Waterlily: Oh, if I were Riley…
All the times I would’ve been like:
Lily explained that Vivienne believes locks breeds secrecy and lies. The obvious truth is that Vivienne needs access and control to everything in that house, including the people in it. It also sends another message: You are nothing. I am everywhere.
Also, has anybody else had this thought? Riley’s room, which is Lily’s old room, is bugged. Hidden cameras and mics. They need to sweep that room. Riley did on the first day, but she might not have known what to look for. There’s no way Vivienne isn’t watching and listening in on everything.
Riley, Declan, Emma, and Xavier all had their little meeting in her room. I wouldn’t be shocked if they started receiving messages too. Emma already believes that Lily is haunting Riley. Now, Vivienne or whoever’s behind the notes, will target them to attack their sanity. They’ll start to question if the ghost is real and argue with each other.
With all of them involved, it might be a chance to get revenge on everyone who was there at Lily’s death.
The fact that Vivienne actually did add a lock to the bathroom for Riley is also huge. She didn’t do it because she cares about Riley. She did it to hurt Lily and sabotage their friendship.
2. Lily’s batshit fucked up question
Three thoughts come to mind:
1. Lily might’ve been sexually abused or a witness to sexual abuse.
2. In narcissistic families, it’s not uncommon for a narcissistic parent to have an emotionally incestuous relationship with one or more of the children. Meaning, this parent turns to the child for emotional support and companionship the way healthy spouses would turn to each other. Lily might’ve had this kind of relationship with her dad. That combined with the absence of personal boundaries (no locks) makes the lines between partner-parent-child nonexistent. They may all be one and the same thing in that mansion of funhouse mirrors.
Lily wants praise and will seek it from any source through any means. Even if it’s by sexualizing her father with her best friend. No locks, no boundaries.
3. But mostly, at some point you just have to think to yourself:
I know this choice determines who Riley sees at the bathroom door in the present. Regardless of the chosen answer, it’s still a really psychotic question.
Riley, girl, start thinking!
This actually made me feel sick to my stomach. There are a lot of evil villains who do monstrous things in RC, but I feel like this might be the most deceitful, malicious, and disgusting. I actually wanted to throw up.
Julian has a point: What is Vivienne trying to achieve? Obviously, she wants to replace Lily with Riley. But why the audience? What is she trying to say to everyone else? —This is the new and improved Lily? This is my puppet?
Is Vivienne aware of how this looks like to the people in the audience? Maybe not if she’s incapable of empathy. She might only see what she sees: the continuation of her legacy.
But what’s truly chilling to me is the erasure of Riley. This is why I’ve been asking: Who is Riley? We still don’t know the answer to this question. Maybe Riley doesn’t know the answer to the question. But we really need to know!
Riley overhears a conversation between Tiffany and her mom that reveals their abusive relationship. Not a shocker. But when Tiffany realizes Riley knows, Tiffany reacts by threatening her and accusing her of xyz, especially in connection with Julian.
But the thing is… Riley clearly isn’t interested in becoming Mrs. Julian or competing with Tiffany. Tiffany just assumes. So why is Riley putting up with this? Walk away, girl. 🙄
Ironically, Julian is probably the one side character I’d be interested in romancing. I know people are fawning over Oliver, but for me, Julian is more appealing.
This one hit me the hardest. It shouldn’t be shocking but it was just brutal.
Depending on your choices, Riley discovers that Lily had a secret relationship with Luna or Fabian (or maybe both?). For me, it was Fabian.
What’s crushing is we find this out after all of the flirting, both in the past and present. After seeing Lily scoop him away from Riley when she knew how much Riley liked him, started a relationship with him, and never told her.
Here’s what I think. I don’t think Lily even liked Fabian. But Riley liked him and he liked Riley. Lily sees this and something clicks. The people who Lily wants love from the most—her parents—don’t love her, but they love Riley. Riley is their golden child despite the fact that she’s not their child. Lily can’t catch a break, but they’ll add a lock to the door for Riley!
Riley’s completely oblivious to the triangulation going on. She has no idea how bad this is for their friendship. She just thinks, “Man, Lily’s parents are really hard on her. I feel sorry for her, but at least they’re nice to me.”
Riley had been gushing over Fabian to Lily at their sleepovers, writing lovesick poems in front of her. Instead of letting Riley have what she wanted, Lily took the one person away from her that she wanted to love her back. Just like Riley had done to her with her parents, albeit unintentionally.
Now fast forward to the Reyes garage. Riley’s grief has tripled. Not only is she grieving Lily, but now she’s also grieving the friendship she thought she had but was a lie. On top of that, she’s grieving the things she could’ve had but was robbed of due to Lily.
Then Fabian acts like he doesn’t know why she would be so crushed. 🙄
I want this to be the wake up call that Riley needs. Realize and accept that Lily was never her friend, the Fairchilds are evil psychopaths, and a 3 month long wedding is insane. No one does that!
She needs to just explode and unleash hell on everybody in that town. Most of all the Fairchilds! I’m just gonna say it now. Burn that mansion to the ground! Just like every other mansion in RC!
She should get the hell out of there! Don’t look back. And take a hottie or two with her.
