however minor it was. I could see Penelope telling Isolde she was having a difficult time making friends in kindergarten, mentioning she was getting teased about her hair color, admitting she was struggling to cope with her grandfather’s passing. Isolde was probably only helpful a handful of times (even when she tried she wasn’t very good at giving advice/comforting her daughter), but I’m sure Penelope cherished every one of those moments all the same. Any minor effort from her mother to be helpful was something Penelope appreciated and held onto. 

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Are Penelope's parents still alive? If not, how did they die?

Nope. Ernest was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease when Penelope was 17 (though she didn’t find out until after she married Clifford) and died of complications resulting from the disease when Penelope was 30. Isolde followed two years later, dying of a stroke.