Kenny Sage Talks TV, Yo!

Changing It Up

2017-05-30T13:02:00.001-07:00

So I've decided to end this blog and start a new one with more of a general focus on pop culture. I've enjoyed writing this blog, but I just needed more freedom to write different kinds of posts and I felt the best way to get that freedom was to start over entirely. So thanks for reading, those of you who read this blog. If you want to follow over to my new blog No Original Thoughts, you can do so here. Thanks for coming on this ride with me. I hope to see you on the other side.

Kenny Sage

Jane The Virgin Meets Destiny in Chapter Sixty-Four

2017-05-24T02:20:00.002-07:00

-This week in titles: Jane The Ordained.

-Wow. By Jane The Virgin standards, this was a pretty calm finale. I mean, yes there was a surprise pregnancy reveal, a wedding that threatened to turn into disaster every step of the way, multiple storms literal and figurative, another significant bus ride, a dangerous new alliance, secrets revealed, building romance, a big break-up, the life of one regular character threatened, the livelihood of another taken away and the arrival of a new (to us) love interest, but none of that really matches the emotional devastation of Mateo being kidnapped right after birth in season 1 or Rose shooting Michael in season 2. I'll certainly be curious about what happens next in season 4, but I definitely won't be an anxious as I was in the days leading up to the season 2 and 3 (especially 3) premieres. Which is a good thing. "Jane" already delivered the big gut-punch of the season back when Michael was killed at the mid-point. Had yet another season ended with some cataclysmic thing happening to Jane, it would've been too much to take. Instead we got an ending that was surprisingly hopeful (for the Villanueva's and Rogelio at least) and sets the stage for all kinds of possibilities going into season 4. It was a fitting end to a strong season of this wonderful show. So let's break down some of these developments a bit.

-Is there such a thing as destiny? Are people meant to come into each other's lives? Is love something that's meant to be? At the beginning of the series, Jane Villanueva would've answered "yes" to every one of these questions. She was a true romantic with a future that was all planned out and right in front of her. Even when she was accidentally inseminated and reconnected with a man she had a meaningful connection with one night years ago, it all seemed like destiny falling into place, and when she went to the altar with Michael after a long time apart, it felt inevitable, like it was supposed to happen. Over the course of the season though, as Jane lost Michael and grew older, her romanticism faded and she started to question the idea that things were "meant to be". Life isn't that easy. So when Jane tries to plan the wedding ceremony of her parents and tries to put into words why they're meant to be, nothing she comes up with feels right. She loves her parents and believes they have a true love so why can't she put it into words? Aren't they of all people meant to be? This question is where Chapter Sixty-Four does something surprising. It has Jane decide that no, Xiomara and Rogelio aren't meant to be. Instead, as the episode piles up obstacles and problems that threaten to derail the wedding entirely, it shows how Xo and Ro choose to be together, in the face of countless obstacles and three seasons worth of turbulence, they chose each other. It's not true love because it's meant to be, it's true love because they chose not to give up. It's a powerful idea for the show to explore and it does so masterfully, turning all the contrivances building throughout the episode that conspire to ruin the wedding from a tired old TV staple (You can probably count the number of TV weddings that go off without a hitch on one hand) into something more masterful, a sign of two people in love refusing to let anything stand in their way even when nature itself seemed aligned against them.

-I'll admit that I was a bit worried that something might ultimately end the engagement between Xo and Ro. So many times on "Jane", couples seem to be on the right track only to suddenly get pulled apart in less than an episode (For example, Rafael and Petra, who got together last episode and fell apart almost right away. We'll get to that). Xo and Ro have also had so many up and downs that it's hard to keep track of how many times they broke up and got back together. And yeah, they were solid now that Rogelio had reneged on his plans to have a kid of his own, but when Darci shows up heavily pregnant from the unprotected hate sex she and Rogelio had when they were together, it seemed quite possible that Rogelio and Xo would put their relationship on hold while they figured this out. Because it felt like the wedding might not happen though, that made it all the sweeter when Xo realizes that she's not going to walk away from Rogelio and does want to marry him after all.

-I was a bit disappointed that the idea of Rogelio wanting another kid had essentially been waved away because it made much of his season 3 arc and everything he went through with Darci into a way to stall for time until he changed his mind and got back with Xo as everyone knew he should. I should have had more faith in the "Jane" writers though. Darci being pregnant is a great way to show that Rogelio's quest to have a child does matter and will be affecting his life for a long time to come. It also means we get more Justina Machado, which is always a good thing.

-All the disasters and crises cause Xo and Ro to have a more intimate ceremony, which was at least partly because on a practical level the show probably couldn't pull off the kind of star-filled extravaganza a Rogelio wedding would demand. It works very well on a story level though, reinforcing that even with a ceremony with just their family, Rafael, Petra, and some random guests taking shelter from the storm, even with a muddied-dress and minimal lighting, as long as these two are together, they're still having their fairy tale wedding.

-The narrator mentioning that Xiomara looked beautiful to the people who loved her most was a wonderful callback to when Michael was trying stand-up and his set was well-received by the people who loved him most. Also with the way the narrator added an "including me" and the immediate shot of Mateo afterwards, I'm now pretty convinced that the narrator is a future Mateo who's written books about his mother's life.

-In an episode full of heart-warming tear-jerking moments, Alba yelling her heartfelt speech about how much she loves Xo and how proud of her she is so Xo wouldn't cry and ruin her make-up almost takes the cake. To be fair though, a letter from Michael written before he married Jane, explaining why he and her are meant to be is pretty damn hard to top.

-Though Jane The Virgin is a big fan of flashbacks, since Michael died, the show has refrained from using Brett Dier up until now. This is probably a wise choice. People needed time to adjust to the new status quo and having him pop up constantly in flashbacks would have been like rubbing salt in the wound, especially because you're immediately reminded of how charming and likeable Brett Dier is in the role. Tonight uses him well though as Jane's reverend informs her about a letter Michael wrote her before they got married that explained how he felt about her. This allows us to see flashbacks of Michael and Jane at their peak, about to be married and move into a home of their own, trading goofy banter and just being in love. Of course Jane would become fixated on trying to find this letter. Who wouldn't want to read new words from a loved one who was gone? It also ties into her story well and the episode's exploration of the idea of destiny. Jane wants to find this letter because it's a lost love letter from her dead husband, but also because if she could reconnect with her great love for a moment, then she might be able to use this letter as inspiration for the wedding ceremony. If she were to find this letter right before the ceremony, wouldn't that be meant to be? Ultimately she doesn't find the letter before the ceremony but the time she spends looking for it causes a series of events that lead her to the inspiration she needs on the bus.

-Fateful bus rides are one of those recurring motifs that "Jane" likes to work in at least once every season. Jane was on the bus the day she fainted and learned she was pregnant. She was on the bus when her water broke. She took the bus to her wedding. She takes the bus to her parent's wedding and this is where she sees an ad for upcoming book releases that includes a certain little book called Falling Snow by Jane Villaneuva. All of Jane's hard work and effort have paid off and the show uses this to have her come to her realization about what to say at Xo and Ro's wedding. Raf thinks seeing her name up there must feel meant to be but it doesn't feel meant to be for her because it wasn't easy. "Meant to be" implies something had to be easy but it took a lot of pain and strife and effort and hard choices to get this book published. The satisfaction Jane gets from seeing her name was the result of a choice she made to not give up and that leads her to realize exactly what she needs to say at the ceremony. It's a clever way to tie Jane's arc this year to the arc of her parents and the comparison feels totally natural. It's also a good way to have Jane realize that she no longer believes in destiny, right up until the ending when fate steps in (We'll get to that in a minute).

-With all the pressure Jane's under this episode and the spectre of Michael hanging over things, Jane's new-found feelings for Rafael are underplayed as she tries to ignore them. Unfortunately Petra picks up on them and becomes convinced that Rafael would still pick Jane over her if it came to it, which combined with a newly free Chuck trying to win her back winds up ending Petra and Rafael before they could really begin. It's a frustrating moment because even though Petra is right to be concerned that Jane has feelings for Rafael and her reaction is in-character, it also feels forced, like something thrown into the episode to manufacture maximum drama. Add in that intimate hug between Raf and Jane as they laugh off Petra's insistence that the two have feels for each other and the fact that Rafael's feelings for Jane are being kept ambiguous and it feels like the show is positioning things for a love triangle where everyone is on equal footing, which is less interesting than if Jane has to hide her feelings while Raf dates Petra. Of course, the episode kind of realizes this and has Petra off to get Raf back before she's waylaid, while Jane's ultimate decision to tell Rafael about her feelings also gets waylaid. Hopefully the show reverses this Raf/Petra break-up early on into season 4 because this feels like an unnecessary regression.

-OK, let's talk about that ending. So during the wedding reception, Petra and Rafael's assistant gives her the letter Michael had written, which she received from the previous owner of the house where Michael had stashed the letter who the current owners had contacted after Jane went there looking. It's a beautiful letter, designed to assure the Team Michael diehards that Jane and Michael truly were meant to be, give Jane permission to move on with Michael's "never doubt that I want you to be happy", and also make a strong case in favour of destiny. Sure Jane and Michael chose to be together, but they had only met at all because Michael stopped for a burger on his way back from a shift he wasn't supposed to be working and chose to answer a noise complaint. He made a bunch of random choices based on events that he had no way of controlling and he met the love of his life because of it. That's destiny. Meanwhile the series of choices that led to Jane getting the letter at all (Jane's choice to look for the letter, and check the old house, leading to the current owner's choice to contact the previous owner who had chosen to take that letter) has brought her back to Adam, her first great love.

-As far as season-ending twists go, this is a strong one and a welcome wrench into the road to Jane and Rafael getting back together. Adam was hinted at several episodes back and the references to Jane falling in love and breaking up with him in the flashbacks meant his appearance wasn't really a surprise. Having him be in possession of the letter though was a definite surprise and a great way to tie up the episode's look into destiny. Jane and Adam sure seemed destined to cross paths again, but are they meant to be? We'll have to wait until next season to find out, but I'm excited to learn more about this previously unknown chapter in Jane's life.

-Jane's first love being named Adam (the first man) is a great biblical allusion. Bravo whoever came up with that name for the character.

-In crime plot news, Scott's killer is finally revealed and it turns out to be Eileen. Not Rose pretending to be Eileen, but the actual Eileen who Rose had paid to leave the country under threat of death. A drunken Scott saw her and fearing that he would say something to give her away, Eileen kills him and flees. It'd be an underwhelming conclusion to a mystery that ran out of steam a few episodes back if not for the fantastic use of The Midnight Runner's Come On Eileen, which scores the whole flashback sequence. It's now obvious that naming Rose's new identity Eileen was solely so they could use that song for this specific scene and that's wonderful.

-With Rose finally behind the bars, the show finds a surprising new antagonist when Luisa finds out that Rafael lied about his cancer coming back. As I mentioned last week, Luisa's arc this season has been about her trying not to choose between her girlfriend and her family. Last week she picked her family, and now risks losing the love of her life because of it. Luisa and Rafael have always had a strained relationship due to Luisa's addiction issues and general "trainwreck" status but Rafael has always felt a loyalty to her until he found out the truth about "Eileen". Justin Baldoni and Yara Martinez have always had terrific sibling chemistry that made it easy to care about their relationship so watching that relationship be completely destroyed over the course of a single scene as Rafael pours out all his pent-up frustration and resentment is hard to watch. It feels earned though, the natural culmination of everything that's happened between these two this season and it leads to exciting story possibilities going forward. It also leads to a fantastic use of the heartglow as the warm love that Luisa feels for her brother turns into black hatred. Luisa has been a character that the show has often struggled to use in a meaningful way, but her personal connections to the characters (Rafael in particular) and the sympathy that Martinez's performance generates should make her into a compelling antagonist for the next little while.

-I predicted that Luisa would use the clause in Emilio's will against Rafael to make him lose everything. I had forgotten however that Luisa didn't know that part of the "Rafael is adopted" saga. Enter Anezka. When Rafael's discarded (for good reasons) sister meets Petra's discarded (for good reasons) sister, I gasped in delight even before the #TwistedSisters hashtag popped up. It's just such a natural character pairing. Both of these characters love their siblings, but have inflicted a lot of hurt onto them while being hurt by them. Of course they would team up. Suddenly Scott fixing the will addendum all those episodes back becomes more than a misdirect about why he was killed and Luisa's vast knowledge about how alcohol works comes in handy to help make Anezka realize that Petra had drugged her the night "Scott" broke up with her. So Anezka steals Rafael's phone and lures a "wanting to get back together" Petra to a secluded spot where she's waiting with a gun. Luisa kicks Rafael out of the Marbella and officially takes control. It leaves both Rafael and Petra in a very uncertain place to end the season. Rafael has been defined by his wealth and privilege for so long, it'll be interesting to see how he reacts to losing it and how he'll fight back against Luisa. Meanwhile it seems unlikely that Petra will die or be replaced again, there's still a lot of damage that Anezka could do. I suspect she'll have Petra sign away her shares of the Marbella to her or Luisa. Whatever happens I'm excited to see where this all goes.

-Well that's it for Jane The Virgin season 3. This continues to be one of my favourite shows on TV and I'm going to miss it a lot while it's gone. October can't come soon enough.

Jane The Virgin Goes Full Fairy Tale in Chapter Sixty-Three

2017-05-16T02:15:00.002-07:00

-So I've been dropping the ball on doing these "Jane" recaps the past couple weeks, but I'm hoping to pick that ball back up and finish the season strong.

-This Week in Titles: Jane the Maid of Honor

-One of the core themes of these Post-Michael episodes of "Jane" have been how Jane's views about love and romance has changed after all she's been through and that's a big part of Chapter Sixty-Three. Jane used to be an idealistic girl who was a strong believer in the idea of the fairy tale romance and it's "happily ever after". It's a big part of why she ultimately chose to wait until marriage before having sex. Now that she's had her fairy tale romance abruptly end though, she's lost that belief in "happily ever after" and doesn't take to fairy tales the way she used to (Her changing the ending of Cinderella to be more realistic about the struggles any lasting relationship faces, in addition to giving Cinderella a fulfilling job outside the monarchy is a total Jane move). The Jane of season 1 would've never been able to throw herself into a casual relationship like season 3 Jane. Jane's a bit more cynical now and her romanticism has faded. It hasn't vanished though and Chapter Sixty-Three has Jane trying to make a fairy tale romance come true for her parents, while starting to open again to it happening for herself.

-The theme for tonight's episode is (obviously) Fairy Tales, which allows for a lot of fun visual moments throughout, from the storybook recreation of Rafael and Petra's first season "romance" to Jane's constantly growing nose whenever she's lying through her teeth. It also allows for a lot of good narrative moments as fairy tales are universal enough that it's easy to filter everything through a fairy tale context.

-"Jane" has done an excellent job establishing what a strong bond Jane has with her parents, especially her mother, so when she throws herself into planning their "fairy tale" wedding after the original planners quit because they feel Xo is too old for "fairy tale", it's a totally in-character move for her. She loves her parents and would do anything to make them happy, even if it means running herself ragged trying to plan an extravagant wedding in a very short time-frame. Of course Jane's single-mindedness has it's consequences and her decision to put off ending her relationship with Fabian so she can get access to his horse trainer and stable of white horses winds up backfiring spectacularly.

-I missed writing about the episodes that compose the bulk of Jane's fling with Fabian but I've been very impressed with Francisco San Martin's performance. He takes what could have been a one-note meathead and imbues him with just enough substance that he's believable as a human being even if he's a fairly shallow one. So when Rogelio accidentally lets it slip that Jane was planning to break up with him, his retaliation is understandable, even if it's also immature and petty. We know that he was more invested in this relationship than Jane was so his genuine hurt keeps him sympathetic right up until he calls Jane a slut. Even then, he starts to regain sympathy when Jane assures him that he didn't mean nothing to her. He loses it again when he tries to punch Rogelio in the face, but it's a testament to San Martin that you still can't totally hate the guy. If this is the last we see of Fabian (And I hope it isn't), it's a fitting send-off for him.

-Xo being mad at Rogelio for missing all their appointments didn't really work for me as a source of drama. Yes, it's completely fair for her to be disappointed that she didn't get to do all this stuff with him and him escalating the stand-off with Fabian was unnecessary, but it feels like she's letting Jane off the hook too easy for her role in starting the whole mess by lying to Fabian. It did lead to the episode's best scene though, so I guess it's not all bad.

-Gina Rodriguez and Andrea Navedo have probably the best mother-daughter chemistry on television. The dynamic between Jane and Xo always feels believable and lived in. So it's nice that the episode found time for an extended sequence of them just getting drunk and talking through all their frustrations (Rodriguez and Navedo also do terrific "drunk" acting). It's a nice sweet scene as they talk about just wanting to see each other get their "fairy tale" romance. It also allows for the episode to address the "Michael" of it all a bit more naturally than if it had come up earlier in the episode. You can really feel the love pour through and it makes the sudden appearance of Rogelio (after a priority check text from Jane) with his carriage ride all the better. the scene also does a really good job establishing Jane's headspace as being back in romantic mode (albeit a very wasted romantic mode), which is important for the episode's next best scene (Of which I'll discuss more shortly).

-Jane's going to be officiating her parent's wedding, which is fitting (She is the perfect middle ground between a priest and Ricky Martin after all) and should also be very sweet.

-Rogelio brushes off the possible impact of walking off set to be with Xo because she's more important. It's a sweet moment, but now I'm anxious that Rogelio is going to get fired over this. Though if he did get fired, maybe that would lead to them finally doing "The Passions of Steve" in season 4. It always felt weird that that never amounted to anything beyond an excuse to keep Rogelio in his reality show for a bit longer.

-Of course the other significant thing Jane is dealing with this week is Petra and Rafael considering getting back together. The show has done a really good job getting us to root for Rafael and Petra (something that would've been unthinkable back in season 1) by making Rafael's renewed affection for his ex-wife feel like a natural and organic development for him. At the same time, it doesn't forget the significant baggage between these two characters. It took a long time for Petra to get over Rafael and she did some terrible things during that time. She's right to be wary and Jane's right to initially tell her not to get back with Rafael. By having their history up close and personal throughout the episode, it also makes the climatic scene where a very drunk Jane simultaneously advises Raf and Petra right into each other's arms all the more powerful. These two have been through a lot of bad, but it doesn't mean it's not worth trying again. That they're willing to do so is worth rooting for.

-Jane's initial objections to the idea of Rafael and Petra have a more selfish, yet understandable motive behind them too, one even Jane doesn't understand until later on. Jane's afraid that if Rafael and Petra are together, her and Mateo will be forgotten, like paupers in a fairy tale desperate for attention from the royal family. It's an irrational fear and Jane knows this, but it doesn't keep her from feeling hesitant. Of course once Rafael assures drunk Jane that he loves her and would never forget her or Mateo, that opens up a whole new set of worms.

-The other thing that makes Jane reuniting Rafael and Petra an emotionally effective moment is that it happens right as Jane is finding her romantic feelings for Rafael emerging. Now, I've expressed hesitation before about the show going back to the Jane/Rafael romance well, but I always knew we'd get back there eventually and this is a really smart way to handle it. For one, Rafael being with Petra again means we're still a ways away from Jane and Rafael actually being a couple again should they go that way (Unless Raf and Petra immediately break up in the finale, which is a plausible possibility.). For another, Jane is in a very vulnerable place when these feelings re-emerge, and all of her feelings are heightened. Her feelings for Rafael might not actually be romantic feelings, but after all the love talk with Xo, she's just reading them that way. At the very least, she doesn't seem to trust these feelings, which is why her pushing Rafael and Petra together has a tinge of desperation to it. Of course, it's also clear that this topic will be explored more in the finale, so I'm willing to wait to see where it goes before passing judgement. I trust Jennie Snyder Urman and her writers though, so I'm sure wherever Jane's new feelings for Rafael go, they'll be handled carefully and respectfully for all of us Team Michael people still with the show.

-Mentioning Raf's past with cancer in the recap is a necessary evil. It's brought up so infrequently that it does warrant a reminder, but the moment it's mentioned, you're tipping off the audience that it's going to be a significant plot point. "Jane" handled it well though, letting the fake-out with Raf telling Luisa his cancer had come back play out just long enough before revealing it as a ploy to lure Luisa back to town.

-Luisa's entire arc this season has been about her trying not to choose between her family and her great love, who has hurt her family over and over again. Having Rose masquerade as Eileen and trying to forget all that murder stuff ever happened was a very destructive move, but it fits in with what we know about Elisa. Of course it all comes crashing down tonight as Rafael uses his history with cancer to lure Luisa and Eileen back into the open, a move that's one of the more underhanded things Raf has done, but justifiable considering all Rose has done. So Luisa picks her family over her love once and now she stands to lose that love and her family, considering that Rafael's lie is sure to snap the last strand of connection between the two. It's a story that would be more effective if Luisa had been more integral to the season rather than a distraction we drop in on every several episodes or so but it still works here.

-Just when I thought "Jane" had run out of stories for Rose, she's finally captured and unmasked by the police. Hopefully she stays in police custody for a while. Rose on the run has been done to death at this point. Rose being put on trial for everything she's done over the course of the show so far? That could be an interesting crime arc for the show, especially since Jane has never really had the opportunity to confront Rose for kidnapping her son or for being directly responsible for Michael's death. Whatever happens, I hope Rose isn't broken out at the end of the season. At this point they're just prolonging her arc for no reason.

-Having that paper with the drawing of the woman Chuck met with turn out to be Eileen was a bit disappointing, if only because it made that entire cliffhanger cheap. That being said, I don't think she killed Scott. It seems too obvious to have her be the killer again and this whole plot has been leaning really hard on misdirects. So who killed Scott then? I'm going to think outside the box and guess Jorge, because we don't know for sure that Chuck was the "J.P." that the cops were so interested in, and we don't know Jorge's last name. It'd also be an easy way to add some much needed emotional stakes back into this story that has lost a lot of steam the longer it's been dragged out.

-What are the odds that an angry Luisa is going to reveal the truth about Rafael being adopted and not a legal heir to Emilio's fortune to the public in retaliation for his lying to her? Pretty good, I'd say, especially because the secret of his adoption is still a significant Chekov's Gun just waiting to go off.

-Rogelio explaining the wedding is happening next week for TV schedule reasons followed by a big bumper for next week's finale might be the best 4th-wall breaking joke "Jane" has done all season, though the Honey Bunches of Oats product placement comes close.

-Jane reflexively punching Fabian when he takes a swing at Rogelio and breaking his nose was a great pay-off to all that boxing that she's been doing.

-Next week: It's the season finale and Xo and Rogelio are finally getting married! Hopefully! This show loves throwing last-minute curveballs at these two and the promo seems to tease a huge curveball (I won't spoil what it actually is here. Just avoid promos for the finale if you can.).

Riverdale Chapter Thirteen: The Sweet Hereafter

2017-05-14T20:31:00.002-07:00

-It happened guys. It actually happened. After a season of build-up and waiting, Jughead Jones finally ate a burger visibly on camera! Finally this feels like an Archie show! Talk about fan service! I'm surprised they didn't try to milk that moment for all it's worth but putting it in slo-mo while Reunited played or something like that. Anyways that was probably the most important thing that happened in the episode so we can probably wrap up this review now. Great season everyone! Just kidding. We're gonna talk about the rest of the episode too.

-Partway through The Sweet Hereafter, I had a revelation about this first season of Riverdale: this has all been a prologue for the real story they've been wanting to tell. This first season has been about a small, picture-perfect town with dark secrets behind it that a murder threatens to bring to the surface. While a group of teens try to get to the truth, no matter the cost, the rest of the town has essentially tried to ignore the murder and move past it, hoping that the whole thing would just go away. But the whole thing didn't go away and solving the death of Jason Blossom has only revealed just how dark, corrupt, and dangerous Riverdale is, no matter how much the mayor and her ilk try to ignore it or blame it on scapegoats. With our heroes established, their relationships in interesting places, and the stakes finally clear, the stage is now set for an explosive second season about the town trying to salvage it's soul at all costs. It's a risky move doing a whole season of TV that's basically set-up for the next season and few are able to pull it off, but Riverdale, with it's bold reimagining of comic book icons, anchored with strong performances, sharp wit, and a healthy dose of weirdness accomplishes it, making for a strong season that (mostly) never felt like we were waiting for the good stuff.

-I was a bit underwhelmed by the obvious reveal of Cliff Blossom as the killer last week but as the consequences of that reveal and the newly exposed drug syrup empire seep out this week, it becomes clear that this was 100% the best decision for the purposes of the story, which makes me like the reveal more and more. On an micro, episode-by-episode level Riverdale could be a bit of a mess, but I have a feel that the big picture, seasonal arc stuff is going to hold up well on a rewatch because of how structurally sound it all is.

-Another thing I realized during The Sweet Hereafter is that Archie's uselessness and disconnectedness from the murder mystery all season long has essentially been his arc for the season (Well, his arc for the season that wasn't about his music). Apart from his love of music, Archie's defining character trait is his love for his friends and family. All season long Archie has had to watch them suffer and deal with all this stuff and feel helpless about the whole thing. In The Sweet Hereafter, he decides to try and take action, first by the sweet, yet completely useless gesture of writing a song for his friends, and then by the actually impressive move of punching through a frozen pond to save Cheryl's life (Hey, buff Archie wound up having a story purpose!). It's a nice culmination for the character's journey this season and between this and the ending (more on that part in a bit), I'm actually interested to find out what's going to happen to Archie next season, which is more than I could say an episode ago.

-Alright, so I'm not trying to diminish from Archie heroically saving Cheryl's life, which was easily the strongest moment the character has had all season. That being said, why did he not alternate hands once the one he was using started heavily bleeding?! I get doing this single-handedly is more dramatic and probably more interesting on a visual level, but it feels like Archie breaking his hand (Which KJ Apa actually did while shooting that scene.) could have been easily avoided. Again, not taking away from what he did but I did find myself shouting "Alternate hands, you goon!" at my TV during that scene.

-Of all the characters on Riverdale, the one who has changed the most over the course of the season is Betty, going from a frustrated, reserved girl under the thumb of her mother to the confident, fierce young woman we saw tonight, willing to do whatever it took to make sure the truth about what happened wasn't ignored, even if it meant retaliation (Also, the pigs blood message and hanging voodoo doll seemed really hardcore for high school cruelty). I've been singing Lili Reinhart's praises all season long for how well she captures the core of Betty and she capped off a season of great performances in fine form tonight.

-Another thing I was impressed with in this episode of Riverdale: how well they pulled off the cliche "Hero gives big speech forcing everyone to confront unpleasant truths that the speech was supposed to help them avoid" scene. Every beat of it was predictable, down to the spontaneous standing ovation from everyone except the mayor yet it worked like gangbusters as the natural culmination to Betty's arc for the season. Again, I credit Reinhart who poured a lot of passion into every word of that speech, elevating what could've been a half-hearted summation of the season's themes into something special.

-So apparently the reason Riverdale was dancing around the word abortion a few weeks ago in reference to something Hal did to Alice was because they were actually talking about an adoption. Turns out Betty has a secret older brother out in the world somewhere. It's a surprising twist rooted in Archie history (Betty has two seldom-seen siblings in the comics) and it'll be interesting to see how they deal with this information going before. After all, if you introduce the idea of a secret brother, the laws of storytelling demand that you pay that off at some point.

-The most ridiculous sequence in the episode has to be the parts set at Southside High, where a newly transferred Jughead finds himself surrounded by a bunch of neighborhood toughs who look like rejected extras from Grease. There's a misdirect where it looks like the kids are going to beat him up or something but then he wins them over off-camera, probably by flashing the irresistible Cole Sprouse smolder.

-If you had asked me around the midpoint of the season how I expected Jughead's story to resolve, I would not have guessed him joining up with the Serpents, but the finale does a really good job showing how this is the natural conclusion to his arc for this year. Jughead's biggest desire all season was to have a proper home and a family to belong to. That's why he had gotten so hopeful about F.P. turning his life around, even though the chances of F.P. becoming a proper caretaker were slim. Now he's about to lose his father for a long time and has found himself being essentially ostracized and banished by the town he's stuck in. Yes he still has Betty and his friends, and the scene of him and Betty exchanging "I Love Yous" is incredibly sweet (I'm officially onboard with Bughead as a pairing now). Still, when the Serpents show up offering him family and a place to belong, it makes total sense that he'd put on that jacket. Jughead has found a way to feel closer to his father, but with Betty's fears of a distance growing between them and judging on that look she has as he puts on the jacket, season 2 could be putting Jughead at risk of losing the family he really needs. It's a compelling story for the character and I'm excited to see how it unfolds.

-I hope this isn't the last we see of Skeet Ulrich. He's added a lot of depth to what could've been a one-note character and he elevates the work of everyone around him with his performance.

-So... Cheryl is taking this whole thing pretty well. All season long Madelaine Petsch has played Cheryl as someone who's barely stable, just one push away from being sent completely over the edge. So it makes sense that finding out her father had killed her brother and learning that essentially everything she knew about her family was a lie would lead her to attempt to kill herself, especially with her mother basically saying that's what they should do. Madelaine Petsch is terrific playing this broken, desolate version of Cheryl and there's genuine tension in her scenes leading up to the moment where she falls through the ice. Of course a vision of zombified Jason seems to confirm to her that no, she doesn't want to die like this and by the end of the episode she's ready to embark on a new path, by burning down Thornhill. It's a stunning sequence that sets up a promising new status quo for Cheryl and Penelope as they find themselves needing to redefine who they are.

-So Hermione has just gotten more and more shady this season as she's fallen back under Hiram's sway. Her zero sympathy when she walks in on a clearly distraught Cheryl and the lengths she goes to to try and get Fred to sell his part of the drive-in land continue this pattern but I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt that she's trying to get Fred to sell for his protection because she still cares about him. I guess it'll all come down to her reaction about him being shot next season. Meanwhile Veronica has fully turned against both of her parents, setting the stage for an interesting power-struggle going into season 2.

-The most impressive thing about the first season of Riverdale might be how the most famous love triangle of all time never materializes after those first couple episodes. Betty and Jughead get involved while Archie is romancing Val and then Archie just moves onto Veronica. They feint towards Archie being jealous of Jughead and Betty or Betty not being OK with Archie and Veronica but everyone seems pretty content with how things have ended up by episode's end.

-OK, that ending. Last episode I talked at length about Archie's disconnect from the central mystery of the season and expressed a desire that he be more connected in season 2. Well, looks like I'm getting what I wished for. Fred getting shot in what Jughead assures us was a "not random act of violence" is a great way to set up a second season that should be considerably more personal to our hero whether or not Fred dies (I'm assuming he'll live but exit interviews from showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa have compared this moment to both Batman and Spider-Man's origins so they could easily kill Fred). Again, one of Archie's only character traits is his love for his family and now his worst nightmare has happened right in front of him It's a moment that comes by surprise (Though Fred's talk about not knowing or feeling safe in this town anymore and his refusal to sell his part of the drive-in land does alert us that something will probably happen to him) and is effectively harrowing. Where the disappearance and murder of Jason Blossom felt stylized and surreal, this feels very grounded. It's easy to see how this could potentially tear the town apart, as Jughead promises in his closing narration.

-A lesser show would've made us wait all summer to find out who had been shot, but Riverdale is smart enough to know it's more emotionally effective to know it was Fred (Like anyone would believe that Archie had been shot anyways) and that final shot of Archie holding his gravely injured father is an effectively devastating note to end the season on.

-This Week in Hot Archie: Archie and Veronica had a network-friendly sex scene y'all! There's something you wouldn't see in an Archie comic.

-Archie's music is still bland and forgettable, in case you were curious on if I've come around on it yet.

-So Clifford was using his Maple Syrup empire as a front to smuggle in Heroin from Montreal. Hiram tried to sabotage Fred's construction site with friends from Montreal several episodes back. That tells me two things: 1. Montreal is apparently the epicenter of crime in the Riverdale universe. 2. There's a strong chance that the Hiram is connected to Clifford's drug business. After all, we never found out why the Blossoms were paying money to the Lodges.

-F.P. Jones is definitely reading a Sabrina The Teenage Witch comic in prison. Foreshadowing perhaps or just a fun Easter egg? Guess we'll find out in season 2.

-The whole "Northside vs Southside" thing is very reminiscent of the class war in Veronica Mars, which is not a bad thing. If you're gonna get inspiration from somewhere, Veronica Mars is a great place to start.

-If there's a benefit to Jughead joining up with the Southside Serpents, it's that we finally get the introduction of Hot Dog, Jughead's beloved dog from the comics. He seems to be the gang's pet, but I'm hoping this will lead to an origin story about how Jughead becomes Hot Dog's owner.

-I'm going to have to doublecheck this but that last shot of Archie holding Fred's body feels like an homage to Archie's death in Life With Archie 36.

-While she was off having zero screentime despite having series regular status, Josie dyed much of her hair blue. I'm sure there's a story behind that involving her awful father or something. Let's hope for more screen time and meaningful stories for Josie and the Pussycats next year!

-~~Murder~~ Not Random Act of Violence Theory Corner: Alright, we officially got a new mystery to try and solve: Who was behind the shooting of Fred Andrews? The easy money is on Hiram being behind shooting Fred and the fact that they went with a pretty straightforward mystery this first year backs this up. On the other hand, maybe season 2 is when they go with a left-field solution for the mystery and I'm still convinced that Mayor McCoy is up to something (Look how pissed off she is after Betty's speech), and although Jughead's ominous narration doesn't always pay off (Remember when losing half the football team was supposed to have consequences and the only thing that ever came from that was Chuck crashing a party and being a creep?), the promise of the darkness winning in Riverdale implies a deeper level of conspiracy to the event than one shady businessman.

-And that's it for season 1 of Riverdale. I was deeply skeptical about this show before it initially aired but was won over almost immediately by it's self-aware charm, fun twists on the Archie mythos, and strong character work, particularly with the female characters. I'm not sure that I would describe Riverdale as a "good" show in terms of quality, but in terms of pure enjoyment, it's a fantastic show and that's what really matters here. Anyways thanks for reading my recaps, whether you did it every week or just for one or two. Hope to see you back in this space next season!

The Superstore Season Finale Tears Down A Lot When A Tornado Strikes

2017-05-08T01:19:00.001-07:00

-It began with a throwaway line in the second episode about going for the eye of the storm in a tornado. Then there was a reference to the store getting an 'F' in tornado preparedness and it being like a house of cards. Then a reference to it being 8 years since the last tornado drill. All season long the show had been throwing in references to how unprepared Cloud Nine would be in a tornado until finally a tornado struck last night. It's a brilliant pay-off for a joke we didn't realize was being set up (Unless you happened to see the episode title in advance), and it's only one part of a terrific finale of Superstore that brings a lot of things full-circle before ending on a comically bleak note that leaves a lot of things up in the air (Good thing we know season 3 is coming).

-Before we get to the Tornado though, there's a lot of fun to be had with Glenn trying to figure out who to lay off in a story somewhat reminiscent of The Office's Halloween, but with more jobs on the line. Justin Spitzer, Mark McKinney, and all the Superstore writers have done a great job making Glenn a very different kind of boss from Michael Scott, but if there's one massive similarity the two have, it's their inability to be the bad guy who makes unpopular decisions. That leads to Glenn being more Michael-esque than normal in this episode, but while still making choices that only Glenn would make. Like him trying to rank all the employees on a scale from 1 to 10 and immediately trying to expand the scale to 11 when he refuses to bump Elias down to a 9. Or how he tries to sell his plan of making everyone vote on who they should fire as doing something together as a family. Or how he keeps wishing for divine intervention to avoid firing people. All of these jokes work better than they would have if this storyline had come earlier in the store's run because of how well we've gotten to know Glenn and how his mind works.

-I've been praising the "Meeting Room" scenes of Superstore all season and Tornado finds a great way to fit one in, as Glenn attempts to make everyone decide who should get fired for him. It's a ridiculous scene, and like all of the best meeting scenes, it finds room for great little character moments amidst the escalating chaos. From Jonah contemplating the difference between Democracy and Mob Rule to Sandra joining everyone in writing her name down as someone to be fired to Glenn's sudden exit from the room when he attempts to just make a run for it, it gives the episode an opportunity to really load in the laughs before the more serious Tornado material hits.

-The thing I like about the lay-off plot is that when the time comes to actually fire people, the show doesn't bother pretending any of our series regulars are in danger of losing their jobs but it doesn't just pick people we've never met before either. Marcus has become one of the more prominent supporting players this year, and Justine and Cody are both recognizable faces who have gotten a fair amount of screentime. Even if some of the lay-offs get undone by the tornado (Which will almost definitely happen), it doesn't take away from the fact that Glenn was able to pull it together and do what he had to do, even if it meant losing people that he (and we) like.

-Mateo making alliances to save his job based on increasingly tenuous connections (We start with Asian/Polynesian and LGBT then move down to Dave Matthews fans and Catholic) that he has no intention of actually following through on is the perfect little Mateo plot, that makes use of the cutthroat side of the character's ambitiousness in a way we haven't seen much of this season. Of course the reason we haven't seen much of it becomes clear when an angry Cody confronts Mateo and tells him that nobody loves him and he'll die alone. There was someone who loved Mateo and who brought out a softer side of him but Mateo pushed him away and now he's back to his base instincts. Mateo's phone call to Jeff telling him that he does love him is a rare vulnerable moment from the character and a powerful capper to Mateo's arc for the season. Here's hoping those two crazy kids can find their way back to each other next year.

-The show does a really good job building to the Tornado all episode, starting with the constant rain, going to the severe weather warnings on a TV that a customer switches the channels away from to the eventual alarm and everyone's confusion about what's actually going on or what to do. Comedy can be tough to do with something as life-threatening as a tornado so the episode holds off from it for as long as possible, allowing the lay-off plot to come to an end and then throwing in a good amount of jokes as everyone braces for it (The return of the customer who obsesses over the most pointless aspects of the product he's trying to buy is a welcome touch. He won't let a thing like a lockdown keep him from figuring out what "2 for 1" razors means when each package already has two razors). Then when the tornado actually comes, it's played mostly straight with a few jokes, but also several scenes of the store being destroyed to bring home how terrifying this all is. A natural disaster is hitting the store and it genuinely feels like it, which is quite a feat for a half hour comedy to pull off.

-So like The Office, Superstore's 2nd season features a big kiss between the two romantic leads. The circumstances and context for the kiss though couldn't be more different. Jim and Pam's kiss is the final capper to a season's worth of pining, increasingly flirtatious banter and pent-up feelings finally spilling out when it becomes clear that things can't continue the way they had been. Jonah and Amy's relationship is different. There hasn't been pining or open talks about their feelings, only the awkwardness that came from the moments where they had to confront the idea that they might have feelings that they shouldn't have. Their kiss comes from a moment of crisis, huddled up with the diarrhea medication after Jonah rescues Amy from falling debris. It's motivated by impulses that the two of them have never been willing to admit were there. That makes the kiss feel much more natural and organic than if they had tried to act like there had been a cohesive Will They/Won't They going on all season. With Amy returning to her family after the storm though, her marriage potentially saved by surviving death, the pieces are in place for Jonah to experience a more traditional "pining for Amy" arc next year. If Superstore chooses to go that route, that is. They're usually more afraid than that.

-Garrett and Dina's undefined sleeping together reaches a head this week as Garrett becomes increasingly flustered by the fact that Dina doesn't seem to value Garrett above any of the other employees to the point where she would flip a coin to decide whether to give the last safety helmet to Garrett or a new employee who she just met. Any time we get to peek past Garrett's "Too cool to care" shell is always a good time and his growing frustration, culminating with him admitting that there may be an emotional component to him sleeping with Dina is hilarious from start to finish. The "Glad you're not dead." "Likewise." exchange the two share at the end is also the perfect mixture of funny and oddly sweet.

-Sandra choosing to leave Carol to potentially die (She doesn't) after an episode worth of Carol calling Sandra a slut for "stealing" Carol's boyfriend Jerry and lying to Jerry that Sandra gave over ten men in the store Herpes is a very dark moment for that character, but Kaliko Kauahi makes the moment work. Hopefully we get more of an exploration of Sandra and Carol's working relationship in season 3 because that look the characters share after the tornado suggests there's a lot of material to unpack there.

-Season 2 begins on a store without it's employees. It ends on the employees without their store. That's masterful storytelling right there.

-Justin Spitzer talked to Variety about the show's second season, the kiss, and why they decided to have a tornado destroy the store in the first place (It involves Universal Studios). It's a good read.

-Best Interstitial: Tie between The Final Countdown playing as customers wait in line in the darkened locked-down store and the fireman trying to rescue a mannequin in the aftermath.

-This week in Mark McKinney is a treasure: Glenn's befuddled and bewildered reaction when the tornado stops seconds after he prays to Allah. If this is setting up a "Glenn has a crisis of faith" storyline in season 3, I'm all for it and if not, it's still incredibly funny.

-We're introduced to Alisha, a new associate who got invited to Cheyenne's wedding over Marcus (They were keeping it small), gets appropriately pissed when Jonah casually calls her sexy, and wins the coin toss for Dina's spare helmet.

-The way Mateo slides away from Marcus after Marcus attempts to evoke the alliance is masterfully done.

-In one of many little pay-offs to jokes set up throughout the season, Cheyenne finds the "green hair-thingy" she lost back in Black Friday amidst the debris of the tornado.

-"Oh shit". So Brett finally speaks. I don't know if the show would actually kill off Brett but if they do choose to not bring him back next year then what a way to go.

-Of course a billboard falls through another one of Glenn's cars. Of course. I think that's now the 4th car of his that's been stolen/wrecked over the course of the show. Wonder how many he'll lose next year.

-Jonah inviting Mateo and Marcus to go get a beer and Marcus' elated reaction to said invite was a very funny pay-off to a year of no one wanting to hang out or do anything with Marcus, despite his best efforts to be part of the gang. Here's hoping at least some of those lay-offs get reversed in season 3 because it would sting to lose Jon Barinholtz from the cast.

-"You're not a slut Justine, stop trying to seem interesting". Here's hoping boring old Justine makes the cut for season 3 too.

-"So do we have to come into work tomorrow?" And with that line from Garrett, we're officially done Superstore's second season. This has become one of my favourite shows on television and I really enjoyed seeing it come into it's own this year. So at this point all that's left to say is bring on season 3!

Riverdale: Chapter Twelve: Anatomy of a Murder

2017-05-05T21:38:00.003-07:00

-Wow. I'm not sure where to start. Spoiler warning I guess if you're one of those people who read reviews before watching the episode because some major stuff goes down that you'll want to see with your own eyes before you read about it.

-OK, let's get to the big, shocking reveal of the episode. The one that had me shouting at my television. You know what I'm talking about. The reveal that Grandfather Blossom and Great-Grandfather Cooper weren't just business partners, they were brothers, making Jason and Polly related, making the baby (or babies) that Polly is having a product of incest ("Pure Blossom" as Penelope puts it). Yes, turns out there was actually a good reason for Jason and Polly's romance to be forbidden and for Hal to be so vehemently opposed to the whole thing. It's the best kind of twist, one that seems to come completely out of nowhere but makes total sense in retrospect, providing new context to certain key moments throughout the season. It's also one hell of a crazy reveal and I'm impressed with the Riverdale creative team for being willing actually have their characters commit that societal taboo. Yes, neither party knew they were committing incest, and yes people on TV (mainly sitcoms) have accidentally dated their cousins before but those stories don't typically end in a pregnancy. It'll be interesting to see how the show deals with this storyline going forward into the second season as a baby/babies will make this plot point impossible to sweep under the rug Ms. Grundy-style.

-OK, I've gotten the incest talk out of my system. For now. Let's get to what everyone else wants to talk about: what the Andrews family was up to in this episode. OK, no one wants to talk about this but we're doing it anyways. Some of it will tie into the Killer reveal eventually, I swear. It's been a running joke all season how Archie never has anything to do with solving the murder mystery but with Anatomy of a Murder focused squarely on answering the question of who killed Jason Blossom, it really shines a spotlight on just how disconnected Archie and his family are from the mystery. Jughead, Betty, Veronica, and Cheryl are all tied up in the mystery with the fates of their families on the line and everything they do is clearly motivated and understandable. Archie is just along for the ride really, wanting to help out his friends like he's been trying all season. And I'll give him this, Archie is at his best when he's allowed to be part of the ensemble and he had a couple smart moments last night, but it's telling that if you remove the top-billed main character from the action entirely last night, nothing about the plot changes. Archie's not a bad character, he just doesn't have any stakes in the action beyond his good Samaritan nature. I would like to see this change in season 2, as long as music and football are barely involved in whatever the big genre plot is.

-Even if there was no plot value to anything Archie did last night and Molly Ringwald was only there to say lawyer things and wrap up the "Will Archie move to Chicago" question (He won't.), there was thematic value to Fred and Archie this episode as Fred grows increasingly frustrated with Archie looking into the murder. Fred loves his son and wants to protect him. That's his priority, just like protecting Jughead is F.P.'s priority, protecting Veronica is Hermione's priority, and protecting Betty and Polly is Alice and Hal's priority (To an extent in the case of Hal). A major theme of Riverdale is how the kids relate to their parents and how for all their flaws and poor parenting decisions, those parents will always look out for their kids. It was true in the comics and it's still true here. We can see these protective instincts on display all over Anatomy of a Murder and it makes it all the more powerful when that notion of parents protecting their children is shattered by the bullet Cliff Blossom puts in the head of his son, the ultimate subversion of the Archie mythos.

-OK, we can talk about the killer now. So when it came to setting up the murder mystery, Riverdale had two choices: 1. Do an overly convoluted mystery with all kinds of crazy twists and turns and red herrings until we got to a conclusion that came out of left field and probably doesn't hold up under scrutiny but would fit with the generally campy tone of the show. 2. Do a more straight-forward murder mystery with a smaller suspect pool that is pretty easy to piece together and has less chances for cheap thrills (Give or take an incest reveal), but allows for more introspection and character moments. To Riverdale's credit, they picked the second choice, which led to a mystery that wasn't as thrilling or wild as it initially seemed it could be but will probably make for a more satisfying viewing experience when seen as a whole (Unless the "Why?" of it all totally falls apart). Is it disappointing when obvious villain Clifford Blossom turns out to be the killer instead of someone totally unexpected like Mayor McCoy, Principal Weatherbee or Dilton Doiley? Yes, but it's also more compelling to have a father kill his son in cold blood because of how personal that is. The emotional impact more than overshadows the lack of surprise in the solution.

-So the misdirect with showing us the reactions to the murder video before letting us watch the video is a cheap move designed to stretch things out to their breaking point and make us think the killer is someone the characters are attached to. But the reactions themselves still make sense when you know who the killer is because tears and looks of horror are exactly the appropriate reaction to watching a video of someone being murdered, especially when you know both the victim and the killer (I assume Veronica who never met Jason was also crying tears of relief about her father not being involved). Strong acting all around from everyone "watching" that tape.

-Credit where credits due. The Riverdale creative team could've easily made random thug Mustang the actual killer of Jason, acting on Clifford's orders but they chose to have Clifford pull the trigger himself which is a much more powerful creative choice.

-I was also satisfied by the way all the pieces of the mystery, from Hal stealing the sheriff's files to F.P. keeping the jacket around as "insurance" to why the body was frozen at all paid off in ways that made sense and enriched the story (Like how we can figure out that F.P. didn't kill Jason beyond the planted gun because we know he didn't steal the murder board from Sheriff Keller's house). That's good storytelling.

-Anatomy of a Murder devotes pretty much all of it's run-time to solving the mystery that's been taking up so much of the season but it also finds time to pay off some character storylines that have been building throughout the season. Most satisfying is watching Betty finally complete her transformation from the repressed and barely holding it together girl that we met at the start of the series to the crime-solving badass she officially became tonight. From not backing down when Penelope threatens her to figuring out where to find the flash drive that has the footage of Jason's murder, Lili Reinhart plays Betty with more confidence and power then she's had all season and it's a great look on her. I'm excited to see where the character goes from here.

-Veronica's growing distrust of her father has been fascinating to watch play out over the past few episodes and it comes to a head here as she becomes convinced that he's responsible for Jason's murder and becomes obsessed with trying to prove it. Veronica is basically a force of nature this episode and the moment when she learns that her father was not responsible for Jason's death is incredibly powerful. Veronica had built her father up as a monster when he wasn't one and now she has to figure out how to process this going forward, especially because Hiram is coming home. Man, I'm excited to finally have Hiram Lodge on this show.

-Kevin's usually pretty savvy about things but his romance with Joaquin has turned him into Archie apparently because he spends this week shocked to discover that his gang member boyfriend has been involved in illegal activity. He doesn't even find out that Joaquin was dating him to keep tabs on the investigation. Kevin, I love you but clueless is not a good look on you. Here's hoping that with Joaquin put on a bus, you'll get more compelling material next season.

-The stuff with F.P and Jughead is also excellent, as it typically is. Skeet Ulrich has done a terrific job with F.P., taking what could've been a one-note thug and imbuing him with a genuine love for his son and desire to be a better person that makes you understand why Jughead refuses to give up on his dad, even after all the ways F.P. has let him down.

-Acting highlights this week include Cole Sprouse's defeated reaction after his mother rejects his plans to go to Toledo, his even more defeated reaction after his dad pushes him away at the police station, Lili Reinhart's WTF face when Archie suggests bringing in the parents, Madchen Amick's take-down of the Blossoms, Madelaine Petsch's dead inside near-catatonic state after she learns what her father has done and Camila Mendes conflicted reaction to learning her father is coming home, even though she knows he didn't have Jason killed.

-I'll tell you, that ending with the police discovering Cliff dead of an apparent suicide was a real "Cliff hanger".

-Based on the contents of those Maple Syrup barrels at Cliff's feet and the fact that it's yet to be explained how Cliff is connected to the Serpents, it looks like Jason's murder may have been due to drugs after all. I guess we'll find out next week but I had predicted this weeks ago so I'm calling this a win (Though to be honest the prediction was fairly vague.).

-So I get why Jughead is yelling at Sheriff Keller at the end for not letting his father go on an emotional level, but it still seems weird that Jughead doesn't understand why his father who helped cover up a murder and did a lot of illegal things in the process has to stay in jail. Did Jughead honestly not see that coming?

-With all that happened this episode, all that tension from the gang breaking Jughead's trust last episode gets pretty speedily resolved. Which is fine, but if you're going to end an episode with the characters at odds only to smooth it all over within the first ten minutes of the next episode, did you really need to end the episode with everyone at odds in the first place? Probably not.

-Joaquin gets on a bus heading to San Junipero in a really cool Easter egg for fans of Black Mirror. If you've never seen Black Mirror, I recommend hopping on Netflix and watching San Junipero (You'll find it in Season 3) immediately because it's an amazing episode of Television. Also Black Mirror is an Episodic Anthology show so you don't have to watch any other episode of the show to get what's going on.

-Murder Theory Corner: Call me crazy, but I'm starting to think that Cliff Blossom might have something to do with this. On a real note, what are the odds that Cheryl (with an assist from Penelope) killed Cliff out of revenge for what he did to Jason?

Riverdale: Chapter 11: To Riverdale And Back Again

2017-04-29T01:42:00.001-07:00

-I finally get the purpose of having Jughead's narration be a novel that he's writing in-show about the events of the show. It's so they can do meta scenes like the one tonight where they talk about the novel while also talking about the show but they're not actually talking about the show. Clever (Yes, this is sarcasm.). There is something I like about that scene though. Jughead tells F.P. that he's less interested in "whodunnit" than he is about the idea of Riverdale being a good or a bad place and F.P. suggests that it can be both. That's Riverdale in a nutshell. It's giving us the world of Archie we've always known and it's also adding a lot of darkness and edge into that world but one doesn't negate the other. The good and bad in Riverdale exist side-by-side, making for a much more interesting show than if it had just picked one or the other.

-The "F.P. and Jughead discuss the book scene" also provides a fascinating glimpse into Jughead's worldview, showing us that no matter how wise beyond his years he seems, in the end he's a kid who still has a "black/white" sense of viewing the world. Few things are purely good and few things are purely bad, as the character of F.P. and his arc of "criminal trying to get his life and family back together" illustrate, but Jughead has a hard time seeing things that way. It's why when he discovers Archie and Veronica's betrayal at the end, he's equally mad at Betty even though her offense is nowhere near as bad. It's why Jason's death and all the complexities and deceptions it's revealed has rattled him so. Jughead is on course to learn that the world isn't all black and white, and hopefully he'll learn that sooner rather than later.

-After a couple weeks of relatively good and sympathetic behaviour, Alice is back up to her old tricks this week. Would you believe that Betty inviting her mother to join the school newspaper that she revived solely to get away from her mother turned out to be a bad idea? Honestly Betty is right to be mad at Archie and Veronica for going behind her back to investigate things while she was busy but she also needs to be mad at herself for allowing her mother into the school newspaper in the first place.

-Hiram is getting out of prison in time for season 2 (Where he'll be a series regular played by Mark Consuelos, unless Consuelos' other show Pitch gets a second season) and Veronica is not happy. Camila Mendes has been playing Veronica's growing disillusionment with the man who recently blackmailed her very well these past few episodes and she's especially good at keeping Veronica sympathetic tonight as she reaches her low point here, going behind Betty and Jughead's backs to help Alice investigate F.P., convinced that he murdered Jason on her father's orders. When Jughead brought up how he doesn't really consider Veronica a friend in the last episode, what seemed like a clever observation on how those two really don't interact outside of a group context turns out to be a plot point here as Veronica doesn't have the loyalty to Jughead that Archie and Betty do. So when the opportunity to learn the truth about her father comes up, of course she's going to take it. She's so obsessed with the idea that her father could be involved in this that she almost gets her and Archie caught during their break-in session because she can't believe there's nothing there. It's an interesting turn for the character in line with how comic Veronica would behave and Mendes does a great job selling it.

-Okay, let's get real. Archie claims he was helping Veronica investigate F.P. because he was worried about Jughead but we all know the real reason. He just wanted to finally be involved with the murder investigation after a whole season of being at most, Murder Mystery-Adjacent. And if he also got some action because of that, all the better. This episode does a really good job though at showing how Archie's biggest character trait, his need to help and protect his friends is also his biggest character flaw. Archie ultimately agrees to investigate F.P. because he doesn't want Jughead to get hurt by his dad again, even though he knows he's breaking Jughead's trust by doing this. He doesn't trust Jughead to handle the information. He just decides what's best for Jughead and does it no matter the consequence. That's called being a bad friend Arch.

-You know it's a great episode of Riverdale when there's an awkward dinner scene and we get a great one this week when Alice invites F.P and Jughead to dinner so she can interrogate F.P. while Archie and Veronica are off breaking into his trailer. Betty has been learning some tricks from Alice though and invites her father to dinner to throw Alice off. This leads to a fantastic scene where Mädchen Amick, Lochlyn Munroe and Skeet Ulrich passive aggressively insult each other and throw veiled references to Alice's abortion around that's uncomfortable to watch but impossible to look away from.

-Seriously though, did Jughead really not pick up on the fact that Alice clearly suspects F.P. of being up to something during that dinner? She wasn't even hiding it! Why did he need Betty to tell him what he could see with his own eyes?

-Cole Sprouse does a terrific job as Jughead every week but he really takes it up a notch this week. We know all that kid wants is to have his family back together and to have that dream finally start to become a reality (Even if it means moving to Toledo) only to have it snatched away at the same time his closest friends (and Veronica) betray him is devastating, made even more devastating by the way Sprouse makes us feel what Jughead is feeling every step of the way.

-So I know I rag on Jughead's narration almost as much as I rag on Archie's music (the best joke of the night for me was easily the scene where Betty and Jughead finally have a reaction about Archie's music that isn't "It's uniformly great!") and I know that I literally started this review ragging on his narration but because we've spent all season accustomed to some kind of narration to close out the episode (Though not always), the total lack of it once Jughead disappears after homecoming added greatly to the emotional impact of him leaving.

-Archie and Veronica breaking into F.P.'s trailer was bad but if they didn't do it, they wouldn't have realized he was being framed later. So what they did was bad AND good. Duality. Sometimes it's cool to break and enter.

-Meanwhile Cheryl apparently forgot that she's supposed to be holding a grudge against Polly (Based on the fact that an episode literally ended with Cheryl crossing out Polly's face on a picture) and the two of them are out campaigning to be the co-queens of homecoming. Of course this is all just pretense for them to have a reason to stumble upon the ring Jason was going to give to Polly hiding among Penelope's things. The elder Blossoms are such obvious villains that it seemed to eliminate them as killer candidates but this episode makes a strong case for them to have done it. Sure Jason denouncing them and returning the ring seems believable and them drugging Polly to calm her down is perfectly in character but finally giving Cheryl the validation and approval that she's always craved? Telling her she should be running the company one day despite everything they said about her a couple episodes back? They are hiding something for sure. Luckily, Cheryl isn't an idiot and she's holding onto that ring nice and tight (Also I know they were trying to appease Cheryl but the fact that they took her story about disposing of the ring at face value seemed out of character for them, considering how distrustful and paranoid they are.).

-Molly Ringwald is still around and she's a delight as Mary, fitting into the world of Riverdale perfectly whether she's trying to get Archie to go to Chicago, bantering with Fred, or not buying into Alice's mindgames for a second. More of her please!

-Mary thinks Archie will be safe living in Chicago? That seems a bit too farfetched, even for Riverdale.

-The scene where Fred enters the dance with both Hermione and Mary at his side was a very funny recreation of when Archie did the same thing with Betty and Veronica during the first episode. Like father, like son.

-I enjoyed Archie and Veronica's performance of Kids in America, even if Archie's guitar seemed totally unnecessary but it's telling that Archie couldn't come up with his own upbeat, danceable song. Expand your range Archie. You won't get far without it.

-Also we're totally getting The Archies in season 2 whether we want them or not, right?

-Murder Theory Corner: I'll be honest. I'm impressed with how straightforward Riverdale has kept it's big murder mystery. There isn't dozens of suspects or reasons why Jason Blossom could have been murdered and everything seems to come back to the Coopers and the Blossoms or the Blossoms and the Lodges. The show means it when it says they don't care about the "whodunnit" aspect. So I'm comfortable with buying into the idea that Penelope or Cliff Blossom killed Jason. In case the show does want to surprise us with the big reveal though, let's have Hermione Lodge as a back-up guess. And as a real outlier theory, let's speculate that Jason was killed because he was trying to rip off drugs from the Southside Serpents by Mayor McCoy, who secretly has the Serpents under her thumb and uses their profits for her own end (It won't be this, but better safe than sorry).

Jane The Virgin Gets Her Lust On in Chapter Sixty

2017-04-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

-This Week in Titles: Jane The Horndog.

-When we last left "Jane" about a month ago, Alba was falling in love with her new boyfriend Jorge and Jane was falling in lust with Rogelio's new co-star Fabian. Both these threads carry on into Chapter Sixty, another great episode of Jane that works in all the usual twists and turns and strong emotional beats, while exploring how Jane and Alba's relationship with the idea of sex has or hasn't changed over time.

-For roughly 47 episodes, Jane's view of sex was based around the idea that it was special and she decided to wait for marriage for reasons connected to both her faith and her romanticism. This show wasn't titled Jane the Virgin for nothing. Then she got married and finally began having sex with the love of her life. Then he died. Now Jane is ready to start getting back out there but what does that mean for her sex life? Chapter Sixty is smart in showing us how Jane's view of sex has changed and evolved from the first time she felt lust (As a child watching a particularly steamy telenovella) to now post-Michael. Where sex used to be this big, looming, forbidden thing, now Jane has no problem openly talking about her sexual needs and where she used to want to wait for that special someone, now that special someone has come and gone and she doesn't see the point in waiting anymore, no matter what her grandmother thinks about her choices. It's a smart move that shows off how much Jane has grown and changed from the unsure girl we met in the pilot. Jane knows what she wants and she's not going to let anyone stop her from trying to get it, whether it's the not-so-subtle guilt trip of Alba or Rogelio's anger that she's after the co-star he thinks is trying to "All About Eve" him.

-Alba can't worry too much about Jane's love life though because now she has her own to worry about. Just as we can understand why Jane decides she's not going to wait to be married again to have sex, we understand why Alba isn't going to make that same choice. Alba had sex before marriage and it destroyed her relationship with her family. She's never going to make that decision again, even if it costs her all of her relationships because she knows the right man will wait for her. She's so used to this being a deal-breaker though that when Jorge seems to have a negative response to her telling him and doesn't contact her afterwards, she's ready to write him off as someone not worthy of her love. It turns out Alba needs to have more faith in people though because what she thought was a break-up wasn't a break-up at all. Jorge has no probably with Alba's celibacy and the two end the episode in a better place than ever. It's a good storyline and what I really like about it is that the show doesn't try to compare Alba and Jane's choices about sex or suggest that one choice is better than the other. They're both independent women who allowed to make their own choices without being punished for it and the show recognizes it.

-Fabian makes for an interesting choice for Jane's first post-Michael love interest. It's clear that he and Jane would never work as more than a casual thing. He's just not complex or intelligent enough to challenge Jane on a meaningful level and her attraction to him is purely physical, as she openly admits. At the same time, Francisco San Martin brings such a dopey earnestness and sweet enthusiasm to the character that it's hard not to fall for him just a little bit. The key thing here is that he seems to be genuinely falling for Jane, which should lead for some interesting complications down the line.

-Of course Jane has more on the brain than sex this week as her book about her romance with Michael begins to move to the publishing stage. Jane is excited to be selling her book but runs into trouble when she learns the publishers want to use her backstory to help sell the book. This would mean a generous initial printing and a slot at a book fair moderated by Maria Semple but Jane shoots that idea down because she wants the book to stand on it's own, even if it means an order of only 1500 books. Of course there's more to Jane's reluctance then that and while a conversation with her former adviser and current friend Professor Donaldson is enough to make her realize standing for your art this early into a career isn't the best plan, it doesn't fix the underlying reason she was so reluctant to use her backstory as a marketing tool: Michael.

-One of the things I've really appreciated about how "Jane" has handled the death of Michael is that while they chose to skip ahead in time and only touch on the immediate aftermath of the event, they're not forgetting or ignoring him either. His memory is a constant presence on the show, popping up when you least expect it to. Jane is worried that by agreeing to talk about what happened, she'll be reducing Michael to an anecdote and what they had will become less meaningful over time. It's a valid fear, but luckily Alba is there to reassure her that this won't happen and Michael will always be meaningful to her. Jane and Alba have always had a special relationship and that relationship becomes even more meaningful post-Michael because Alba is the only person who understands what it means to lose the love of your life so young and can offer Jane a kind of support and insight that no one else can. Alba's story about seeing her Mateo's favourite Ice Cream at a grocery store last year and being overcome with emotion is a powerful story that lets Jane and the audience know that no matter how far in the past Michael becomes, he's never going to go away.

-Jane's conversation with Alba wasn't the only emotional Michael-related scene in this episode though as Rogelio's complicated feelings about Fabian trying to befriend him and Jane dating Fabian turn out to be rooted in his own grief about Michael. For the first few Post-Michael episodes of "Jane", we mainly focused on Jane's reaction to losing the love of her life and how she reached a place where she could begin to heal. This was a smart move as this is first and foremost Jane's story and her feelings take initial priority. Now that we've taken the time to see how Jane is dealing with all this though, "Jane" has space to explore how Michael's death impacted Rogelio who lost his best friend. Jaime Camill has always been good at playing the comic relief, but his conversation with Xo is a terrific chance to show how good he is at the big emotional moments too and is one of Camill's best scenes in the history of the show. Rogelio knows Jane has to move on from Michael eventually but he's not ready for that to happen yet and he's definitely not ready to go get mani-pedis with someone else. Tellingly though, he only tells Xo this information, not wanting to burden Jane with his feelings and showing just how far he's come from the self-centered Rogelio that we began the show is. Andrea Navedo is great in this scene too, as she manages to display her own grief about Michael, without making it the central focus of the scene.

-We finally get an explanation for Rafael's shady behavior with his handyman Caesar. Turns out Caesar isn't an ex-con, he's a private investigator who Raf has hired to keep an eye out for Rose. It's a solid twist that makes perfect sense. Of course Raf is still after Rose and still doesn't trust Eileen or Luisa. We know how fiercely protective Rafael can be and after everything Rose has done to him and the people he loves, it would be dishonest to the character for him not to be actively searching for her.

-Luisa can be a hard character for the show to get a handle on, thanks to her status as a perpetual trainwreck, which causes her character to be overly broad and hard to take at times, Season 3 has been taking steps to ground her more by actually delving into why she cares about Rose while showing how conflicted she is about Rose's history and how her choices have alienated her from her family (Raf won't let her see any of his children). This has made Luisa more complex and interesting than she's been in past years and her dilemma about having to choose between leaving with a (rightfully) paranoid Rose or staying and finally starting to take steps towards a real reconciliation with Rafael is honestly compelling. If she does choose to stay though, it'll be interesting to see how long it'll be until she finds out Rafael being open to a conversation about her seeing the kids was just a ploy to get keep her busy while Caesar bugged her room.

-It's been a while since Chapter Fifty-Four (The last episode Luisa and Rose were in) but I don't think it had been established that Rose's "Eileen" face was a removable mask and not a total facial reconstruction of Rose (Though I guess that makes sense, considering she went the mask route when she was Susanna last year). So it was a pleasant surprise to learn that Bridget Regan is still going to be around. She's always been great in the part so it's nice that she'll still be around, even if she'll be sharing the role with Elisabeth Röhm for the time being.

-Petra mostly spends the episode preparing for the arrival of her sister and continuing to strengthen her relationship with Chuck. So she's mostly off to the sidelines but the cliffhanger of Anezka being arrested upon arrival into the country instead of just questioned like Petra was promised ensures that the focus will be on her soon enough. The crime stuff is still "Jane's" weakest element but the Scott stuff is much more intriguing than last year's Mudder and Derek shenanigans and I'll admit I am very curious to learn just how exactly Petra and Anezka are involved with the death of Scott.

-There's a lot of great narrator jokes tonight, but I think my favourite is when he keeps interjecting when Rogelio and Fabian's telenovella characters talk about their "lady scientist" love to point out that they should really just be saying scientist.

-When Jane's teasing Alba about the possibility of Alba sleeping with Jorge, the same music cue from the opening scene of the series plays during Jane's recitation of the advice Alba gave her as a kid. It's a nice touch.

-Luisa attempting to use being the reason for Mateo being born as justification for being able to see him was a solid use if Luisa's trainwreck status. It's also always good to be reminded that she was the catalyst for literally everything that's happened on the show.

-No spoilers about the promos for next week, but they seem to be showing an interesting twist on Jane's romantic dynamic with Fabian.

Superstore Gets Distracted From Spring Cleaning

2017-04-21T22:40:00.003-07:00

-With three episodes left in the season, Spring Cleaning feels like a breather episode of Superstore. It touches on and advances a couple ongoing storylines (Jonah dating Glenn's foster daughter and Cheyenne's upcoming wedding to Bo) and sets up a significant new one to carry us through the last two episodes, but it's main concern is letting us have a good time with the characters we've grown to love over these past 31 episodes. This results in an episode that doesn't reach the heights of the season's best episodes, lacking the emotional resonance and comedic chaos those episodes have and containing one story that doesn't really work, but Spring Cleaning still has plenty to like about it as it sets the stage for a big finish.

-Let's start with the story that doesn't really click, Bo's day working at Cloud Nine. Johnny Pemberton's Bo is a character who works best in small doses. He's funny for a quick pop-in now and then, but he's such an over-the-top, broad character that the more he's on screen, the more it becomes impossible to understand why Cheyenne puts up with him (She's not the brightest bulb, but she's a genius compared to Bo), making the standard "he really does love her in his own crazy way beat" they put into every Bo storyline feel false and unearned. That's basically what happens tonight though it starts off on a promising note as Bo sets out to quickly make 5000 dollars and is almost immediately confronted with the realities of a minimum wage job. There's lots of fun to be had in watching Bo clash within the restraints of a real job but once the story shifts to Bo planning to rob the store, the character becomes too much to take. Yes it's funny learning that only half of the security cameras work and the security guard is basically blind (More Reggie in the future, please), but Bo's actions take his character too far, crossing the line from "likeable dope" to "insufferable moron" even if there's no real chance that he'll actually rob the store. The story redeems itself a bit with the ending where upon learning Cheyenne doesn't need a fancy wedding he immediately quits and tries to steal the vest he's wearing, but it still rubs me the wrong way that Cheyenne lets him off the hook so easily. Maybe this whole thing is building to Cheyenne breaking up with Bo, which would justify the storyline more but for now the story's basically a wash.

-Also here's hoping that Nichole Bloom gets more to do in season 3. Cheyenne has probably been the most underserved of all the main characters this season and the show often seems at a lost about what to do with her now that she's had her baby, but Bloom is a lot of fun to watch and always makes the most with what she has.

-Luckily the other two storylines more then make up for the weak Bo storyline by focusing on two of their stronger comedic duos: Jonah/Glenn and Amy/Garrett. Jonah and Glenn have a complex relationship that alternates between Glenn attempting to impress and be a mentor for a disinterested Jonah and Glenn transferring his inferiority complex onto Jonah and trying to compete with him. Spring Cleaning flips the script a bit by following up on Glenn's conflicted feelings about Jonah dating his step-daughter. People pleaser Jonah is used to having the parents of his girlfriends like him (He still hangs out with Naomi's dad apparently) so when he sees Glenn seeming unsure of him, he decides to start spending time with Glenn in an effort to put him at ease. This leads to a delightfully awkward lunch at a Mexican restaurant where Glenn doesn't seem to have any concept of what Mexican food is or what traditional getting to know you questions are ("Do Jewish people like snow?", he asks a baffled Jonah). Of course spending time with Glenn is easy but ending the time together is hard and before long, Jonah has agreed to become Glenn's assistant and Glenn is faking a draw for Cardinals tickets so he and Jonah can attend a baseball game. The whole push and pull between an oblivious Glenn and an increasingly desperate Jonah makes for a delightful series of increasingly absurd sequences until Jonah is finally honest with Glenn (to an extent), which is what Glenn wanted all along. It's a low-stakes storyline, but one with a lot of great jokes and interplay between Glenn and Jonah, which is just what an ideal breather episode needs.

-Amy and Garrett meanwhile find photos someone apparently forgot to pick up and after Garrett looks through them (to try and find nudes of course), they realize they both know the woman in them from somewhere and start going through their former co-workers to try and figure out who she is. Initially things start in familiar territory as Amy gets obsessed about identifying the mystery woman and Garrett stays detached and snarky about the whole situation, but when Amy points out that the photos show a former Cloud Nine employee has ended up in a house with a million dollar kitchen and a french press, Garrett becomes just as obsessed as Amy about tracking down the one woman who came out of her Cloud Nine experience OK. As the two characters who least enjoy their jobs, they latch onto the idea that one day they'll be able to leave this place and not end up in prison or addicted to meth or fused to the couch. This anonymous woman becomes a symbol of hope for the pair. Of course the whole thing has a somewhat poignant twist when it's revealed the pictures are reference photos for the large signs that hang in various sections of the store. Garrett and Amy have spent a day chasing a false fantasy and are going to need to look elsewhere to find their hope that things can be OK after Cloud Nine. It's a very funny note to end the story on, with just the right hint of darkness to it.

-Smartly, the show decides to let us learn the truth about the photos a few scenes before Amy and Garrett do, adding a nifty layer of dramatic irony to their scenes and making the moment where they learn the truth even funnier.

-The really clever thing about the Amy/Garrett storyline though is how it quietly lays out the stakes for the "forthcoming lay-offs" cliffhanger. By showing how poorly off so many former Cloud Nine employees have ended up, the episode reinforces that has poor as the working conditions at Cloud Nine can be, the employees there really don't have a lot of other options available to them and leaving could put them in a really bad spot. So even if it's unlikely that we'll lose any characters we care about to the lay-offs, we understand how devastating they could potentially be, which helps a great deal in getting us emotionally invested in the storyline.

-Best Interstitial: Not really an interstitial but Sandra finding and putting back a dead rodent was the perfect Sandra joke.

-This Week in Mark McKinney is a Treasure: "What is the biggest dog you've ever seen and why?" It's his delivery of "why" that really sells the joke. The runner-up is his relieved reaction to Jonah asserting that he and Kristin really did got to a gas station for breakfast at 4 in the morning.

-I also could've watched an episode worth of Glenn at the Mexican restaurant. "Do you have a Mexican version of the churro?"

-Between Bo's blurred-out Middle Finger Penis shirt and Jonah's assistant attire complete with cloud tie (And Garrett's endless delight about the tie), it was a great week for clothing-based humour on Superstore.

-Oh Jonah, if you wanted to make up a lie about a 4 AM breakfast place, why didn't you just say Denny's? The story reason is probably because going to a gas station for breakfast at 4 AM is a funnier, more transparent lie and Jonah was thinking fast but as someone who works the graveyard shift at Denny's, I see this as a big oversight.

-With Marcus rising this year to fill the "obnoxious moron" role, we haven't seen a lot of Tate, who fills a similar role, but with more arrogance and surprising frankness about people's medical history. Tate was out in full force tonight though and Josh Lawson clearly delights in playing up the character's casual sliminess. Pairing him up with Bo for a scene and having them hit it off was inspired, especially when Tate admits how jealous he is of Bo's terrible moustache. Even better is his genuine interest in the Cardinals tickets Glenn is trying to sneak to Jonah. I like to think that he and Glenn did ultimately go to that game together.

-As tiring as Bo's storyline got, his "I contain multitudes, yo" response to Dina telling him she thought he was only a worthless dirtbag is a terrific line.

Riverdale: Chapter Ten: The Lost Weekend

2017-04-15T02:25:00.001-07:00

-Pop Quiz: You have helped thrown your best friend a birthday party you know he doesn't want because everyone throwing the party is trying to avoid their own issues. It's a small, intimate deal but even with a couple drinks in your system, it is obvious your friend is uncomfortable by all of this. Then the doorbell rings and an army of kids led by the girl you and your friends recently pissed off and the guy two of your friends got kicked off the football team are at your door wanting to turn your party into a rager. Do you let them in despite the fact that there's no way this ends well for anyone? Answer: Of course not, unless you're a total idiot. Luckily for Riverdale, they've set up their lead character to do nothing but make the wrong decision time and time again so it makes perfect sense that Archie would let these people in. He doesn't know any better.

-Jughead and Betty have been in a relationship for a few episodes now, but we've yet to really explore what that means for either of them until The Lost Weekend, which uses Jughead's birthday to put their relationship under the microscope as Jughead has to deal with a party he doesn't want and Betty has to deal with the return of Chuck Clayton, who can't shut up about Dark Betty (The side of Betty we saw way back in episode 3 when Betty disassociated and tried to drown Chuck in a hot tub), compelling Betty to try and do something normal like throw her boyfriend a birthday party. This inevitably leads to conflict between them and the episode does a really good job developing the argument between Betty and Jughead so we can understand where both sides are coming from. On the one hand, Betty is aware that Jughead doesn't want this party and that she's throwing it for the wrong reasons but she does it anyways, which isn't a great relationship move even if her heart is in the right place. On the other hand, Jughead doesn't even try to give the small, intimate version of the party a chance and he makes a lot of wrong assumptions about Betty and why she wants to be in this relationship with him. We get it Jug, you're a moody outsider and you got a lot of pain, but you don't have the monopoly on pain and feeling like an outsider and it's not cool of you to act like you do.

-Thank God F.P. is weirdly hanging around a wild party full of teenagers (Seriously, Betty inviting him to the double feature made sense but inviting him to this party did not) so he can talk some sense into Jughead and shut the party down when it goes too far. The Lost Weekend could've used Jughead's "We're too different to be together" argument and Chuck's subsequent revelations about Dark Betty as a catalyst to break Betty and Jughead up like many a lesser show would've done but instead the show ably demonstrates why Betty and Jughead are actually a good couple. They're two kids who are both damaged thanks to their messed-up family situations and who both feel like outsiders even if one of them is a cheerleader, but when they're together they make each other feel normal and less alone. It's not the most original take on a relationship in the world but Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart sell it with their terrific chemistry. Their reconciliation at the end of the episode is genuinely sweet and I'm much more interested in this relationship now than I was an episode ago.

-I don't understand why people let Secrets & Sins go on for as long as it did. It was obvious from the get-go that Cheryl and Chuck were up to something and things took a turn for the uncomfortable almost right away. Also Dilton abruptly deciding to participate and drop the bomb about Archie and Ms. Grundy felt really shoehorned in, like the writers remembered that was still a loose plot thread they should probably address which they then put in in the most awkward way possible. Veronica finally voicing what everyone was thinking about Cheryl's affection for her brother was a lot of fun though so at least the scene has that going for it.

-Also I felt the flashes to the depravity of the party and Jughead's ominous narration about the party made the whole situation seem more exciting than it actually was. Like it wasn't a good party and those secrets that came out are probably going to have consequences for the remainder of the season, but the set-up made it seem like Archie's house would burn down or something equally apocalyptic and what we got was just standard teen drama.

-I am liking the return of Chuck as an extra element of chaos for the show though. Jordan Calloway does a great job getting across the entitled sliminess of the character in every line reading. Teaming him up with Cheryl was also a lot of fun as Calloway and Madelaine Petsch seemed determined to top the other in terms of over-the-top campy insanity.

-Veronica challenging Cheryl to a dance-off for the head cheerleader position is another thing that felt shoehorned in so the writers could get Cheryl firmly back in the antagonist camp but the dance-off itself was a lot of fun, as was Cheryl admonishing those extras who always follow her around for being extras.

-Let's be honest, Archie is more fun when he's drunk. Sure he still has his typical Archie problems like being concerned about his parent's divorce being finalized (Which is a pretty solid problem for him to be concerned about actually) but at least when he's drunk he does things like invite a bunch of shady characters and randos into his home and drunk dial his dad to spice the scenes of him dealing with his problems up. I probably shouldn't be advocating for Archie to start drinking all the time, but I care way more about Drunk Archie than I do Sober Archie.

-Keeping Luke Perry offscreen for the majority of the Archie plot is a smart choice. As much as I would've liked to see more of Molly Ringwald, keeping what happened between Fred and Mary a mystery allows the show to keep the story focus solely on Archie and his attempts to forget about the situation, which is what was needed to make this story work.

-So Archie and Veronica kissed and spent the night together (I'm assuming nothing much further than that happened since they woke up in separate beds and Archie sleeping with Veronica for the first time would be too big of an event to just gloss over). It was an unexpected move that came out of nowhere with minimal set-up but I bought it. Archie and Veronica are both in weird head spaces and are both trying to distract themselves from their problems so it makes sense that they'd do something impulsive like this. It'll be interesting to see how they handle this development going forward and if it'll be a one-off thing (for now) or the beginning of an Archie/Veronica coupling.

-The show's slow burn in setting up the inevitable arrival of Hiram Lodge and all the drama that's going to bring is starting to reach a boiling point as we learn the Blossoms have been making payments to the Lodges for 75 years (Weird, that seems to be as long as the town of Riverdale has been around) giving motivation for the feud between their families and a reason for Hiram to be a suspect in this murder. Hiram also makes his presence known when Veronica is unsure about testifying to his character through a letter that's simultaneously loving and threatening, hinting that he'd throw Hermione in harm's way to save his own skin if he had to. It instantly makes Hiram one of the more compelling antagonists the show has and he hasn't even appeared in the flesh yet (Who should play him when that happens by the way? I'm picturing a Jimmy Smits type). The "good girl" necklace he sends Veronica when she ultimately decides to testify for her mother's sake is equally chilling.

-Also kudos for the show for having Archie and Betty tell Veronica about Clifford getting her dad arrested immediately instead of having them keep it from her for no real reason.

-I'm surprised that Alice's only objection to the big party going on right next to her house was the presence of F.P. Even a couple episodes ago, she would've shut that party down before Cheryl and Chuck were even through the door. I guess that's character development for you. Also Alice is apparently the only character who figured out that a Southside Serpent dating the son of the sheriff in the middle of a big murder investigation is probably not above board. Smart Alice.

-Hey, Molly Ringwald's here! I'm sure her arrival at the end would've been much more surprising if I hadn't been aware that she was playing Mary Andrews for weeks now but it's still an effective way to end the episode.

-This Week in Hot Archie: Shirtless Archie crashing on Jughead's bed so Veronica can sleep in his.

-This Week in Hot Betty: Seductive Happy Birthday has been done to death at this point, but Lili Reinhart really sells it here. Also she looks really good in that crown T-Shirt.

-Speaking of Archie sleeping in Jughead's bed, where did Jughead sleep? Was he just out all night? He seemed surprised to see Veronica so I don't think he checked Archie's room to find his bed was taken.

-I know this is a darker, more emotional take on Jughead but having it look like he's crying tears of blood (Well it was really only one tear) is a little too on the nose for me.

-I really want to know more about Alice's past growing up on the wrong side of the tracks and maybe being a Serpent. Here's hoping the arrival of Molly Ringwald also means we get some flashbacks to the parent's past next week.

-Murder Theory Corner: Veronica accuses Cheryl of murdering her brother out of a jealous rage so it's safe to take Cheryl off the suspect list again. Veronica also suggests that F.P. could've killed Jason on her father's behalf, so he's probably off the suspect list too. Meanwhile Smithers assures Veronica that Hermione is unequivocally good to convince her to protect her mother and testify on her father's behalf and Hermione as the killer is beginning to seem more and more like a possibility. Apparently we're going to find out who killed Jason before the end of the season so get ready for that reveal.

Riverdale Chapter Nine: La Grande Illusion

2017-04-08T01:08:00.000-07:00

-One of the smartest decisions Riverdale ever made was making the principle industry of their town and the source of the Blossom's wealth and power maple syrup. If Riverdale was built on, say, oil or lumber, the Blossoms would still be interesting characters because of how ridiculous and over-the-top they are but they would feel slightly more generic, more run-of-the-mill evil rich people. Maple syrup though, is such an unlikely source of power that it gives the Blossoms a much needed specificity and adds some extra quirkiness to their sinister vibe. The idea that this dark and twisted family's claim to fame is a substance that's so sweet and overpowering just fits as does the increasingly growing possibility that all the murder and forbidden love and craziness on this show can be traced back to one man killing another over syrup.

-Archie lucks out this week and gets to be the star of the episode again. He even gets to learn some relevant plot information, lucky guy. It looks like the writers were challenging themselves to find a way to work Archie's desire to be a musician into a story that actually tied into the important plots of the show and their best solution was to put him in his own version of Indecent Proposal where instead of a million dollars, he gets help with his music. It's a story that's been told so many times that you probably guessed how it would play out right away, but it works because it allows us for another deep dive into the world of the Blossoms, which always works well for the show and it takes Cheryl's arc in a promising new direction.

-Cheryl Blossom was introduced to us as a simple chaos-driven antagonist, but the show and Madelaine Petsch quickly fleshed her out into more than that, created a fascinating, complex, tragic character trying to figure out how to cope with the loss of the only person who ever truly cared about her. La Grande Illusion doesn't show us anything really that we didn't already see in Heart of Darkness, but it does reinforce just how hard Cheryl really has it without Jason. Whether because of her gender, her tendency for drama, or her inability to be liked, no one on the Blossom Syrup board views her as stable or suitable enough to be heir for the Blossom Syrup company, not even her parents. She and her parents are all trying to turn Archie into Jason, but she's doing it because she genuinely likes Archie and her parents are doing it because they'd rather have him run the company than Cheryl. It's a hard truth for her to face but she tries to ignore it and push it away until Archie rejects her after they kiss. It's this rejection that puts her back on the path to being a chaos-driven antagonist as the season enters it's 3rd act, but the difference is now we can more fully identify with her and understand where her anger is coming from.

-La Grande Illusion is actually pretty smart in how it gets us so focused on Archie's moral dilemma about how far in bed to get with the Blossoms, we forget about the fact that Cheryl isn't part of her parents game until she blows up on him for using her to get what he wants. Archie's dilemma was never a dilemma. There's a difference between making a connection and having someone let you in before you earned your place (If the uptight New York guy doesn't like your music, the elite Music School People probably won't either, Archie!). He was always doing the wrong thing, even when he tried to get altruistic about it and help his dad out and Riverdale isn't afraid to call him on it. It's a good move that makes Archie more flawed and therefore, more interesting.

-Valerie breaking up with Archie for always ignoring her and never spending enough time with her felt like the writers coping to the fact that they didn't actually have space in the season to explore Archie dating Val outside of the episode where they got together. Which is a shame because Hayley Law is a delight in the role and hopefully we'll get to see more of her outside of the Josie scenes (Speaking of which, where has Josie disappeared to?). I am glad they didn't try to use that Archie/Cheryl kiss to motivate the Archie/Val break-up. Val had enough reason to break up with him when he downplayed her genuine concerns about him going to the dinner. She didn't need another reason.

-Archie accidentally stumbling on Penelope and Clifford talking about how Clifford should've sent Hermione to jail instead of Hiram was one of the most delightfully soap opera-ish moments on this show to date and I loved it so much.

-So Polly's dramatic decision to join the Blossom household last week turns out to be part of her plan to go undercover and figure out what really happened to Jason. It's a reveal that undercuts the tragedy of last week's ending somewhat but also makes a lot of sense with what we know of Polly. My question? If Polly didn't want Betty to worry about her, wouldn't it make more sense to just tell her her plan before she went to Thornhill? Yes, Betty might have tried to talk her out of it but she probably would come around to the idea quicker than she'd accept that her sister had abruptly abandoned her. It just feels like a silly way to create more drama for the show.

-Shannon Purser returns this week as Ethel Muggs and there's no wink-y Stranger Things joke this time, but we do get more of a character exploration for her. Ethel reads a pretty personal, dark poem in school and Veronica becomes concerned about her, deciding to befriend her to make amends for her bullying ways back when she lived in New York. It's a story that seems ripped out of a Very Special Archie at first, but it takes an intriguing turn when we find out that Ethel's family is having financial troubles because her dad invested with Hiram. Veronica has always had a loyalty to her father that's felt kind of naive, so it's interesting to watch the show dive into it and pull it apart until it finally breaks as she realizes that her dad has hurt people. Camila Mendes turns in a terrific performance as Veronica struggles to find some way to make amends for what Hiram has done only to realize she can't. Purser for her part mostly has to look sad and grieve, but she's able to put a lot of nuance and humanity into it, and the final passages of the plot where she's able to overlook Veronica's name and remain friends with her is both powerful and unexpectedly sweet for Riverdale.

-Apparently Hermione had forgotten that Fred could actually lose a lot being in business with the Lodges as once Veronica points out he could ends up with Ethel's dad, she finally decides to tell him that she's the mystery buyer he's working for (She tells him about Hiram hiring the thugs too for good measure). Fred reacts as one would when they find out their girlfriend has involved them in a criminal enterprise without telling them. The end sets up an interesting status quo going forward though as Fred breaks up with Hermione, but agrees to stay on the project for a 20% stake in it. After weeks of basically reacting to things, it's nice to see Fred finally take charge on something.

-So here's where the Ethel/Veronica plot confused me. Was Ethel unaware that Veronica was Veronica Lodge or was she just unaware of the specifics of what her father did? I was under the impression that everyone was aware of who Veronica was so I was confused why Ethel was so surprised at Veronica's confession.

-Betty, Alice, and Jughead are mostly on the side of the action this week, getting information about Polly and the Blossoms from Archie so Alice can write an expose and Betty can find out if her sister is OK. Alice gets a really effective arc though as her initial reversion to her old behaviour and her indifference towards Polly is quickly revealed to be a front for the amount of pain she feels from her daughter's rejection. Alice also began this season as a simple antagonist, but she finally comes over to the protagonist side tonight (for now at least) as mother, daughter, and daughter's aloof boyfriend start working in tandem to take down the Blossoms. It's a big leap from where she was even a few episodes ago but it feels earned and natural because the show has been quietly building towards it for weeks.

-I don't understand why Hal doesn't want to print the expose about the Blossoms. Yes, he's mad at his wife and has somehow fired her from the newspaper, even though she always seemed like she was the one running the show there. But why is he pretending he doesn't care about the Blossom family at all and this whole thing has been Alice's obsession? Did he forget about how just last week he was screaming about refusing to raise a child with Blossom blood? Or the family blood feud? Running this piece helps his agenda and it seems like a false note that he's not interested. I can forgive it though because the scene where Alice dramatically tosses a rock through the Register's window was easily the best part of the episode.

-So Alice is going to work for the high school newspaper now? Wasn't the reason Betty started the newspaper up again in the first place to get away from her mother's sensationalism? I know Betty has become more sympathetic to her mother's cause but does she really think that's going to change? Also how is the school OK with letting a non-faculty adult just work on a school newspaper? And does that newspaper even get put out? I was just under the impression that they used the office to stash their murder board. And don't even get me started on what Jughead implied about the paper having a large overhead budget (I'm really hoping that was supposed to be a joke).

-This Week in Dapper Archie: Nice suit Archiekins. It'd look even better with some dignity.

-If Archie was smart, he'd hang onto that guitar the Blossoms gave him but he's probably going to give it back out of some misplaced sense of nobility.

-The dark poem and fears of suicide in this episode reminded me of Netflix's new drama 13 Reasons why, which I watched this week. It's terrific and it features Riverdale's own Ross Butler (Reggie) in a supporting role that gives him a chance to actually show off his acting chops a bit. Hopefully the Riverdale writers also watched this, took note, and are beefing up Reggie's part for next season.

-Murder Theory Corner: It's getting pretty late in the season for someone not connected to the Coopers/Blossoms feud to be involved in killing Jason (Unless they're planning on dragging this out for season 2, which I really hope is not the case). Hiram probably didn't kill Jason, but could Hermione have? It's possible. Alice continues to look like a better and better suspect as well the less suspicious she becomes. It's even possible that Cheryl could've done it without realizing it. After all we know everyone thinks she's unstable. Maybe the one person she trusted to protect her let her down and she went to far? It's hard to say for sure at this point who the killer is, which makes for good TV.

-Next Week: Molly Ringwald!

Riverdale: Chapter Eight: The Outsiders

2017-04-01T02:25:00.001-07:00

-OK, let's start this week with the big burning question on everyone's mind: why did Riverdale tiptoe around using the word abortion when discussing the appointment Hal offered to make for Polly (And the one he made for Alice way back when)? OK, maybe this isn't the big question on everyone's mind but I'm curious about it so we're starting with it. It couldn't have been a standards and practice thing. TV has gotten much more open about discussing abortion in recent years and two other CW shows did abortion stories earlier this year where they were very frank and open about it. It might've been an Archie Comics thing but if the company has no problem with the this dark, sexier take on Archie I can't imagine they'd object to the word abortion. So is it a story thing? Is it representative of the repression that the Coopers have all internalized? Are Alice and Hal are so obsessed with projecting a certain image that they can't even bring themselves to utter the word in privatw for fear of scandal? Probably. If this is what the writers are going for though, it's too bad the result is a couple key scenes of the episode feeling like they're from the 80s or 90s.

-Alright, now that I've gotten that off of my chest, let's get to the actual meat of the episode. Riverdale did something weird this week: they made Archie the focus of the big, flashy A-story and relegated the clash between the Coopers and the Blossoms to the B-story sidelines. Now technically In A Lonely Place did the same thing, but Jughead was definitely the lead character of that episode, while Archie was relegated to the sidelines. To contrast, The Outsiders puts Archie front and centre as he learns about his father's business woes and takes matters into his own hands in an effort to fix them. Why is this weird? Mostly because Archie is almost never the focal point of a Riverdale episode. He gets storylines and stuff but they're almost never supposed to be the most compelling part of the episode. Even the episode ostensibly about Archie's romance with Grundy was more of a Betty episode. This has been to the show's benefit because Archie is clearly the weakest character and his biggest character traits (Music! Good friend apparently!) doesn't translate to compelling A-stories. The Outsiders takes a gamble though by leaning on Archie's 3rd and 4th biggest character traits (Loves his dad! Does Not Think Things Through!) and it works pretty well. Archie's still not as compelling as the other characters and The Outsiders isn't as good as the past couple episodes but it's a solid outing.

-The main thrust of the episode revolves around Andrews Construction, which is undergoing problems thanks to Cliff Blossom stealing away the construction crew and random thugs trashing the equipment when Archie, Jughead, Kevin, Moose, and some rando jock come in as a replacement crew. Now the parts of this story that revolve around the land itself, whether from Cliff Blossom trying to stall out construction to get the land or Hermione trying to not tell Fred that Hiram owns the land are pretty dull because land contracts are pretty dull and it's never been clear why so many TV shows seems to think otherwise. The interesting stuff comes from Fred trying to hold the company he built together and Archie realizing for the first time how hard his dad has been working to keep them afloat. That's compelling stuff. The Andrews boys aren't the most interesting characters on the show by far but their bond and their relationship has developed this season in an interesting way as Archie begins to see his dad as more human and tries to start giving back to his dad a little. The care put into developing that relationship carries much of this portion of the episode and provides useful context to Archie's impulsive decision making.

-Of course, as much as Archie wants to help his dad, he's still a kid so a lot of his solutions involve getting into danger, trying to take justice into his own hands and yelling at Jughead for not mentioning that his dad was a Serpent without trying to consider Jughead's possible reasons for omitting this. Maybe the reason Archie is the most frustrating character on this show is because Archie is the one who acts the most like a normal, if a bit hotheaded teenager would in this situation, and a normal teenager would not be useful. It's all well-acted by K.J. Apa though who brings a lot to a thankless role and the reconciliation between Archie and Jughead at the end does a good job at folding in the theme of children protecting their parents. Seriously though Arch, learn to control that temper of yours before you get into real trouble.

-Can you really blame Jughead for not wanting to tell people that his dad was a Serpent? Of course not, unless you're Archie. Cole Sprouse does a really good job capturing how conflicted Jughead is in this episode, as he struggles between helping Archie out and not wanting to believe that his dad could've sunk so low. Of course, even without his dad being a member, Jughead is right about not jumping to conclusions about who the thugs were. He does seem a little too surprised when he's informed the Serpents are drug dealers though. Like what did he think the Serpents did? Just hung around and caused random trouble like they were a street gang from out of The Warriors? C'mon Jughead. Use your brain.

-Really the best part of the main story is the continued presence of Skeet Ulrich, oozing charisma as he gets to play the more confident, dangerous side of F.P. this week. After the drunken mess we saw last week, it's a bit weird to see how in control of himself F.P. is, but Ulrich keeps things consistent, letting us see the more vulnerable side of F.P. in moments like his confrontation with Fred or his interrogation from Jughead.

-Ultimately the saboteurs turn out to have been hired by Hiram, presumably because he knows about Hermione and Fred. This is an interesting development but I'm more curious about the fact that the thugs are identified as being from Montreal. First, is having Montreal connections supposed to be threatening? Every time they said Montreal, it just sounded goofier and goofier. Also, how does Hiram know people in Montreal? Are they implying that's where he's imprisoned? Or does he just have criminal connections up there? Is this all coming back to maple syrup?

-I know Fred is desperate for a crew but hiring a bunch of people you know are criminals because your old high school buddy charms you into it does not seem like the best idea.

-I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to spend more time in the Southside Serpent's bar, which gave off a really cool Mos Eisley vibe.

-Kevin's Southside Serpent boyfriend Joaquin returns to remind us he exists before the reveal that he's been romancing Kevin on F.P.'s orders to get a line on the sheriff's department. This is a decent twist but it really needed one or two more appearances from Joaquin prior to the reveal for it to land. Like we've only known the guy two episodes so it's not as big a betrayal for the audience as it could've been. Also Joaquin is totally going to fall for Kevin for real right before his deception is discovered and Kevin dumps him.

-Is F.P. the leader of the Serpents? From the way he commands the bar, he's clearly high up in the chain of command, but no one seems to notice this or care.

-Meanwhile the Polly Cooper story heats up as Betty and Veronica throw Polly a baby shower in an effort to ease tensions with Alice and to a lesser extent, the Blossoms in hopes of figuring something out for Polly and the baby (Or babies if Grandma Blossom is to be believed). Now throwing Alice, Polly, Penelope, and Cheryl into a room together seems like a recipe for disaster and the show even suggests it will be by having Hermione remind us that the Blossoms and Coopers are the Hatfields and McCoys of Riverdale. Rather then things turning crazy immediately though, writer Julia Cohen uses our expectations to build tension, even when nothing that tense is happening. When the conflict does burst out over Penelope trying to get Polly back to Thornhill, it's quick and messy, a cathartic release of tension that feels well-earned and that pushes the story in an interesting direction.

-Mädchen Amick has been killing it from episode one on Riverdale, playing a ridiculously broad cartoon villain, but one who had hints of depth and humanity to her. The Outsiders though brings her to new heights as we see Alice finally seem like a real, vulnerable human being finally starting to figure out the terribleness of her actions. It comes up slowly at first as we see her slowly warm up to the baby shower she had no interest in attending at the episode's beginning. Alice clearly doesn't like that this is happening but she does love her daughter and she does want her to come home so she decides to take the step of welcoming Polly home. It's more humanity than we've seen from Alice so far. Then Alice learns Hal tried to schedule an appointment for Polly to take care of her problem and we see something else. From the way Alice reacted when she heard what Hal did, I figured that this story was building to Alice throwing him out but I was blown away by the depths of pain and rage that Amick shows in her confrontation with Hal (Who is becoming more and more monstrous by the week as the depths of his Blossom hatred keep getting exposed). The way she shouts at him to get out, as we see her building up the strength to bring herself to say the words is extraordinary, only matched by the defeated and exhausted way she admits that she doesn't care about what people think anymore. It's a stunning display of the depths of her love for her daughter and it makes what comes next all the more heartbreaking.

-I'll admit it. I did not see Polly choosing to go to Thornhill rather than return home even after learning what Alice did coming. The episode lures you into a false sense of security with that scene between Betty and Polly before punching you in the gut with the very next scene. It's a shocking move but one that makes total sense. The Blossoms are sketchy but they're offering financial and emotional stability that Alice just can't offer. In addition, Alice did arrange for Polly to be sent to an asylum and that's not something that can be easily papered over. Still it's a surprising turn of events and the shot of Betty holding a crying Alice before showing Polly walk through those doors is an effectively devastating note to end the episode on.

-It's a small moment, but the look Penelope and Cliff give each other as Polly enters into Thornhill gave me chills. Polly, get out of there while you still can.

-I really like the cinematography on the big Betty/Jughead kiss. The way the camera uses the streetlights to give the impression of their romance being a bright spot in the darkness of their lives? Well done.

-This Week in Hot Archie Gang: Are you a fan of watching attractive men do manual labour? How about Cole Sprouse in a tank top? If so, then the beginning portions of the episode were definitely for you.

-This Week in Dumb Archie: Wearing your high school letterman jacket into a seedy bar? Way to be inconspicuous, Archie.

-Nana Rose Blossom has dementia and gypsy blood. So she's definitely giving Cheryl a run for her money as the best character on this show.

-So that giant building Fred is constructing is definitely going to be the Lodge Mansion, right? That feels like the only thing interesting enough to justify dedicating all this time to a story about construction contracts.

-Murder Theory Corner: Well the Southside Serpents are definitely trying to get away with something. Is it murder? Hard to say. I'm almost certain they burned down that car because of drugs though. Meanwhile Alice gives Hal a "You know what I'm capable of", which could be a red herring but given that we're eight episodes in and Jason and Polly's romance is still the only plausible reason for his murder, who knows? Alice is less obvious as a choice for killer now. Maybe she is the killer after all. Cliff Blossom is also starting to feel like a possibility, considering he's filling the role on the show that Hiram filled in the comics meaning that when Hiram comes to Riverdale inevitably, Cliff will be expendable.

Jane The Virgin Gets Her Flirt On in Chapter 59

2017-03-29T16:21:00.002-07:00

-This Week in Titles: Jane The Flirt, which appears over Jane pulling a Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blowing up. At least in her mind.

-Romance has been a key part of Jane The Virgin since it's very beginning. Though never quite as important a theme to the show as family, Jane's various romantic entanglements and relationships, whether with Michael, Rafael, or occasionally someone else (Jonathan Chavez, anyone?) have often been at the forefront of the narrative. Then Michael died, a move that necessitated a backgrounding of the romantic elements, at least where Jane was concerned. There was still romance in the show, most notably Petra's fling with Chuck and Xo's engagement to Bruce but it was all secondary to exploring where the characters were three years later and how Jane was starting to get to a place where she could heal from what she went through with Michael. This was a smart choice on the writer's part because rushing the romance in almost immediately after Michael died would feel sloppy and disrespectful to the fans who were invested in that relationship and this approach. Now that there's a bit of distance from Michael's death though, the romance comes rushing back in this week (after testing the waters for it last week) and Chapter Fifty-Nine has practically everyone trying to get some action.

-There are going to be a fair number of people out there who feel that it's still too soon for Jane to move on from Michael, at least for the audience who only lost him a couple months ago as opposed to three years. That's understandable but I suspect that even if the show waited until the end of next season for Jane to start dating again people would think it was too soon. Losing Michael was painful and his love story with Jane was one for the ages but romance is in "Jane's" blood and the show couldn't keep it away forever. Luckily Chapter Fifty-Nine makes it clear that the show isn't that eager for Jane to be rushing into a serious or even casual relationship anytime soon as multiple possible love interests for Jane are set-up then shut down.

-"Jane" loves it's visual devices and motifs and it comes up with the best one it's had in a while tonight as various characters (Mainly Jane but Rafael and Alba get in on it too) use a Terminator-esque love radar to try and determine if the person they're interacting with is flirting with them. It's a fun device that beautifully captures how hard it can be to figure out if a person is flirting with you or not as the signs and clues differ from situation to situation and person to person. Of course there's no such thing as perfect love radar and it's especially tough to get a handle on the signs when you've been out of the game for a long time and Jane and Rafael both misread situations at various points causing embarrassing situations.

-When Mateo's aide Alex was introduced last episode, it seemed pretty likely that he could end up as Jane's new love interest, and the promos for the episode heavily revolved around the scene where he lets Jane know in no uncertain terms that he is not interested in her, giving the impression that the entire episode would be about this. Happily, the writers go a different way with this. Alex is Mateo's aide and it would be entirely inappropriate for him to pursue a relationship with Jane or for her to even consider him as a romantic prospect, as multiple characters including Jane point out. Once Alex firmly shuts down the idea that he's interested in Jane, it's the end of that particular story. Instead the show uses this moment as a springboard to dive into just how rusty Jane has gotten at reading signs of romantic interest, showing how much work Jane has ahead of her if she really wants to get back into the dating game.

-After an interlude night out at the Fairwick which we'll get to in a sec, the show brings back Dennis, Michael's old partner who's investigating Scott's murder and who is also recently single. Pairing the two together would make a lot of sense in some ways. The two know each other, both have struggled with Michael's death and we saw their connection be rekindled a few episodes back. If they were to get together for a few episodes, no one would be that surprised so it's not shocking when they go out on a mini-golf date. But the show also recognizes that in the long run it doesn't make sense for Jane to date Dennis. His long history with Michael means she'd be thrown with constant reminders of him, which wouldn't bode well for the health of the relationship. Additionally Dennis is clearly not as over his ex-fiancee as he wants to think he is. So instead of forcing them to be together for a few episodes for the sake of drama, "Jane" has the two recognize at the end of the date that it won't work and Dennis decides to give his ex-fiancee another chance. After all the important thing about this story wasn't that Jane find her next great love, it's that she decided to put herself back out there again, even though it's not going to be an easy road for her.

-Now, let's be real. The easiest option for a new great romantic love for Jane would be her old great romantic love, Rafael. In fact it's almost a certainty that Jane and Rafael will get back together at some point, and a worse show would have pushed them back together already. "Jane" isn't a worse show though and instead, they continue to explore Jane and Rafael being best friends. Justin Baldoni is very charming as Raf attempts to help Jane get back up there, especially as it quickly becomes apparent that Rafael might not entirely know what he's doing either, suggesting Jane look for someone in "kids hotel" The Marbella and not realizing his presence will have people assuming they're a couple. It's once Petra gets involved and the action moves to the Fairwick that things really heat up and the interplay between Jane, Rafael, and Petra is very fun to watch. After all these three have been to, it's nice to see them in a place where they can be friends to each other and support each other, even if it's not the most conventional way of support.

-After Rafael and Petra hooked up at the end of last week's episode, it seemed like a sign that we would be returning to the Rafael/Petra romance, something that the show hinted at throughout the second season but never pulled the trigger on. This time however, they're flipping the script by having Rafael be in love with Petra while Petra dates Chuck. It's a neat twist that the episode cleverly builds to throughout the episode, having Rafael assume Petra is interested in him like in the past until she shuts that idea down hard. Petra still likes Chuck and the flirting we see her doing with Raf is just an attempt to make Chuck jealous. It's a nice way to play on expectations and it's nice that Chuck isn't going to be as disposable a love interest as Abby was for the sake of getting Raf and Petra back together.

-Chuck was introduced as a broad, gross slimeball, and while he's still a broad character, "Jane" and Johnny Messner have done an admirable job, making him more nuanced and complex. Chuck is as confused about why Petra cares about him as Petra is and that confusion translates into a much-needed vulnerability for the character.

-Alba's romance with Jorge continues to be a delightful turn for the character. Ivonne Coll has never really had the chance to play a full-blown love story for Alba (There was that priest in season 1 and her old flame Pablo in season 2 but the priest was just a flirtation and Pablo's story was mainly about what bad news the guy was) and it's fun to see her play lovestruck, as she finds a way to work Jorge into every conversation she has without fail. Her walk of shame at the end is a great pay-off to the "walk of lame" Jane, Rafael, and Petra had earlier and it'll be interesting to see how "Jane" continues to explore this as it lays the groundwork for Jorge maybe being not so perfect for Alba. After all Jorge seems sweet, but he also seems like more talk than action and his big romantic idea only came about because he overheard a lovestruck Alba waxing romantic about minigolf. He and Alba are cute together but it feels like Alba can do better than him.

-Rogelio and Xo are back together at last! Once Xo broke up with Bruce, it was only a matter of time before her and Rogelio reunited but it was still a fun surprise when they almost immediately started making out in the settlement chambers after Rogelio found out the engagement was off. Bruce was a nice guy and the show made me more invested in him than I ever expected but Xo and Ro are meant to be.

-The downside of this storyline is it exposes how much of a plot stall Rogelio's desire to have kids really was. Yes, it's nice that Mateo is filling that part of Rogelio's life and the pair's interactions are filling the bromance void that's been empty since Michael died nicely but it still feels cheap that we spent almost a season watching Rogelio insist he needed kids only for him to abruptly change his mind. Sure time changes things but it just keeps me from enjoying the reunion of Xo and Ro as much as I want to (Though Rogelio matter of factly informing Jane that he and Xo had just had sex in his car was hysterical).

-Rogelio also gets back in the telenovella game this week with Los Viajes De Guillermo, a very loose adaption of Gulliver's Travels that's also based off of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. It's an idea that looks like a lot of fun and the introduction of a sexier male co-star should lead to some great stories as a jealous Rogelio confronts his aging but hopefully The Passion of Santos remake isn't entirely being forgotten about. Dropping the idea in favour of more telenovella shenanigans for the rest of the show would feel like a step backwards. Rogelio mentioning it gives me hope that it'll come to fruition again sooner rather than later though.

-The heart glow is one of "Jane's" favourite visual devices, deployed many times over the years before being used to break everyone's hearts as we watched Michael's heart glow fade out. It was so effective that I was a little surprised that they brought the device back so soon to indicate Rafael's growing feelings for Petra. Things clicked into place however with the last-second reveal of Rogelio's new co-star, the young, very handsome Fabian who inspires a glow from a um, different part of Jane's body. The message is clear. It might be a while before Jane's heart is ready to glow again but her crotch isn't going to wait.

-The Scott murder investigation is mostly in the background this episode but we do learn that Petra has apparently kept in contact with Anezka these past couple years and has her hiding away somewhere. That sounds suspicious.

-So as the narrator begins to run down the great romantic loves of Jane's life, there's a first one before Michael that he purposely refrains from going into detail on. So yeah, whoever that is will definitely be showing up again by finale time.

-The narrator struggling to remember Dana's name, drawing our attention to the character as he struggles: cute joke or foreshadowing that she's important to the murder plot?

-"Jane" will be off for almost a month now after recently being off for three weeks. Come on CW, you're killing me here. The last five episodes of the season should air uninterrupted though, which will be nice.

Superstore Tackles A Complex Obstacle on Mateo's Last Day

2017-03-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

-When Superstore had Mateo discover he was an undocumented immigrant back in August's Olympic Special, it came at a time when the 2016 election had made immigration a hot topic. Following the election and the victory of Donald Trump, it's become even more timely and relevant than the writers probably thought it would be when they introduced the storyline, making it an even trickier subject to mine for comedy. Mateo's undocumented status has been mostly backgrounded throughout the season however as the character's been developed in other ways, mainly through his relationship with Jeff. It's popped up so rarely, it's easy to forget it exists. So when Mateo's undocumented status suddenly pops back in with a vengeance and intertwines itself with Mateo's relationship, it makes for a more powerful and emotionally resonant story than if it had been an ongoing concern every week. Mateo's Last Day (Directed by series star America Ferarra) handles the issue smartly, subtly and gracefully, adding in enough laughs to balance the more serious parts of the episode effectively.

-When last week's episode ended with Jeff saying Mateo needed to transfer stores in order for corporate to be OK with their relationship, it was obvious that Mateo probably wasn't going to transfer stores. Nico Santos is too valuable an ensemble player to be let go this early in the show's run. The introduction of the much nicer Signature store Mateo is supposed to transfer to made it even clearer that something was going to go wrong because that's just how comedy works. The only question was how this was all going to fall apart and Mateo's lack of a social security card was a nice, elegant answer to that question. Mateo's undocumented status only ever really comes up when it can organically tie into the story and this was a masterful way to throw a big obstacle between Mateo and Jeff, which is really what the whole story is about.

-Mateo and Jeff's romance has been going on for much of the season but the secretive nature of said romances means the pair haven't actually shared a lot of screentime together, typically only getting a scene or two whenever Jeff is in an episode. So it's impressive how fleshed out and developed the relationship feels. Michael Bunin has done a fantastic job making Jeff feel like a real human being rather than a disposable love interest that can be thrown away without consequence, making us care about him as a character. Bunin and Santos also have terrific chemistry and that chemistry helps us get invested in their relationship, which adds extra weight when that relationship ends. The two of them also do maybe their best work to date in the climatic break-up scene. You can feel Mateo's pain and agony as he tells Jeff he doesn't love him as well as Bunin's hurt from those words.

-Typically, when a TV relationship ends because one party is keeping a secret and thinks breaking up with the other person instead of just telling the truth is the best course of action, it feels contrived and ridiculous. That being said, Mateo choosing not to tell Jeff about his undocumented status works here because the show and Santos do a lot of groundwork leading up that decision so we understand why Mateo makes it. Jeff cares about Mateo but he also cares about his job and we've seen how insecure Mateo can be about where he stands with Jeff as recently as the last episode. Mateo should trust that Jeff will be able to handle the truth about his undocumented status but he just can't bring himself to do it. It's tragic and frustrating but it makes sense on a character level. The good news is that there's still plenty of time left in the season for Mateo to change his mind and tell Jeff the truth (And I hope he does).

-Jonah is used purely as comic relief for Mateo's story this week as he offers to marry Mateo multiple times before trying and failing to beat up Mateo. It's nice to see that the Superstore writers don't feel the need to make Jonah a driving part of a storyline every week and Ben Feldman is clearly having a blast embracing the goofier side of Jonah. The final beat of him punching out Mateo after Mateo calls off the transfer and breaks up with Jeff is a darkly hilarious moment to close the episode on. There's also a lot of fun interplay between Feldman, Santos, and Nichole Bloom this week that makes me want to see more of Jonah, Cheyenne, and Mateo as a comic trio.

-With the Mateo story doing the emotional heavy-lifting for the episode, the other two stories are much sillier and comedy-driven to great effect. Glenn and eventually Amy getting sucked into a battle with an internet troll isn't the most original story in the world but it works because of how well-executed the various comedic beats are, and the game performances from Mark McKinney, America Ferrara, and guest star Neil Casey (Who you might know from the Ghostbusters reboot and the ill-fated but brilliant Yahoo Screen Original Other Space). There's no reasoning with trolls on the internet and everyone knows it, but Glenn cares about the store so much that he can't help from trying to make Tim see the store the same way he does, even though every time he attempts to do so only makes the initial Yelp review worse.

-Internet trolls and their unique brand of awfulness are hard to capture on television without turning them into a caricature, but episode writer Jonathan Green and Neil Casey do an admirable job making Tim feel like an actual character and not a plot device. Casey gives a great performance as someone who seems like a perfectly nice, reasonable guy who doesn't seem like an internet troll at all until he posts online. When Amy decides to visit him at his home and we see he lives with his mentally-ill, hoarder mother who he's been forced to take care of, it initially seems like the episode is offering an easy, lazy explanation for his behaviour. He's frustrated in his own life so he takes it out online. When he and Amy have a heart-to-heart where they discover they aren't so different, I was ready to roll my eyes. Then the episode smartly subverts this by having the heart-to-heart ultimately lead to nothing but another update of his awful review, leaving it ambiguous as to whether he meant anything he said or if he was just screwing with Amy the whole time (The truth is probably somewhere in the middle but the episode leaves it to the viewer to make their own decision). The point is clear, you just can't reason with terrible people on the internet so you're going to need to find another way to handle it.

-Garrett and Dina get a much slighter story as they're required to sign a relationship disclosure form and balk at the limited number of options they have to describe the nature of their relationship (Spouse, Family Member, or Romantic). Superstore has avoided going a conventional route for whatever is going on between these two all season and that pays off dividends here as practically half of corporate gets drawn into their web. They're not friends so "friends with benefits" is off the table. They don't hate each other so "hate effing" doesn't work either. The further they go into their web trying to figure out what label fits best, the more convoluted and hilarious everything gets. The ultimate decision to label the 4th box "other" works like gangbusters because it's so obviously simple, it's absurd no one thought of it in the first place. I still expect Garrett and Dina to try dating for real eventually but I don't mind waiting for that to happen if the show can keep getting material this good from their "other" relationship.

-Best Interstitial: Nothing of note this week. Let's highlight the moment in Mateo's "Looking for a fight" montage where he challenges Brett to a fight and Brett immediately draws a knife. Don't screw around with Brett,

-This Week in Mark McKinney is a Treasure: The look on his face when Amy refers to the person who left a negative Yelp review as a "troll", prompting her to clarify that she means a regular-sized non-magical human person.

-Mateo making an elaborate departure video for himself makes for a terrific cold open. "What am I gonna miss the most? Uh, the people. They're often hilarious, simple, basic. Just sort of harmless."

-Cloud Nine being completely and utterly unready for any kind of natural disaster has been a nice little running joke that continues tonight when Glenn mentions it's been over eight years since their last tornado drill.

Superstore Tries To Win An Integrity Award

2017-03-17T23:33:00.001-07:00

-It's been a couple weeks since the last new episode of Superstore but Integrity Award did a strong job keeping the season's momentum going with another funny installment filled with great jokes, solid character development and an expertly deployed setpiece.

-When we first met Amy in season 1, it became quickly apparent that she was the kind of person who took care of other people at the expense of her own needs, the one who was responsible because she felt she had to be. In season 2, Amy's arc has been her learning to be assertive about what she wants and take care of herself. It's been very satisfying to watch her progress throughout the season and her arc reaches a big turning point tonight as we meet her parents and find out why she has to be so responsible in the first place.

-Tony Plana (Who was also America Ferrara's dad on Ugly Betty) and Marlene Forte were terrific tonight as Ron and Connie, who in just a handful of scenes became fully-fleshed out characters who felt like they could exist outside of Amy (I would actually totally watch a spin-off about Ron and Connie, particularly if it meant more of Ron's celebrity portraits). They aren't terrible parents, in fact they seem like terrific people, but they just don't know how to prioritize tasks or manage their time wisely or get the things done that actually matter. This has caused Amy to have to be the one who's always getting things done. The problem is that this has created a cycle where Ron and Connie have no need to get organized or hurry up for once because Amy has always kept them from dealing with the consequences of their actions. The only reason Amy is even there at all is because they didn't bother to get a truck for their move, causing Amy to take one of Cloud Nine's delivery trucks. So when Amy makes the decision to sneak away and leave her parents to clean up their own mess for once, it's rightfully played not as a selfish act but as a triumphant moment of growth for the character.

-The show continues to take it's time setting up a Jonah/Amy romance, which suits me fine. It has a lot of fun tonight with the two of them just being friends, as Jonah takes advantage of this opportunity to learn all about young Amy and finds out that the two of them have a lot in common and would've been friends as kids (Not that Amy wants to admit that). And when Amy is pushed to her breaking point, Jonah is there to support her and help convince her that the right thing to do is leave. America Ferrara and Ben Feldman continue to have terrific chemistry together and I could easily watch another season of them just dragging out their attraction for each other before I got tired of it. The end beat of the story with Amy ignoring a call from Adam felt a little unnecessary though, like it was only their because the writers didn't trust us to pick up on Amy and Jonah's growing bond on their own.

-Glenn and Garrett are two characters who play off of each other very well but they don't get a lot of actual stories together. Integrity Award fixes that as Glenn's campaign to win the upcoming Cloud Nine Integrity Award (And the unframed certificate and All-You-Can-Eat Buffet Luncheon that comes with it) is threatened when Garrett rescues a veteran's dog that was trapped in the snow. We've seen Glenn act insecure and petty before but it gets taken to a new level tonight as Glenn tries to belittle and underplay Garrett's good deed at every turn, and getting Cheyenne (Who nominated Glenn without any provocation from Glenn) to expand and enhance the details of her nomination for him. It's an ugly side of Glenn that we're not used to seeing but Mark McKinney plays it terrifically and naturally so it feels consistent to Glenn's character.

-When Garrett comes in with that dog, it initially seems like the whole thing is an act he's pulling to win the integrity award and mess with Glenn but it turns out that Garrett has no interest in the award, he was just genuinely doing something good for once. He even keeps trying to help Glenn out and direct the attention he's getting elsewhere until Glenn finally pushes him too far and he begins accepting nominations out of spite. It's not that Garrett cares about the award that much, it's the fact that Glenn is undermining one of the few good deeds Garrett has done and it hurts. Colton Dunn is always terrific as Garrett when he's just in deadpan trickster mode, but he does equally well showing off the vulnerable side of Garrett.

-Mateo's misadventures trying to fix things around the store so Dina thinks Jeff is obsessed enough with Mateo to give him special treatment is a fun story that serves as a fun parallel to Sandra sending herself all those elaborate Valentine's gifts a few weeks back. It turns out Mateo's real relationship with Jeff isn't as exciting to the Cloud Nine employees as Sandra's fake one so Mateo is desperate for the same kind of employee validation about his relationship that Sandra got. Dina's manipulating Mateo when she suggests Jeff doesn't care enough to give him preferential treatment and Mateo knows it but he goes for it all the same because Dina has tapped into an actual fear Mateo has. Hence Mateo trying to be a one-man fixing crew, which becomes harder to sustain as Dina's demands get more and more ridiculous (Her vision for what the store could look like in three years is hilariously over-the-top).

-A good rule of thumb for if a bug bomb appears in a sitcom is that it's going to backfire spectacularly so I was ready for Mateo's effort to debug the break room to go awry. I was not ready for him to set off ten at once, forcing a store-wide evacuation. The way the whole thing slowly builds is masterful. There's just enough of a delay from seeing Mateo with the bug bombs to the reveal of the spreading toxins that we almost forget about the whole thing, making it more funny when the whole store starts getting affected.

-The episode ends on a bit of a cliffhanger as Mateo is informed he'll have to transfer stores in order to keep his relationship with Jeff going. Since it seems unlikely that Nico Santos is leaving the show, it looks like the Jeff/Mateo romance is near it's breaking point. That'll be a shame because it'll probably mean less Jeff and his delightfully odd normalness but hopefully Jeff will still pop in now and then if only to be a district manager

-Best Interstitial: A couple makes out in the middle of the check-out line until they're asked to move by a customer, so they move a couple inches and get back to making out.

-This Week in Mark McKinney is a Treasure: The whole Glenn/Garrett story was full of great moments but I think Glenn's reaction to the windows on his car being shattered again takes the cake this week. "Why can't I just have a car?!" Sidenote, I did not see the reveal that Glenn was the owner of that poor car coming even though I totally should have because bad things only ever happen to Glenn's car.

-The runner-up best Glenn moment though was his increasingly befuddled reaction to Garrett feigning ignorance at how an all-you-can-eat buffet works. "Oh, I see, so it's all you can eat on your one trip to the buffet". "No, you're you're not getting it. It's multiple trips". "What size plate do you have to bring with you?" "They have plates there!"

-The Vladmir Putin painting that Jonah is wrangled into buying from Ron was a terrific visual gag.

-Another great visual gag is the shrine to Scott Wolf that young Amy has set up. This also leads to the great tag as it turns out that Amy is still obsessed with Scott Wolf and that Jonah's celebrity crush back in the day was Alyssa Milano (Which of course it was).

Review is One of TV's Darkest And Most Hilarious Anti-Hero Shows

2017-03-16T15:40:00.001-07:00

This post contains significant plot details about the first two seasons of Review. Knowing this stuff won't ruin the actual viewing experience, but if you're already planning to watch Review after the first couple paragraphs, stop there so as to maintain the surprises the show has in store.

"Life. It's literally all we have. But is it any good?"

I'm going to describe a TV show for you. A devoted family man chooses an unorthodox career path. Though his intentions could be considered somewhat noble, the actions he takes to further this career bring nothing but harm and destruction to himself and to everyone around him. Before long a body count starts building up and everything he does has an impending sense of doom. Yet, despite having every chance to change or get out, the man refuses to abandon course because he believes that what he's doing is too important to stop. Even as he stands to lose everything he keeps going, always apparently hitting rock bottom only to learn he still has a long ways down to go.

Sound familiar? You can find at least a part of the basic premise I described above in the majority of anti-hero dramas that have been so popular in the past few years. Without any of the details filled in, I could easily be talking about Breaking Bad. The key difference between the show I'm describing and all those anti-hero shows though? This one is also one of the funniest shows you'll ever watch, even as the feeling of dread kicks in. It's called Review and it's both familiar and unlike anything you've ever watched, a darkly hysterical look at human nature, the systems we trap ourselves in, and the subjective nature of criticism.

Created and adapted from an Australian TV Show by Andy Daly, Jeffrey Blitz, and Charlie Siskel, Review (Which starts it's abbreviated 3rd and final season in the U.S. tonight before premiering in Canada next week on MUCH) stars Daly as self-proclaimed "life reviewer" Forrest MacNeil. Forrest hosts "Review", a show-within-a-show where he reviews life experiences chosen from an apparently random system of viewer requests on a scale of 0.5 to 5 stars. The reviews range from small things like being racist, having a best friend, being the life of the party, and public speaking to more significant things like divorce, being buried alive, being a little person and going to space. No matter the size of the task though, the reviews almost always backfire on Forrest, wrecking havoc on his life and bringing pain on him and/or the people around him in all kinds of unexpected ways, which is where the fun and dread come into play. From having to attend a custody hearing in a Batman costume to getting lost at sea for three months to seeing an imaginary friend brutally shanked in prison, you can never predict how a review will go wrong for Forrest, only that it will go wrong and it will always be funny. Even something has harmless sounding as an afternoon alone in a rowboat could get Forrest stranded at sea for over three months.

The genius of Review comes from the decision to make it so the reviews themself don't exist in a continuity-free vacuum. This isn't some cartoony setting where everything that's torn down is built up again by the next episode. The stuff Forrest does for the show has actual consequences on his life that carry over and build up over the course of the show bringing a weight and a darkness to the show as Forrest's life gets worse and worse. When Forrest divorces his wife Suzanne (A terrific Jessica St. Clair) three episodes in, she doesn't forgive him and take him back after the review is over, instead he spends much of the show pining for her and hoping to win her back as she just grows more and more disappointed in him and the insanity he invites into his life. When Forrest attends that custody hearing in a Batman costume, Suzanne's lawyer has a whole list of reasons why Forrest is an unfit parent based solely on things Forrest has done for the show. When Forrest's actions end up somehow leading to the destruction of both of his father's (Max Gail) homes (Over two different episodes), he has to live out of his office for the rest of the season. When Forrest eventually murders someone for the show, he spends an episode in prison before getting released on bail (The upcoming 3rd season is apparently going to deal with his trial). Slowly but surely Forrest loses or alienates everyone that he cares about, is plunged into debt, and almost dies a dozen different times. The result is a show that's hard to watch but impossible to look away from, with a darkness that doesn't stop growing but never takes over completely. This is a comedy after all.

A lot of why the darkness of Review never becomes too much to take comes from Daly's performance as Forrest, a person who's as charmingly innocent and full of child-like wonder about what he does as he is selfish and woefully shortsighted. Over the course of the series Forrest does some horrible, horrible, horrible things for the show but he never becomes totally unlikeable thanks to Daly who makes Forest blissfully unaware that things are about to go terribly wrong until the second before it happens. That ignorance keeps the audience on Forrest's side and keeps them rooting for him to somehow break the cycle he insists on trapping himself in, even as he fails to do so time and time again. At the same time when Forrest does ruin his life or almost gets himself killed, you don't feel too badly because the show knows there's something incredibly arrogant about a middle-age white man insisting that he's somehow able to objectively rate life experiences and the show isn't afraid to show what a fool Forrest is. It's a tricky balance to manage but Daly pulls it off with aplomb, making Forrest into a much more complex character than he might be in lesser hands.

Ultimately what makes Review great is the same thing that makes all the best anti-hero shows great: a refusal let the protagonist off the hook for their horrible actions and a willingness to play with audience expectations and push them out of their comfort zone. Early on the show introduces Grant (James Urbaniak), Forrest's oily producer who manipulates Forrest every time Forrest has doubts about a review into going through with it and who has no apparent moral compass. Urbaniak plays the character with such expert sliminess that it becomes easy to buy into the idea that Forrest is some poor innocent sap being manipulated for the sake of ratings and prop up Grant as the show's villain. As the show goes on though, it becomes obvious that Grant's manipulation isn't to blame for Forrest's problems, Forrest is. Forrest is the one who created the show and chooses to follow absurdly narrow guidelines for how to go about interpreting and completing his assignments. Forrest is the one who ignores the concerns of his co-host A.J. (Megan Stevenson, the show's secret comic weapon), his father and everyone else because he thinks his work is important. Forrest is the one blind to the fact that objectively reviewing life experiences is impossible and his pain is not universal. Forrest is the one who refuses to say no time and time again in order to uphold the principles of the show and prioritizes those principles over everything else in his life. After his review of using a Magic 8 Ball to make all his decisions goes poorly, Forrest lambastes the idea of using an arbitrary system to make choices instead of following your gut instinct, but his entire life is beholden to the arbitrary system of Review, a system he can't back down from because doing so would expose how meaningless everything he does really is (A simple request to rate something six stars out of five is enough to trigger a near-existential crisis).

Review, like any anti-hero show isn't for everyone and even those with very high tolerance for cringe comedy will be sorely tested. Watching a man destroy his life over and over and over for no reason isn't always the most pleasant viewing experience and it's hard to describe why the show is so appealing. In the end, it probably comes down to how oddly joyful and fun the show is. Don't get me wrong, it's a very dark show and the situations get quite bleak, but it never feels like a bleak show, even when the show gets around to it's Murder review. The show takes great glee in the ridiculousness of what Forrest is doing and it never forgets an opportunity to add in some silliness to all the pain. From the complete ineffectualness of Forrest's unpaid College intern Josh (Michael Croner) and Josh's girlfriend Tina (Hayley Huntley) to Forrest's complete ignorance of how the internet works to the brilliant asides and reaction shots of A.J., there's always something to laugh at in this show. Even when Forrest is broken to his very core, you're excited to see what will happen next because the show doesn't forget how to have fun. So yes, Review's devotion to the anti-hero drama formula is what makes it interesting but the joy it brings to all of it's misery is what makes it special and what will keep it in the conversation of all-time great comedies for a very long time. Five stars.

Riverdale: Chapter Seven: In A Lonely Place

2017-03-11T01:45:00.000-08:00

-At it's core Riverdale isn't a deconstruction of Archie comics, it's a deconstruction of the idea of Archie Comics, built up over the course of it's over 75 year history. It takes the "idealized, make-believe TV version of the American Dream" that we associate with Archie, a world where squeaky-clean teenagers hang out at Malt shops, have innocent love triangles and get into wholesome mischief trying to solve their simple problems, and turns it on it's head, revealing that image for the unrealistic fantasy it's always been. Our core Archie characters (I.E. Anyone who isn't a parent) haven't been significantly changed. Archie still does whatever it takes to help his friends, Jughead still follows his own path, Betty is still down-to-earth and driven, Veronica is still sophisticated and glamorous, and so on. What's changed is their circumstances, the world around them has become darker and more dangerous than the platonic ideal of the comics, but also richer and more rewarding for the people watching them. Despite all the murder and insanity around them, Archie and the gang feel relatable, much more so than those happy, idealized versions that have dominated the imagination for so long. Riverdale isn't ignoring it's history, it's just rearranging it in a way that resonates with people today, and when it nods to that history with moments like Jughead's comic-inspired dream tonight, it makes the show that much more effective.

-That whole spiel was my way of saying how much I appreciated the opening dream sequence, particularly the costuming on everyone. Seriously that might be my favourite Riverdale moment to date. It even elevated the narration around it. And the way reality starts to creep in as idealized Archie is stabbed in the back (Can you tell Jughead is conflicted about what happened with Betty?) to end the dream before transitioning into the sequence of Jughead wandering the school he's been living in was masterful.

-Riverdale has been on a real upswing ever since Ms. Grundy left and that continues with In A Lonely Place. This episode doesn't have any crazy setpiece like Jason's memorial or the trip to the asylum (Though the dueling search/hunting parties for Polly early in the episode comes close) but it makes up for that with some serious character work for Jughead, Fred, and F.P., fleshing out some relationships and dynamics that sorely needed it while keeping things entertaining.

-In his first appearance, all Skeet Ulrich really got to do as F.P. was be imposing and threatening until the big twist that his character was Jughead's father, which came on the heels of the other twist that revealed Jughead was currently homeless. These two things seemed to suggest that Jughead and his father had an animosity-filled relationship but the truth turns out to be more complicated than that. Ulrich does a great job this week making F.P. into a tragic figure, a guy who wants to put his life together and get his family back, but just isn't strong enough to change. Cole Sprouse also gives his strongest performance to date as he gets across how much Jughead loves his dad, while still being angry for how much F.P. has screwed everything up. When F.P. shows up at the end of the episode drunk and ready to fight the sheriff before resolving to get clean in a couple months, you can just feel the heartbreak. A sense of regret and uncertainty hangs over every scene they share together and you really feel the weight of the situation.

-We also find out more about F.P. and Fred's history tonight as we learn that they used to be the best of friends before their big falling out. Fred has been kind of a snooze of a character so far (Though not as much as his son) but Luke Perry does great work tonight underlining the character's fundamental decency and the uneasiness he has about giving F.P. a second chance after all that's happened. It really drives home the idea of Fred as an older version of Archie, one who will do what it takes to help people in need but who has enough experience to recognize when he's dealing with a lost cause. It doesn't mean Fred's a bad guy, just a responsible one, even if Archie is right to be mad about how Fred's decision also left Jughead to "drown" also.

-My favourite thing Riverdale has done with the adult characters is establish a history between all of them that suggests they were once just like the Archie gang before assorted life decisions got in the way of that. We see it most clearly with Fred and Hermione's flirtation and Fred and J.P.'s history, but also in things like Hermione saying she'd do anything for Alice Cooper's daughters. It gives the sense that our heroes are part of a cycle and something much bigger than themselves. I'm really hoping that we get flashbacks to Fred and company's younger days at some point (Maybe with their children playing their younger selves to really drive home the parallels.). I feel that could be interesting.

-Archie didn't have a huge storyline this week, which is for the best. Archie is at his strongest as a character when he's a supporting player in other people's stories rather than holding down his own. Here his main goal in the episode is to help Jughead. There's a bit of conflict with Fred when he learns about Fred unceremoniously cutting F.P out of the company they started, but even that comes more out of a place of anger about Jughead's struggles than anything and it's easily resolved once he sees Fred lie to the sheriff to help Jughead. If only Archie could be mostly out of the spotlight every week.

-So after the big Betty/Jughead kiss last week, it's still kind of unclear to everyone (especially them) where things stand between them and the whole thing is really underplayed this week. That's a smart move. Also though the opening dream set up the idea that Jughead was betraying Archie, Archie didn't get jealous at all when he found out, nor did it defer his efforts to help Jughead. He even apologizes to Betty for not being around to support her like Jughead was That was good to see because Archie being jealous would have felt inorganic and made him pretty unlikeable, considering he hasn't had much interest in Betty to date anyways. Good move Riverdale writers.

-The one story beat that felt off about this episode was the revelation that Jughead spent time in juvenile detention six years back for trying to burn down Riverdale Elementary (He explains it as him just "playing with matches"). It comes out of nowhere to basically set up the "Fred saves the day and falsifies evidence" beats of the plot and winds up feeling like one complication too many. Sheriff Keller's interview with Jughead where he judges him based on his upbringing also seemed out of character for someone who's been characterized as much more reasonable and level-headed up to now. Maybe the pressure from the Blossom's is getting to him.

-After last episode ended with Polly escaping from the asylum, I figured she'd be kept off the board for a couple episodes while the show dealt with other stuff or spun it's wheels a bit. Instead not only is the question of her whereabouts answered by the half point of In A Lonely Place, but the end of the episode sets her up to be around for the rest of the season. This was surprising but also welcome. Tiera Skovbye is great in the role and I'm excited to see her bounce off the rest of the cast (Particularly her new roommates Veronica and Hermione) throughout the remainder of the season.

-After a week off, Cheryl was back with a vengeance this week as she mobilizes the masses against Polly Cooper only for things to take an abrupt turn when she learns that Polly's pregnant with Jason's baby. Cheryl's sudden turn into from wanting to lynch Polly to wanting to help her could seem abrupt and jarring but Madelaine Petsch is able to make it work by anchoring Cheryl's actions to her love of her brother that gives her arc some needed consistency. Everything Cheryl does in this episode from tweeting out that Polly killed Jason to telling Polly not to go to her parents when it becomes obvious they want to get rid of her and take the baby for themselves makes sense because we know how much Cheryl loves Jason and how desperate she is to get some kind of closure or some reminder of him.

-The first part of the episode promises a big Cooper v. Blossom war as everyone tries to find Polly but it gets quickly defused by Alice's church-side press conference, which is a bit of a let-down. At least we got the aforementioned dueling search/hunting parties scene out of it. That was a lot of fun. This episode also does a good job at comparing and contrasting the Coopers and Blossoms this episode as we see why neither of them would be good for Polly or the baby.

-The most unintentionally funny scene in the episode was the one where Cheryl found out about Polly's asylum escape because the Archie gang held a long conversation about a sensitive subject they all agreed should be kept from the Blossoms in the middle of a very public space full of people (Particularly Ginger, one of Cheryl's minions who's really good at blending into the background.). Really guys? Were you that shocked when the news leaked?

-Betty seems to be on weirdly fine terms with her parents (even if she doesn't trust them with Polly or the baby) considering that last week she literally accused them of murder.

-Veronica acts out against her mother this week as retribution for Hermione's actions last week. Whereas Veronica's anger felt pretty justified last week, her stubborn behavior this week felt overly juvenile and petty for the first part of the episode. It improves in the second part though when she reveals to Kevin, Josie, and Reggie the main reason she's upset about Hermione forging her signature. When the Lodge's lost everything, Hermione swore to her that they'd never be able to take her name, only to take it herself to act against the father Veronica's still loyal to. Even though partnering with Andrews Construction is the right decision, Hermione has seriously breached her daughter's trust. The eventual make-up scene between them also works as it shows that Veronica is willing to make concessions and accept her mother's involvement with Fred to an extent, something it didn't seem like she was willing to do earlier. Her being there to support her mother as she came clean to Hiram about Fred was also an effective button for that particular plotline.

-So when Veronica was planning her night out and telling Kevin that she needed dumb, disposable arm candy, was I the only one who thought she was going to invite Archie? I was glad she went with Reggie though as he's been in serious need of some screentime.

-Josie and Veronica are officially friends now after last week's episode, which hopefully means we'll finally start getting significant screentime for the character and more than the occasional spotlight she's been thrown up to this point.

-This Week in "Conspicuous Covergirl Product Placement": Lots of shots of Alice applying make-up as she prepares to speak in front of the church.

-Fred and J.P. used to be in a band called The Fredheads, which is amazing. Again, good week for Fred.

-So when exactly did Fred fire F.P. anyways? Was this a recent thing or did it happen a long time ago? Because it feels like Jughead being on the streets is a somewhat recent development, but both he and Archie were shocked to find out that Fred and F.P. started the company together and I feel that's something they would be aware of unless this happened ages ago.

-Is that Southside Serpent guy Kevin was flirting with ever going to show up again? Also are Fred, Jughead, and Archie aware of F.P.'s involvement in the Serpents? That part of F.P.'s life was not on display at all apart from a quick conversation with Hermione to close off the plot thread of them threatening her for more money.

-Murder Theory Corner: Hey, my hunch about F.P being involved in the destruction of Jason's car was right on the money . We still don't know why he did it though (Or why he took the jacket and is keeping it fairly visible) so I'm sticking to drugs. I doubt F.P. is the killer because years of avid TV watching has taught me to assume that every obvious killer candidate is a red herring. I guess Jughead's lack of an alibi is questionable but come on, Riverdale is not going to turn one of their most marketable characters with a 75-year history into a murderer. So I'm gonna stick with my Mayor McCoy theory until I have reason to doubt it.

-Bad news. The next new episode of Riverdale isn't until March 30th. Good news! The show got renewed for season 2 this week so we have at least another year of this ridiculous show.

Riverdale: Faster Pussycats! Kill! Kill!

2017-03-03T17:35:00.000-08:00

-Man, I love Riverdale. It has a myriad of flaws and plot holes and I'm not sure I would call it "quality" television by any means, but it is very fun, very entertaining television and I'm not sure how I ever managed without it. At many times in this week's episode, my jaw dropped in and my eyes went wide delight at the ridiculous twists and turns. During all three of the big kisses this week, I think I shouted "Whoa!" at my TV screen. Riverdale is a deeply silly show, but it's aware that it's silly and owns it with impressive confidence that keeps the show from being an overly serious, morose wreck. Riverdale may be a darker take on the Archie mythos, but there's an unmistakable joy to it that comes through in every episode and that's what keeps me watching every week. There are plenty of better shows on TV but few of them are as fun as the one that can have both a big high school variety show and a visit to an asylum in the same episode without losing a step.

-Once again, Archie finds himself in high school drama land, completely disconnected from the murder plot at large, save for a funny moment where he offers to help Betty and Jughead but gets shut out. This time though, the grounded high school stuff works as well as the heightened stuff, because Archie isn't shut off from all the more interesting characters as he prepares for the big Variety Show. Veronica and Josie and Val and Kevin are there too to elevate the material enough that Archie was actually kind of interesting this week.

-As the title of the episode implies, "Faster Pussycats! Kill! Kill!" gives us our biggest look yet at Josie and the Pussycats. For a credited main character, we haven't actually spent that much time with Josie yet and don't have much of a sense of who she is as a character beyond "Proud Woman of Colour" "Lead Singer of Josie and the Pussycats" "The Mayor's Abrasive Daughter" and "Apparently Close With Cheryl". This changes tonight as we get a much better sense of why Josie is the way she is and get to see her vulnerable for the very first time. Ashleigh Murray does terrific in her first major spotlight, especially in her crushed reaction when her dad walks out before the end of her performance, which is just heart-breaking.

-Impossible to please parents are a common occurrence on television. Hell, Riverdale already has multiple sets of them. The McCoy's offer a less crazy, more grounded version of the trope though and it works well. We see Sierra McCoy has demanding with her daughter at first as she puts a lot of pressure on her not to disappoint her father at the variety show and exert control over her daughter's brand. This would be enough to explain why Josie seems so harsh in every episode we've seen her in so far but it turns out that Josie's demanding mother is nothing compared to her father Miles, an accomplished Jazz musician who would be right at home in a Damien Chazelle movie. Harsh and pretentious and dismissive of basically every kind of music that isn't Jazz, particularly Pop, Miles is a broadly-drawn caricature, but an effective one. Josie's mom is very invested in the success of her daughter, but she also cares about Josie, where Miles is content to just leave if he doesn't feel Josie is living up to her potential. It makes for a fascinating family dynamic that brings some extra emotional weight to the episode.

-The falling-out between Josie and Val isn't as effective as it could have been because we've been given almost no context for their friendship or dynamic prior to this episode and no reason to invest in the fate of their friendship beyond any nostalgia we have for the old Josie cartoon/movie. Since we've seen nothing of the softer side of Josie prior to this episode, it's hard to understand why Val and Mel are friends with her at all. Everything else is much better though, particularly their reconciliation scene at the end when we get to see actual warmth between the two. We also get a better sense of who Val is after this episode. She's not just back-up for Josie, she's talented in her own right and she appreciates working with Archie, where she actually gets more of a chance to shine. The moment she finds out Miles is in town though, she drops the fight with Josie and makes nice because Val is a great person and cares about her friends well-being. I'm a little nervous for her being in a relationship with Archie because there's no way that ends well, but I'll have to trust the writers know where they're going with this.

-So after getting him into the variety show in the first place, Veronica offers to sing with Archie so he won't have to deal with his stage fright, and then he kicks her out the second Val is available? Not cool! Veronica's anger may have been mostly related to her mom and Fred kissing but this alone is enough to justify her rage. At least Archie apologizes later.

-Archie is basically there this week to suffer stage fright, briefly Yoko the Pussycats, piss off Veronica and overcome his stage fright. He's still the least interesting character in the narrative but I liked him a lot more this week as a character and found the big moment where he performs in front of people for the very first time was emotionally earned very effective. The nicest touch was where after Veronica's advice to focus on someone who makes him feel safe, the show feints with him looking at Veronica before settling on his dad, which was much more realistic.

-As for the song itself? It was alright. Nothing to write home about or give a standing ovation to, but not terrible either. The music element of this show is always going to be tricky because there's a difference between the show telling us something is good and something actually being good, particularly something as subjective as music. But while I didn't find "Only You" particularly memorable, the scene worked in the context of Archie's narrative up to this point. The top performance of the night was easily the Pussycat's cover of "I Feel Love" though.

-Veronica has been presented as worldly and wise beyond her years for the most part so far on Riverdale, but tonight we get to see her act mostly as a hurt, 16-Year-Old and it's refreshing. Veronica knows that her dad did bad things and probably isn't the best person, but there's a part of her that's still loyal to her dad and the life she had with both her parents before this all happened. So when she sees Hermione and Fred kissing, of course she's going to feel threatened about the situation. It doesn't help that Hermione has a tendency to keep acting shady, first continuing to not tell Fred about who owns the land he's bidding on, then trying to get Veronica to sign off on awarding him the bid while still keeping this all quiet, and then forging Veronica's signature anyways. Veronica has every right to be hurt and angry at her mother, even as she tries to take Josie's advice and see her mom's side of the situation. This growing rift between the two is also very effective because we've been given time to see their relationship and bond so we care now that it's threatened.

-So Veronica is a legal officer of Lodge Industries? That's definitely not going to come into play down the road.

-Meanwhile Betty and Jughead finally figure out where Polly is and go to see her only to discover... she's pregnant with Jason's baby! This is a terrific twist because it's really obvious in retrospect, but I was still blown away when they revealed her expecting belly. Suddenly the reason she was sent away makes a whole lot more sense and Alice and Hal become that much more despicable.

-Polly is played by Tiera Skovbye, who besides looking very much like Lili Reinhart's sister, does a really good job at portraying Polly as someone who doesn't seem like a nutjob, but is just ever so slightly off that you find yourself doubting her story just a bit. There's also strong chemistry between her and Reinhart, so you understand why Betty is so determined to get to the bottom of what happened to her sister. And with Polly escaping through the window of the asylum at the end of the episode, the landscape of Riverdale has just gotten an enticing new wildcard thrown into the mix, which should spice things up as we start moving into the second half of the season.

-Riverdale is on a role, when it comes to introducing interesting new locations. Last week, we got Thornhill Manor, this week we get the Our Sisters of Silent Mercy Home For Troubled Youth, the asylum (With the stern-faced nuns and the men in white coats, it's definitely an asylum) that Hal and Alice had Polly sent to. With the muted colours, and creepy lighting, it sets the imagination ablaze as much as Thornhill does and offers another possible reason for Polly seeming unstable. Who wouldn't go crazy in a place like this?

-So Jughead kissed Betty. That's new. The comics version of Jughead of course historically has shown no interest in either sex, and the recent reboot of the character has him as asexual. And while it's disappointing that Riverdale isn't going down that road with the character (at least for now), I have no problems with the kiss itself, which jives with this version of Jughead and the bond they've established between him and Betty. Of course we have no idea how Betty feels about the kiss because she immediately gets distracted by plot stuff, so the whole thing feels more out-of-the-blue and random, but I am interested to see how they explore this possible love connection down the road.

-The number one rule for being in a TV mystery show? If you stumble upon a key piece of evidence, like say a car that has the victim's belongings in it and corroborates someone's story, the moment you leave it alone, it's going to be destroyed or compromised. Seriously why did Betty and Jughead leave the scene instead of getting the sheriff to come to them? Yes, they needed to show him the pictures, but they also apparently texted him to meet them at the school. If they can text the sheriff, why not text him the pictures with your location and guard the car?! Because people in TV mystery shows never think when it's be crucial.

-This Week in "Conspicuous Covergirl Product Placement": A distracting close-up on Josie's bottle of eyeshadow during her reconciliation scene with Val.

-The Best of Dumb Archie: Archie said and did a lot of dumb things in this episode but the best one is probably how surprised he is to learn that "Josie" is short for "Josephine". Really Archie?

-The dinner scene with Archie, Fred, Hermione, and the McCoy's was deliciously awkward, but the breakfast scene between Betty, Alice, and Jughead takes the cake as far as uncomfortable dinners go. Alice's obvious disdain for Jughead is incredible.

-So now that Josie and Val are actual characters, can we get some development for Mel now please? Or is she doomed to just be behind those drums forever?

-Why are Reggie and the other football players just hanging out at the variety show auditions randomly heckling people? Do they have nothing better to do with their time? Why were they even allowed in at all? Shouldn't they be closed auditions?

-So is Veronica just going to be in Josie and the Pussycats now? Is that a thing? Is that how we get more screentime for Josie and Mel (Val has Archie for now so she's good for being assured screentime.)? I'm fine with that.

-Also can we talk about how easily Veronica managed to join the band in the first place? She basically barged in, announced that she could sing and had aggression that needed releasing and suddenly she's slow-walking down the hallway in cat ears. Was there an audition at least that we didn't see? A spirited debate between Josie and Mel? Had Tina, the other established teenage Woman of Colour character burst in first with the same argument, would she have joined the Pussycats instead? OK, the answer to the last question is no, because Tina's still a background character with no personality and Veronica's a lead, but still.

-Murder Theory Corner: So now that Betty has confronted her dad about maybe being the killer, it's clear that he isn't the killer. The Polly angle to the case is really heating up which means it's about time to unveil a different motivation for the murder of Jason Blossom. My faith in it being Mayor McCoy is shaken a bit by there still being no real connection between the McCoy's and the Blossom's. Cheryl wasn't even in this episode to hang with her apparent good friend Josie. Meanwhile, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict the destruction of Jason's getaway car was mainly about those drugs stashed away in there. Drugs mean Southside Serpents. Southside Serpents means maybe Papa Jones is involved in this?

-Bonus Theory Corner: If Jason and Polly were running away together, why did Jason go the extra step of faking his death? It could be because he knew his parents were crazy and would come after him with a vengeance but my hunch is that he wasn't as in love with Polly as Polly thought and he had no intention of running away with her to start a family. So he told Alice and Hal about the July 4th plan so they'd intervene and then faked drowning in the river as a fail-safe in case Polly escaped. Then he tried to leave on his own. Maybe I'm off but I think there's more to Polly's story than she's telling and this is the most logical fit.

Jane The Virgin Struggles To Find Her Voice in Chapter 57

2017-03-01T01:19:00.001-08:00

-This Week in Titles: Jane The Helicopter Mom

-Apologies for missing last week's recap. Unexpected business came up and I wasn't able to get around to it.

-Each chapter of "Jane" tends to be focused around a main unifying theme or idea or motif, like stress or faith or the selectiveness of memory or suspense that weaves it's way through the episode, informing most of the stories that week. There might be other themes or motifs that pop up throughout the episode but by the end you can typically tie those in to a larger picture that the episode is weaving Chapter Fifty-Seven throws a lot of ideas out there, but it's unable to unify them the way it usually does. It's main thing is about Jane finding her voice (Both figuratively and literally) as she writes and revisits her novel and it does that in interesting ways. But it also throws in a running theme about various biases Jane has, as well as stuff about communication and conflict mediation and a recurring thing about how Abbey (Raf's oft-forgotten girlfriend) tends to sneak up on people and while some of it tries to connect back to the finding your voice thing, ultimately it's unclear what the main takeaway from Chapter Fifty-Seven is supposed to be, making for a more muddled "Jane" than usual, though one that still had excellent moments.

-The episode begins with a flashback explaining how Jane came to write Falling Snow, her novel about her relationship with Michael. Feeling unable to connect with or work on her Venezuela novel after the death of Michael, Rafael encourages a hoarse-voiced Jane to write about something, anything, to get her voice back again. She winds up researching the history of Florida and gets sucked in but it's not until she looks at a photo of Michael and envisions him telling her "you got this" that she's able to start writing again. This results in Falling Snow, a love story set against the back-drop of the rise of the hotel industry in early 20th-century Florida. Jane takes her pain and makes something very personal with it reclaiming her voice in the process. But when she's asked to re-examine it and add to it, the personal nature of the work causes her to lose her voice again as she struggles to find a way to insert more obstacles into the story and confront the parts of her history with Michael that she'd rather ignore.

-Jane's basically asked to include more obstacles in her idealized love story, particularly involving the robber baron character "Rake" (The Rafael analogue in her story). This leads to a series of scenes where essentially the whole cast gets to dress up in early 20th century garb (Probably the main reason they decided to set Jane's novel in 1902) as Jane tries to figure out a way to bring more conflict into the story. But making the "Rake" character more sinister just doesn't ring true (Possible foreshadowing that whatever shadiness Raf is up to with his prison friend isn't so bad after all?) and all her efforts fall flat. As it turns out though, what her story really needs is to sell the idea that "Josephine" and "Rake" were in love before "Josephine" went back to Martin, which is when Jane is confronted with a whole new dilemma.

-Since Jane chose Michael back in early season 2, the Jane/Rafael romance has been cast to the side for the sake of simplifying things. However it's hard to forget that the bulk of season 1 centered around the love story of Jane and Rafael and that history isn't just going to disappear. Jane feels that to tap into what she once felt for Rafael would be a betrayal of Michael, but Alba rightfully points out that the fact that she fell in love with someone else but ultimately chose Michael only made the love between her and Michael more impactful (Which is true. I was much more invested in Michael after her relationship with Raf had ended). It feels like a justification for the writers to begin exploring the Jane-Rafael bond again and it mostly works. I am a bit concerned that they are setting up for a new Jane/Rafael romance by the end of the season though, which would be unfortunate. I'm not opposed to Jane and Rafael finding their way back to each other eventually, but anything between them that happened this season would feel much too soon.

-The episode sets up that Jane has a gender bias because she tends to gravitate to female authority figures over male ones, which they back up by pointing out the large number of female mentors Jane has turned to over the course of the episode (Even though the episode starts with her taking Rafael's advice about writing again, proving that she doesn't only listen to women). This is a development that makes sense, considering Jane's upbringing in a household of strong women and then it's not really explored in any meaningful way apart from some choice narrator quips. Jane has Jeremy, a male editor for her book who seems like an obnoxious bro, but has genuine good advice and a desire to meaningfully engage with the material under his exterior. She also has Carly, a female aide for Mateo who seems perfect until it becomes apparent that she's a huge gossip who has no qualms with revealing sensitive information about kids and parents in addition to the disinterest and negligence Mateo reveals. Both these turn-arounds are easy to predict and while Jane recognizes by the end that she does engage in bias, at no point does the show attempt to dig into where this bias comes from or what it means on a deeper level, which seems like a big misstep. If you're going to introduce the idea of Jane being biased, at least be willing to explore it beyond the most surface level.

-Calling it now: Jane's first post-Michael love interest will be either Jeremy or this Alex, who's never seen but is set up tonight as the perfect aide for Mateo. Also at some point down the line, Jane's definitely going to have to change the ending of her book so that "Martin" dies.

-Somewhere between Jane writing her novel and Jane dealing with her biases is the plot of Jane accidentally yelling at the director of the preschool over a conversation with apparent mean girl mom Stacy that she misunderstood to be about Mateo's behavioral problems. It brings together both the idea of Jane losing her voice (Jane just can't find the right thing to say or action to show to this director to smooth this whole incident over, with everyone of Petra's ideas that she tries making it worse) and the idea of Jane having bias (Jane feels Stacy is just a mean girl, when Stacy turns out to have real problems of her own). In the end Jane is able to resolve both of these conflicts by being true to herself and coming through when it counts the most (Washing dishes at a school fundraiser when they're almost out and no one else is able to do it, firing Carly and reaching out to Stacy with empathy) making some new friends in the process. The Jane preschool stories are interesting because it's the rare environment where Jane can't seem to easily impress the people around her. Having her clash with both Stacy and the director though on top of the whole aide thing may have been too much for one episode though and added to the muddled feel.

-I've been pretty lukewarm on Bruce since he first showed up, but he won me over tonight with that sweetness the show keeps insisting he has. As he steps in to mediate the conflict between Xo and Ro, asks Jane and Alba for permission to propose and agrees to become Rogelio's new lawyer even though Rogelio has inadvertently interrupted his proposal, he does it with a patience and understanding that makes you see how he could be good for Xo. Based on the look on Rogelio's face when he proposes, it doesn't seem likely that Bruce and Xo will go off into the sunset together but I am more invested in Bruce than I am in other temporary love interests like Chuck or Abbey.

-Rogelio bursting in on Bruce's proposal and mistaking his careful planning for signs that Bruce is meant to be his lawyer alone makes this a good episode of "Jane", even if it's muddled. That scene was incredible.

-It was a little frustrating to see Rogelio and Xo have the exact same fight about Xo's portrayal in The Del La Vega Factor Factor that they've been having and resolving for three episodes now. Yes, Xo's anger is justified and this isn't something you get over right away, but it seemed unnecessary to venture into that territory yet again. Hopefully we're done with that for the time being and can move onto different things like how Rogelio feels about Xo and Bruce's engagement and his lawsuit.

-Danny Woodburn makes an appearance as a lawyer to the stars nicknamed "The Jaguar". He helps Rogelio by starting a smear campaign against the Del La Vega Factor, only to make things worse when his campaign is uncovered and Rogelio is in further breach of contract. It's an alright story but it feels like the majority of action in it occurs offscreen with us only getting updates from Rogelio or "The Lawyer" on how it's going so that we have more time for rehashing the Xo and Ro conflict.

-Rafael considers moving in with Abbey tonight and is ready to go through with it until reading the new version of Jane's novel reminds him of the passion he wants in a relationship that he doesn't feel with Abbey (Though we're led to believe he made his choice because of Petra's advice, as is Abbey). This shines a light on why Abbey is portrayed as being "just there" and is constantly forgotten by the narrator. It's an intentional show choice designed to show us how complacent and disconnected the relationship is in contrast to Rafael's relationship with Jane. She's intentionally unexciting and boring to get across what we haven't seen of the last year or so of her relationship with Rafael. It's an interesting choice but the result is there's zero emotional heft to Raf's relationship at all so why should we care about whether or not he moves in with her. We know she's not going to last so it makes the whole storyline feel slight (Though the end reveal helps a bit).

-Chuck isn't much better of a character than Abbey so far but at the least there's been a clear effort to dig into his and Petra's relationship and explain why she finds herself falling for him in spite of her better instincts. He's a gross caricature but he actually does care about Petra and wants a meaningful relationship that can actually be public. So when Petra comes clean with him about moving the bones (Something that's been gnawing at her all episode) and he rightfully breaks up with her over it, there's an actual emotional impact to the moment, unlike the Raf/Abbey break-up.

-Just when I assumed that Abbey was exactly as nice and forgettable as she seemed and the show was done with her for good, along came the reveal that she had assumed Rafael broke up with her over what Petra said, stole the book she saw Petra hid (Scott's burn book, which contains all of the secrets he has on people) and sent it to Dennis with the most incredible pop-up card I've ever seen. There's still a good chance we won't see more Abbey after this episode, and that "Jane" mostly wasted Minka Kelley's talents but this was a strong twist that manages to kick the murder story back into high gear. Also did the show came up with the idea for the greeting card first before settling on Abbey being a greeting card designer? I would not be surprised if they did.

-Ultimately even if this episode was kind of a misstep, there was still enough strong moments in there that I'm not worried that this is the beginning of some kind of decline for "Jane". Everyone's allowed to have an off week, especially with such a strong record of quality.

-Jane is taking a mini-break until March 20th. Agh, I don't know how I'll survive.

Superstore Reveals All It's Secrets in Wellness Fair

2017-02-25T00:14:00.000-08:00

-Superstore isn't a heavily serialized show by any means. There are ongoing storylines and arcs that pop up here and there and little Easter eggs for devoted viewers (Like tonight's callback to Sandra's birthday at Dave & Busters, which she invited everyone to a few episodes back) but for the most part you can pretty much jump into any episode and easily figure out what's going on. That's true of Wellness Fair, which stands on it's own while bringing a couple big storylines to fruition, but I can't imagine watching Wellness Fair without watching all the episodes of build-up that preceded it. It's a hilarious capper to the Jeff/Mateo secret romance and Jeff/Sandra fake romance story that pays off a lot of things beautifully and a strong example of the benefits of light serialization.

-The action is kicked off when Amy, who's called in sick for work so she can see a movie with her daughter, sees Jeff on a date with Mateo. Since Sandra has been pretending to date Jeff for several weeks now, Amy naturally assumes Jeff is cheating on Sandra and despite Garrett (Who knows the truth of the situation but declines to tell her.) telling her to just stay out of it so the situation doesn't get out of control Jurassic Park-style, she confronts Mateo who discretely tells her the truth about the situation. Realizing how bad this would be for Sandra if the truth got out, Amy decides to not say anything. Unfortunately one person overheard Mateo, and within seconds Marcus is running around telling everyone he can find that "Mateo's banging Jeff and Sandra's insane", so Amy tries her best to contain the situation and it all explodes spectacularly. America Ferrara tends to be at her funniest as Amy when she's desperately trying to dig her way out of a situation only to make it worse and worse. So of course she was on fire tonight as Amy keeps piling lie on top of lie to convince Myrtle and the gang that Sandra isn't a maniac, until the entire store is convinced that Sandra is pregnant with Jeff's baby and might have an abortion.

-As I alluded to above, Wellness Fair is the culmination of multiple ongoing storylines and arcs that have been percolating through this season of Superstore and it works because of how well the writers have fleshed out the world of Cloud Nine. We have spent over 25 episodes getting to know these characters, how they respond to each other and how they respond to situations and that familiarity adds greater heft to both the comedy and the emotional beats. So things like Amy throwing on lie after lie to Marcus, Myrtle and Justine or Jonah and Glenn having a big argument about abortion in the middle of the store work better here than they would have in the first season because we know these characters well enough to understand why they're reacting to these situations the way they are.

-Glenn feeling inadequate about himself compared to Jonah is something that came up a few times in the first season (Most notably in Magazine Profile) but hasn't been explored much this year. When Jonah is surprised to learn that both he and Glenn wanted to be doctors at one point though while setting up for the store's wellness fair, Glenn takes offense at the implication that he isn't good enough to be a doctor. This leads to a funny story where Glenn keeps trying to prove his worth to Jonah, even though it's apparent that Glenn has much less knowledge about things like maintaining a healthy lifestyle (He's shocked to learn that the two litres of fruit juice he consumes a day isn't the best choice.) or riding a stationary bike than Jonah does. Mark McKinney and Ben Feldman play off each other terrifically and that chemistry allows them to get through a potentially tricky scene like their abortion argument with ease.

-The abortion argument comes out of nowhere (Through the natural and could feel very out of place, but it works because writer Owen Ellickson focuses on the absurdity of the situation and how out of place it is, rather than the argument itself. Jonah and Glenn are both men who are in no way qualified to speak about the toll childbirth or abortion takes on a woman's body and the middle of the store's wellness fair is certainly not the place to be having this discussion. It doesn't matter who's right because both of them are wrong here and the episode uses this, along with the sudden drop of Glenn's blood sugar thanks to him quitting juice cold turkey, as a catalyst to the big meeting scene.

-As I noted a couple weeks ago, Superstore has pretty much nailed the art of doing an employee meeting scene and while this one doesn't reach the heights of Valentine's Day, it comes pretty damn close. All the secrets and lies that have been piling up get unraveled one by one, as a confused Sandra assures people that she isn't pregnant before admitting that she isn't dating Jeff and went along with a misunderstanding to get attention, Mateo finally admits that he's dating Jeff so he can get some attention, Dina reveals that she and Garrett have been having casual sex, and Amy reveals that she's never seen Jurassic Park. Each revelation flows into the next one with a chorus of gasps, a barrage of jokes, and a nice wave of momentum until everyone's forgotten what they're supposed to be focused on in the first place. It's wonderfully choreographed by director Alex Reid who finds time for lots of great little moments in between each reveal without losing control of the scene.

-For all the chaos and disarray that came out of Amy's decision to meddle, the story ends on a positive note that suggests it was all worth it. Sandra's happy that she doesn't have to keep up this lie and continue amassing credit card debt anymore, while managing to emerge from this situation not totally humiliated, which is very impressive and welcome. Meanwhile as Jeff and Mateo have a whispered private conversation in a change room, they realize they don't actually have to do this anymore because their secret is out. After weeks of carrying on in secret, Jeff and Mateo proudly strolling out of the change room holding hands as Mateo proudly tells a customer "He's my boyfriend" is one of the more emotionally uplifting moments Superstore has ever done and is a wonderful payoff to this portion of Jeff and Mateo's story.

-Dina trying to prove that Amy faked her illness isn't the most original story in the world but it ties into Amy being unable to leave things alone well at the end when Amy's gentle mocking of Garrett's casual sex with Dina leads Garrett to blow up her spot and tell Dina she called in sick so she could go to Lego Batman. Lauren Ash's "What in God's name is Lego Batman?" is probably the funniest line delivery of the night.

-Best Interstitial: Sandra terribly photoshops a picture of her and Jeff in Paris.

-This Week in Mark McKinney is a Treasure: The scene of him trying to ride the exercise bike is a masterful bit of physical comedy but the best Glenn moment in this episode is him trying to come to terms with the fact that bland, normal-looking Jeff is gay. "I just don't get it. If you can be gay, that means anyone can be gay".

-Marcus, Myrtle, Sandra and Justine are in a Wine Club together, which sounds like the start to a great web series.

-I'm assuming there's a lot more scenes of Artemis Pebdani as the nurse at the Wellness Fair just lying on the cutting room floor somewhere. It seemed weird to cast someone as funny and well-known as her in what amounted to a bit part.

-Best joke of the episode: The mass shock and outrage that ensues when Amy admits she's never seen Jurassic Park.

-Second-best joke of the episode: Sandra can't get her deposit back on the carriage she hired to take her to "King Jeff" as part of the ruse so she gets in it and asks to go to the frozen custard place at the mall.

-Garret delivers an important announcement: "Attention, shoppers, Cloud 9 is not offering breast exams as part of our Wellness Fair. We have not hired someone to do that, and if we had, it would not be a teenage boy in a Twenty One Pilots T-shirt. Shop safe."

-Jonah's incredibly hurt reaction to learning Garrett didn't tell him about his casual sex with Dina is really funny. The low-key Jonah/Garrett bromance is maybe one of the best dynamics Superstore has and it makes for a really effective quick joke here.

-Fave Jeff moment of the episode: "So I checked. We don't seem to have any training videos about not discussing abortion at work, because we just thought it was so obvious, but you guys managed to surprise us, so good job".

-Again excellent episode all around.

Riverdale: Chapter Five: Heart of Darkness

2017-02-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

-So let's talk about Archie. Specifically let's talk about why the supposed main character of Riverdale and his ongoing storylines are so damn boring (Grundy thing aside, which is problematic in ways I've already gone on about at length), despite the solid performance of K.J. Apa. This is partly because Archie in the comics is mostly an audience-identification figure with a pretty vanilla personality that's difficult to make exciting, but a lot of it comes down to the context his storylines are in. Riverdale's Archie is probably the most down-to-earth character on the show and for the most part he has down-to-earth problems. He wants to connect with his dad and he wants to get into music and become a musician while still playing football and he wants to get over his heartbreak and have a good relationship. Now there's nothing wrong with any of this and all of these can make for some compelling teen drama. The issue is Riverdale is not a teen drama, it's a Teen Soap/Gothic Noir genre show and Archie's plots about typical teenager life feel mundane and insignificant on a show where essentially every other character is either investigating a murder, dealing with family secrets, dealing with biker gangs, or dealing with a century-spanning blood feud over a Maple Syrup business. Now on a show as heightened and fantastical as Riverdale, the Archie stories are theoretically there to ground the show in reality a bit, which is fine and necessary but since Archie is no longer tied to the central murder mystery in any meaningful way, his struggles aren't tied to any of the elements they're supposed to be grounding. They exist in a vacuum and so they flounder because they seem irrelevant compared to all the insanity happening elsewhere, which is doing a pretty good job of being emotionally grounded on it's own, despite how larger-than life it all is.

-Take last night's episode for example. Archie spends the episode trying to refocus his efforts post-Grundy on Football, but is unable to stop himself from chasing his musical ambitions, even when a potential mentor has a much harsher (And let's be honest, accurate) opinion of his work than the mentor he was sleeping with did. Meanwhile Betty continues looking into Jason's murder and how it's connected to him and Polly uncovering a blood feud between the Coopers and the Blossoms, Veronica and Cheryl have the world's most awkward sleepover and the Blossoms throw a memorial for Jason where they invite everyone they think could be a suspect. Oh, and the majority of most these other stories take place at Thornhill, the Blossom's creepy hillside mansion that looks like something straight out of Wuthering Heights. Archie's story has it's moments and does a great deal to develop Valerie and Reggie as characters but it just feels lesser than everything else that's going on and disconnected even when Archie is at Thornhill giving Penelope Blossom Jason's uniform and getting his face creepily felt up.

-The best part of Archie's storyline was definitely Val, who got the chance to show more character and personality than any of the Pussycats have in the past five episodes, and was instrumental in getting Archie to stop blindly trusting in other people's opinions of if he's good at music. The episode definitely seems to be setting up a possible romantic connection between her and Archie and I wouldn't mind if Riverdale took an episode or two to explore that before getting to the inevitable love triangle that they're thankfully still putting off.

-So Archie plays football pretty terribly for much of the episode and almost breaks his hand because he didn't study the play he was supposed to know but he gets offered the captain job because he decided to retire Jason's jersey and give it to the Blossom family without consulting anyone first? Why?! Yeah, yeah, it shows leadership potential or whatever but Reggie showed much better leadership potential when he encouraged Archie not to keep practicing with an injured hand (Advice Archie ignored because Archie's kind of dumb.) and much better skills on the field. Also why didn't the coach just retire that jersey in the first place instead of offering it up to whoever the new captain was? At least Archie had the sense not to take the captain job.

-Luckily the Archie stuff wasn't as all consuming as the Grundy storyline last week (Which Riverdale seems eager to just brush past), instead serving as the bland side dish to the episode's main course, our first in-depth examination into the Blossom family.

-From the beginning Cheryl Blossom has always been a larger-than-life character, getting the most ridiculous dialogue and never missing the chance to stir up trouble. Madelaine Petsch does terrific work taking Cheryl as close as possible to the realm of cartoon caricature but always managing to make her feel human. Heart of Darkness finally gives us a significant look into Cheryl's homelife and suddenly her whole character makes a whole lot more sense and feels that much more real and tragic. Jughead's narration sets the tone. She's the Gothic heroine who lives in the creepy house with the private graveyard surrounded by (figurative) ghosts and secrets. Her parents are emotionally withholding monsters all about keeping up appearances, maintaining feuds with their various enemies (There's an intriguing mention of the founding families of Riverdale that I want to see explored further), and going on and on about the maple syrup industry Riverdale is built on. No one wanted to be around her so she bullied and forced her way to the top of the social order through sheer will. She had an unhealthy attachment to her brother but that was only because he was the only one who ever protected her. No wonder she's become such a force of nature. Petsch gives her finest performance to date at Jason's memorial, as Cheryl gives the eulogy she was told not to give in the dress she was wearing the day Jason vanished. It's our biggest glimpse yet at how much of a broken human being Cheryl is and it's very effective at grounding the insanity of the Blossom family.

-Having spent the first few episodes building the bond between Betty and Veronica, Heart of Darkness sets to setting up a friendship or at least a frenemy bond between Veronica and Cheryl. Veronica and Cheryl don't get along by any means but Veronica was there for Cheryl when she had her pep rally breakdown and Cheryl remembers that, which is why she invites Veronica for a sleepover the night before the memorial. She isn't used to that kind of support and Veronica comes through again, encouraging her to give the eulogy she wants to give no matter the consequences (Cheryl is convinced her parents would kill her, which is very telling). It's nice to see Riverdale committed to fleshing out the complicated dynamics between it's female characters instead of just having them all be best friends or at each other's throats consistently.

-No Alice this week, but that's probably for the best, seeing that Penelope and Cliff Blossom are even more over-the-top than she is. Alice has basically been a crazy cartoon villain so far but the Blossoms make her seem like a well-adjusted average mom by comparison.

-Excellent production design on the Thornhill estate. It feels creepy and otherworldly and I hope we get to spend a lot more time there in the future.

-Hal Cooper has been on my radar for a couple weeks now, seeming much quieter, more passive, and more reasonable than his wife which is immediately suspicious. My suspicions got raised even higher when Betty, after learning that Jason started selling possessions and dealing drugs shortly after dating Polly asks him about what happened to her and he explains that he walked in on her trying to kill herself after a bad fight with Jason. It's the perfect motivation for murder and my suspicions became even more entrenched when Betty sees him tearfully watching old movies of Polly. The twist though is that Hal is lying to some extent (Maybe Polly did try to kill herself. We don't know). Polly and Jason were engaged to be married, despite a bitter feud between their two families and it's strongly implied that that's why Polly was sent away. It's a brilliant twist because it comes out of nowhere, yet it completely lines up with the information we have or suspect we have. Hal is just as manipulative and dangerous as Alice is, he's just a lot sneakier about it so it's very effective to see him suddenly blow up like this. Of course now I'm much less convinced that he killed Jason but we'll get to that in Murder Theory Corner.

-Why do the Coopers and the Blossoms hate each other so much? Because Cheryl's great-grandfather killed Betty's great-grandfather over the profits of the maple syrup business they started together, starting a blood feud. A blood feud! It's ridiculous, over-the-top, and more than a little nonsensical but I love this bit of backstory so much. It's just so odd and inspired and it turns the story of Jason and Polly into a weird, modern Romeo and Juliet. If the idea behind Riverdale was that there was always a darkness to the town that Jason's death brought to the surface, this is the most effective expression yet of that idea. Also now I'm just desperate for an episode that does a deep dive into the dark history of the Maple Syrup industry in Riverdale.

-So now that Betty knows the truth about Polly (Or at least much of the truth about Polly), does this mean we get to actually meet Polly soon? I hope so.

-No sign of Jughead's dad this week but the Southside Serpents do send a snake to Pop's as a warning to Hermione, prompting her to go to Fred for help prompting Fred to finally hire her as the bookkeeper for his company. It's more interesting than the Archie stuff but less interesting than the Blossom/Cooper stuff. Luke Perry and Marisol Nichols have solid chemistry though and this could be a good chance for them to get some much needed character development outside of their relationships to their children.

-This Week in Hot Archie: Shirtless Archie works up a sweat hitting the punching bag because he needs to stay in shape.

-This Week in Ridiculous Cheryl Blossom Dialogue That Madelaine Petsch Inexplicably Pulls Off: "To my surprise and chagrin, Mother added you to the guest list. In case you're thinking of stealing candlesticks: don't. We'll be searching bags". It's all in her inflections.

-The Maple Syrup Industry being so huge explains why the river is called Sweetwater and why the local sex act is called the Sticky Maple. That's something.

-The best moment in the Archie story is when Archie's dad walks in on him and Val and is both really awkward about it, while clearly really happy that Archie is with someone his own age. Archie's gruff potential mentor who wanted him to do things like write actual sheet music for his songs was also entertaining.

-Murder Theory Corner: So now that the characters are suspicious of Hal and we have confirmation that he's shady, I don't suspect him as much because I know how TV works. The Cooper-Blossom Maple Syrup Blood Feud is an incredible bit of backstory that's both operatic and ridiculous but it also feels like a huge red herring. Why'd Hal steal the original murder wall? My bet is he suspects Polly killed Jason and he's trying to protect her. So my suspicions have moved back to someone in Josie's orbit (Likely her mom but any of the Pussycats could also work). That being said though, with the episode working to establish a connection between the Lodge family and the Blossom family, maybe Hiram did it? He's got to show up by the end of the season and this would definitely leave an impression.

-Seriously guys, I can not overstate how excited I am about this blood feud thing.

Superstore Loses It's Mind In Super Hot Store

2017-02-17T18:01:00.001-08:00

-This week Superstore got renewed for a 3rd season, which is terrific news! The show has really stepped it up this year to coalesce into something special and the ensemble has proven they can handle anything thrown at them. The show has been on a real hot streak as of late and tonight's episode really turned up the heat, literally.

-There's something about extreme temperatures, heat in particular that make us lose our minds. Small annoyances seem bigger, tempers run hotter, and it's just easier to lose total control. That's the thrust for the action in Super Hot Store, which finds a malfunctioning thermostat heating up the store to unbearable levels and setting the stage for some hilarious madness.

-Amy has to put up with a lot in her life. Between wasting her potential in a dead-end job that cares more about the bottom line than people and her ongoing marital issues, it's shocking that she's able to keep it together as well as she does. It's also very not shocking when a large yogurt spill, some warehouse laziness, and a couple choice misogynistic remarks from new Warehouse Manager Marcus are enough to send her over the edge and into a rage. Amy has snapped before but never like this and America Ferrara plays her indignation very well. Ben Feldman is also great going from trying to keep the peace to quickly jumping into the madness when Marcus insults him as well. It's a lot of fun watching Amy and Jonah go "cray cray" (As Mateo reluctantly puts it) and the way things quickly get out of hand is a masterpiece in comic escalation as they fire Marcus (Something they can't actually do not that Marcus realizes that) and the entire warehouse walks out in support, causing them to try and get the store staff to unload a truck that none of them are qualified to unload.

-The whole unloading sequence that leads to Amy flying down the conveyor belt herself is gold but the highlight is Sandra who gets herself trapped behind boxes, which she tries to bust out of after Amy's fall only to be hilariously ineffective.

-The Store Workers V.S. Warehouse Workers could feel like a carbon copy of something The Office perfected over the years (Before forgetting how to do warehouse plots once Daryl was in the office proper with everyone else), but the dynamic is different here thanks to the presence of Marcus, everyone's favourite clueless numbskull. Jon Barinholtz has quickly gone from being a minor presence to one of Superstore's better recurring characters and moving him over to the warehouse (Following a promotion he got so he wouldn't sue over that time he sliced his thumb off on store property) is a strong move because it gives him a defined role that lets him be an antagonist, albeit a hilariously ineffectual one. His conflict with Amy and Jonah works because while he's annoying and clueless and a misogynist (That Amy didn't punch him after he told her to smile was impressive), but he's not trying to be actively harmful. He's easy to root against, but you also don't hate the character.

-Once Amy and Jonah literally cool off, they quickly realize how insane they'd been acting and decide to go beg Marcus to come back. However Marcus beats them to the punch and begs them to rehire him (Despite the fact that he was never actually fired.) first. It's a satisfying conclusion to the plot that gives Amy and Jonah (But mostly Amy) a well-deserved win and lets us actually get to see her light-up-the-room smile.

-Meanwhile feeling frustrated with corporate and after some manipulation by Garrett to get him out of his cool, A.C.-controlled office, Glenn sets out to try and fix the heat himself with Cheyenne's help. Of course when he gets to the roof and gets a look at the system, it's immediately clear that he's in over his head and he starts spiraling. Glenn is one of the saddest characters on the show, a cheerful guy who's life has been an endless series of disappointments that he's pushed aside and buried deep. So there's something poignant about his roof breakdown about being a "useless, pathetic, old man" even if the whole thing is ridiculous.

-Glenn and Cheyenne don't get a whole lot of stories together but they make a good combination, with Nichole Bloom's sweetness playing off of Mark Mckinney's increasing desperation nicely as Cheyenne tries to get Glenn through his existential crisis. Cheyenne reluctantly going along with Glenn's idea that the two of them are going to travel the world together is funny, but it's also very sweet. As is the moment when Cheyenne realizes the heat has been fixed, and is able to get out of the trip by convincing Glenn that this proves the store does need him, even though they didn't actually do anything.

-Garrett and Dina spend the episode holed up in Glenn's air-conditioned office and repeatedly having sex because they can't stand talking to each other. There isn't much to the story but it's funny and Colton Dunn and Lauren Ash continue to be one of the show's best pairings. By the end it looks like Garrett and Dina having casual sex is going to be a recurring thing, which can only end in beautiful disaster.

-The one false note in Glen and Cheyenne's story was Cheyenne's inability to think of any time when Glenn had helped his employees. The man literally got fired for fudging the system so that Cheyenne could get some paid maternity leave. How has she forgotten that?

-Corporate's ongoing carelessness quietly returns tonight as the representative Glenn speaks to about fixing the heat is quick to assert that it has to be a manager error since the computers don't make mistakes. Later while Glenn is on the roof trying to fix the problem, the representative calls back to inform Dina's Glenn impression that there was a computer error and it's fixed now, never once admitting fault or that they were wrong. It's a quiet beat but a very funny one that underlines the many ways in which Corporate lets down the stores they're supposed to be helping..

-Best Interstitial: Brett triggers the automatic doors to open so he can get a quick blast of cold, eventually getting joined by the security guard.

-This week in Mark McKinney is a treasure: Glenn slipping and struggling to crawl out of the spilled yogurt gets increasingly funnier the longer it goes on and the more desperate that Glenn becomes.

-Last week Glenn learned that the way he got his wife to go out with him back when they started doing was some serious sexual harassment. This week he realizes that his ancestors who "built the ships that brought the very first African-Americans to this country" were definitely slave-traders.

-Marcus really took offense to Amy telling him to go to hell over the intercom. "I'm Catholic. That's the worst place we can go".

-Glenn works on his and Cheyenne's world tour itinerary but can't decide whether to do "London, Atlantis, Hong Kong", or "London, Hong Kong, Atlantis".

Riverdale: Chapter Four: The Last Picture Show

2017-02-17T16:40:00.001-08:00

-Riverdale has been off to a pretty good start so far but one plotline has been notably weaker than all the others. You know, the plot where Archie is sleeping with Ms. Grundy. It's been easy to ignore so far because literally everything else going on has been much better but this week it took centre-stage. The good news is it looks like it's mostly wrapped up. The bad news is it wrapped up in an incredibly clumsy, open-ended fashion that made this the weakest episode so far. Which is a shame because there was a lot to like about The Last Picture Show, it just got swallowed by the Ms. Grundy of it all.

-So after learning that Ms. Grundy was at the river July 4th weekend at the same time as Archie, Betty puts two and two together and figures out exactly what's going on because Betty isn't an idiot. So naturally, she confronts Archie about it when she sees him, his dad, and Grundy out for dinner together and Veronica also learns about the affair because why not? Archie insists that Betty just stay out of it because he knows what he's doing, which tracks because Archie likes Ms. Grundy and is blind to the implications of the situation because of that. Betty doesn't drop it though because again, she isn't an idiot and finds out that Ms. Grundy appeared out of nowhere a year ago. More digging and some light B and E courtesy of B and V reveal that Ms. Grundy's real name is Jennifer Gibson (The one time you'll see that name in this review because they don't really use it) and she has a gun hidden in her car, which Betty takes to show Archie. The show later tries to frame Betty's actions her as that of someone who's doing this out of love in a way that suggests that she was out of line for what she did but she really wasn't. Breaking into Grundy's car instead of just tipping off the police that something might be up isn't great but looking into the mysterious new teacher who seems hella sketchy isn't a bad thing. It's smart. Well sort of.

-When Archie confronts Grundy, she tells him that she was married to an abusive drunk who put her in the hospital so she fled to Riverdale for a fresh start where she fell for Archie. It's your typical tragic backstory but it has some interesting implications for the Ms. Grundy/Archie relationship. There's a compelling story to be told about a woman who was repeatedly victimized romancing a student despite it being wrong because it gives her a sense of power and control over her life that's been taken from her. It wouldn't justify what she's done but it would make it more complex and nuanced in the way that Riverdale clearly wants to make this relationship. It'd be an interesting route for the story to go. Instead things go a different, much more frustrating way.

-Where things really get off-track is when Alice Cooper finds the gun Betty took and the diary where Betty wrote about everything (Really Betty? You have a manipulative, controlling mother and you didn't think she might go snooping and find the incriminating stuff you're hiding?). Alice has the right instinct to immediately tell Fred what's going on and then confront Ms. Grundy and informing the police is the right thing to do in this situation. Except Alice's motivation is to prove she's been right about Archie this whole time because he's a dumb kid who slept with his teacher. She doesn't care about justice, she cares about being vindicated. So Betty and Fred turn against the idea of turning in Ms. Grundy even though they definitely should turn her in and Betty threatens her mother into backing down. Then they all agree to let Ms. Grundy quit and leave town instead of making this whole thing public and Betty apologizes to Archie for not leaving it alone even though she did nothing wrong (Besides letting her mother find out) with Archie still convinced there was nothing wrong about what Ms. Grundy did. Agh! SO DUMB!

-Look I get it, they're trying to make the situation complicated and not clear-cut. Fine. Again, I have no problem with Archie insisting he isn't a victim and there's nothing wrong with Ms. Grundy because he's young and doesn't know any better and hasn't been given much of a reason to think that. I get that Alice's grudge is driven by a desire to avoid having what happened to Polly happen to Betty and she's projecting a lot of stuff onto Archie. I get that Betty is still in love with Archie and that might impact her decision-making in negative ways. However the way all of this is executed makes it feel like they wanted to get out of this storyline but also take Ms. Grundy off the board in a way that left things open-ended so they came up with the most contrived solution possible and tried to cover it with character work that came across as shoddy. The scene of Alice being vulnerable in front of Betty and Betty telling her off should've been a big moment for the arc of the show but it suffered because of how we got to that moment. Lili Reinhart and Mädchen Amick deserve better than that. Also I have no clue what's going on with Fred at all beyond not wanting his son to get hurt.

-The final glimpse we get of Ms. Grundy is her ogling some more teenagers on her way out of town as Betty's diary voiceover suggests that maybe she was right about Ms. Grundy. It's supposed to be an unsettling button for the story, a dramatic reveal that Ms. Grundy probably was bad news after all. The problem is it's not the surprising move they seem to think it is and it ends things on an unclear, ambiguous note when some clarity was badly needed to put the events of the episode into better perspective. The show is clearly aiming for complexity with the Ms. Grundy character and her motivations for romancing Archie but by leaving her true intent a mystery, it just muddles everything. Was Ms. Grundy telling the truth about her abusive ex-husband or was she making it up to get Archie's sympathy? Is Archie the first student she's romanced or has this happened before? Does she have actual feelings for Archie and if not, what was she getting out of the relationship? Trying to genuinely tackle any of these questions instead of just hinting at it could've made for a much more interesting episode than the one we got. Instead the show leaves it up to us to decide what the real story was with Ms. Grundy and I'm left wondering if Riverdale even considers her to be a predator at all or if they're just unaware of how she's been coming across. Of course it's very possible and likely that Ms. Grundy will return at some point and we'll get some actual answers about her, but given what a mess this episode was I'm not sure if I would even want that.

-The show does throw people upset with this young, sexy, predatorial version of Grundy a bone by revealing that the real Geraldine Grundy (And only one Betty could find on the internet) was a polka-dot clad old woman the way nature intended. She's also been dead seven years but hey, you take what you can get.

-Of course, thankfully the Ms. Grundy story wasn't the only thing going on in Riverdale this week as Jughead tries to save the closing drive-in he loves and works at but hadn't brought up at all before now and it turns out that Riverdale has a thriving criminal element that also hadn't been brought up before. It's all fairly contrived and at odds with the idea of nothing obviously bad happening in Riverdale pre-Blossom murder but it's more interesting than the Archie plot and features Skeet Ulrich as a gang leader so I can give it a pass. A street gang is the one thing Riverdale has been missing so far and now it has it with the Southside Serpents, a group of hooligans from the bad side of town who do things like deal drugs and loudly heckle the drive-in with hiss noises or something.

-Jughead is back to being mostly brooding this week but they actually take the time to justify it and to flesh out his backstory a bit in some interesting ways so I'm officially on board with Cole Sprouse and his brooding, angsty Jughead. Jughead is someone who didn't have a great family life and the drive-in represents both good memories and a safe haven for him. That makes his futile efforts to save it compelling, even if the scene between him and Fred seems mostly there to set up exposition about Fred firing Jughead's dad for stealing on the job.

-Meanwhile Hermione Lodge gets more complicated this week as we see her dealing with a Southside Serpent and making shady backdoor business deals with that money Hiram sent her in the pilot to acquire the land the drive-in is built on. It turns out Hiram paid the Serpents to devalue the land the drive-in was on so he could snatch it up at a cheap price with the last of his money for unknown purposes. Marisol Nichols hasn't been given a whole lot to do yet as Hermione and this complicates her character nicely by making her unopposed to the kind of shady dealings needed to afford the lifestyle her and Veronica were accustomed to. It's a lot to process for Veronica however and Camila Mendes does a great job portraying Veronica as she has to grapple with the idea that both of her parents aren't who she thought they were. This should hopefully provide for a lot of good story material in the weeks to come.

-Riverdale seriously fumbled the Ms. Grundy reveal but it was almost redeemed by the twin reveals about Jughead that the episode ended on. It turns out that when he was pretentiously narrating at the beginning about the drive-in being a home for him, he was being very literal. Jughead has been living in the projection booth at the drive-in. It's a strong twist that raises a lot of interesting questions about Jughead's background and I honestly didn't see it coming. The second twist, that Skeet Ulrich's gang leader character is actually Jughead's dad was less shocking (At least it wasn't shocking to people who read casting announcements/the show's Wikipedia page and knew the character's name is F.P. Jones and he was connected to Jughead.) but it was equally well-done and suddenly gives the Southside Serpents a compelling reason to exist beyond needing a gang to cause trouble. It's a dramatically different take on Jughead's home life and father than what we've seen in the comics, but it's also much more interesting than if Jughead had a normal home life and it makes him a better character.

The big question that goes unspoken is what happen to Jellybean Jones, Jughead's sister? Is she simply living with Mr. Jones wherever he lives? Or did something bad happen there?

-I'm a bit confused as to what Jughead's job was at the drive-in. He ran the projectionist booth but he also had complete control over what movies played? Shouldn't there be a manager to make those decisions? The drive-in's dead now so it doesn't really matter but it's odd.

-Kevin gets a love interest this week. His name is Joaquin and he's a Southside Serpent so they're totally going for a star-crossed lovers thing that is going to end in disaster and I'm excited for it. Casey Cott is in dire need of getting to do something besides being the Gay Best Friend and even Kevin's dad knows it.

-This week in Absurd Cheryl Blossom Dialogue That Madelaine Petsch Inexplicably Pulls Off: "I spy with my little eye, Hermione Lodge full of secrets. Riddle me this hair models of the damned, why is Veronica's mother having a clandestine tête-à-tête with a Southside Serpent behind a dumpster at Pops?"

-Cheryl also inexplicably crashes Veronica and Kevin's friend date at the drive-in so she can hang out with them/randomly cozy up to Veronica and it's hilarious.

-The last movie the drive-in plays is Rebel Without A Cause. A very obvious and on-the-nose choice considering how much of this episode was about parental issues, but they showed the "You're tearing me apart!" scene so it's cool.

-Murder Theory Corner: The murder was on the back burner this week so we could focus on other things, though Jason was a former student of Ms. Grundy. Was she involved? Maybe. Again, I'm torn between wanting her to come back because of how terribly this story resolved and wanting her to never come back and them just washing their hands of this whole mess. Anyhow, on the suspect front, Mayor McCoy showed that she's kind of shady this week and Hal Cooper continues to seem like a very passive individual so that's also shady. Also someone broke into the Keller house and trashed the murder wall, which is interesting but also came out of nowhere.

Jane The Virgin Lets The Light Back In For Chapter 55

2017-02-14T11:43:00.002-08:00

-This week in titles: Jane The Widow. Definitely the saddest title so far but it had to be done and the narrator is quick to assure us not to worry. Jane's got this.

-"It will always feel different. You will always feel different. But your life will be beautiful again... just in different ways". "Now come. We need to let some light in. Just a little bit". As "Jane" officially moves into the post-Michael stage of the show, it's only right that we begin with Alba giving Jane (and by extension us) assurance as she's done so many times in the past. Alba is the only person in Jane's life who has gone through this kind of loss so she's the only one who can say with authority that Jane can come back from this even if she'll always miss Michael and the only one who can say with authority that Jane has to come back from this for the sake of her child. It's a strong opening that establishes new emotional grounding for the show going forward even as we jump ahead three years. Michael is gone and it will always hurt but that doesn't mean the light can never come back.

-Some people are going to take issue with the fact that after the opening flashback, Michael's death is backgrounded and we're back to light-hearted antics in our new now and I understand that. It's been three years for the characters to adjust but only a week for us so it feels weird going right from the most heartbreaking scene the show ever did to troublesome Mateo and Rogelio's fake wedding like nothing. However like I said last week, I feel the time jump was both a smart decision and the only decision the show could've made and I'm standing by that statement this week. "Jane" has never been afraid to tackle dark, serious subject matter, but it's always managed to filter that darkness through a light, optimistic goodness that would feel out of place if they spent even one episode fully exploring the immediate aftermath of Michael's death before jumping ahead, let alone how it would feel if they hadn't jumped ahead at all. It would make for bleak, sad television even if they tried to go for the "celebration of Michael's life" route, any jokes or attempts at lightness would feel forced and any efforts for an uplifting conclusion would feel disingenuous. By jumping ahead and giving us mere glimpses of Jane when her grief was at it's most powerful we still get to see the impact of Michael's absence on Jane's life and how she manages to overcome it, but we also get to see how she's changed and grown a few years removed from the event and all the different ways in which her life has become beautiful again, just like Alba promised. It's a more nuanced, complex approach that allows "Jane" to explore this huge loss while remaining the show it was and while it's going to rub some people the wrong way, it works for me. I'm a bit of an emotionally detached robot though, so maybe that's why I'm fine with it.

-Jane hasn't actually changed that much as a person in the past three years, at least not in the ways that matter most. She still loves her family above all else, tries to do the right thing for her son, is very opinionated and is a big fan of vigorous research. She seems older and less idealistic than she used to be but she's still our Jane and Gina Rodriguez is as terrific as ever giving you a strong sense of who Jane is as a character now.

-The big character shifts come from Rafael and Petra. Rafael has grown a great beard (Jane hates it but she's wrong.) and has come out of his time in prison as more peaceful and easy-going about things, "Zen Rafael" as Jane and Petra call him. After two and a half seasons of watching Rafael in a constant state of stress and pain and making poor choices because of that stress, it's refreshing to see Justin Baldoni switch things up and play a mellow version of the character, albeit a version who still knows how to tap into the passion and ferocity of his old self when needed, and Baldoni is clearly having a lot of fun with the change. Petra meanwhile has become the alpha mom/business woman we always knew she could be, reinventing the Marbella as a family-friendly pirate themed hotel, raising two perfect, well-behaved daughters (Anna and Ellie because she finally got tired of the Frozen connection), running the PTA at the preschool Mateo and the twins go to, and looking fierce and stylish while doing it. The insecurity and doubts that have plagued the character for so much of the season are mostly gone and while she still makes questionable relationship choices (She's hate-sleeping with Chuck, the sleazy owner of the adults only Fairwick hotel next door.), she's in a much better place than she's been for much of the series and it's nice to see.

-Of course the biggest shift is from Mateo, who has become a bit of a little terror these last three years which makes up the biggest story of the episode as Jane and Rafael try to handle him. Jane has been trying an incentive-based system of marking days as "sun" or "storm" (A week with five sunny days gets Mateo a treat) but it's clear it isn't working. When Mateo's teacher suggests getting him an aide though, Jane and Rafael are resistant and try other methods to get Mateo under control which only cause new problems. Mateo's not a bad kid by any means, as the episode assures us by showing how sweet he can be under all the bluster. He just has impulse control issues that get him into trouble. Jane's concerned though that she's failed him and hasn't been a good enough mother in the wake of all that's happened, which is what's keeping her from really being able to do something about Mateo's problems. In the end though they spring for the aide and it should be interesting to see how Mateo develops through the rest of the season.

-Season 2 kept feinting towards a Jane/Petra friendship only to have it ultimately be derailed and initially it seemed like that was still the case three years on. Jane is frustrated by Petra's efforts to get involved with disciplining Mateo and the way she seems to hold all the help she gives over them. It's an interesting story that goes deep into the twisted family dynamic between Jane, Rafael, and Petra but Jane and Petra at odds is a story that has been done over and over again so it's a relief when Petra assures Jane she has not dropped the ball with parenting because of Michael's death and we see the unspoken truth about their dynamic. It turns out when Rafael went to prison a couple years ago, Jane and Petra made a pact to support each other and to have weekly brunches no matter what was going on between them or in their lives. They may not always see eye to eye but they have become real friends who care about each other and help each other, even if that only comes out once a week. It's an excellent twist and seeing Jane at brunch with her new family as the narrator repeats what Alba said about Jane's life being beautiful again is the most heartwarming moment of the episode.

-The Jane and Rafael dynamic has also changed and grown in the last three years. They still have different ideas about how to raise Mateo but they're more collaborative and supportive now, with Rafael less eager to be combative than he was in the first part of the season. When Jane has a Michael-related breakdown near the end of the episode, it's Rafael who knows exactly what to say to get her to snap out of it and spring into action. They've become best friends as Jane puts it, and it's good to see them so cordial with each other. Their friendship raises a big question though, which is how long until the show starts building to a romance between them again now that Michael's out of the picture? As someone who started as Team Rafael, I hope the answer is never. Seeing them as platonic co-parents is much more interesting than seeing them in a relationship. In addition, no matter how well it was done, it'd feel like a slap in the face to everyone who loved Michael from the get go. It's not that Jane shouldn't love or date again and maybe Rafael would be a more appealing prospect a year from now, but the writers should be careful not to rush anything. They're pretty smart though so I'm not too concerned.

-Jane still has her dream publishing job, but it's turned out to be kind of a nightmare. It does get her a chance to be in a showcase for authors to watch though, which is where the episode springs a big twist. Jane's written a book in the three years, but it's not the one we watched her work on about Alba and her family, it's a book about her relationship with Michael, only with a dramatically different ending. After an episode spent on lighter thoughts and complications, it's a swift gut punch that's more effective than it would've been if the episode was mostly about grieving. Jane didn't get the happy ending with Michael she deserved so she made one and the scene where she finds the strength to read it in public after an assist from Rafael is just as effective as last week's scene where she found out about Michael's death. It's also a good reminder from the show that no, we won't be moving past Michael anytime soon, especially since Jane has been offered a book deal for it. Jane's on the cusp of achieving one of her biggest dreams and it's wonderful but also bittersweet.

-Jane and Professor Donaldson are actual friends now that Jane's done the grad program and Donaldson is no longer hiding how much she supports Jane and it's wonderful.

-So the wedding is Rogelio and Darci's but it's not a real wedding, it's all show for the supposed series finale of The Del La Vega Factor Factor. Rogelio and Darci can't stand each other and can't get through a conversation without shouting when the cameras aren't rolling. It turns out the pressures of doing the reality show, the way the show has portrayed Xo as a jealous ex thanks to an out-of-context clip and fertility problems have soured Del La Vega Factor. As a fan of that couple it's a bit disappointing, but it should lead to interesting stories and Justina Machado and Jamie Camill are still great together, even when they're fighting and we're bound to get a lot more of them fighting when Rogelio agrees to a 3rd season of the show to finally get his Passions of Santos remake, The Passions of Steve (One of the best joke names the show's ever done) off the ground.

-Xo and Bruce are living together and it's going well but Xo and Rogelio are fighting because of the aforementioned false portrayal of her on the reality show that has caused her to become a hated figure among fans of the show and Xo's assumption that as a producer on the show, Rogelio was complicit in making her that way. Xo and Rogelio at odds is nothing new so happily, it doesn't last long when Xo learns that Rogelio turned down the 3rd season of Factor Factor at the expense of his dream so she wouldn't have to put up with more public scrutiny. This sacrifice is enough to get her to make a sacrifice of her own and give Rogelio her blessing to do another season of the show, while reestablishing their bond. The Xo and Rogelio bond has been getting downplayed so far this season while Rogelio pursued his dream of having a kid, but could those two be finding their way back to each other? Since we also learn that the real reason Rogelio and Darci haven't had any kids was that Rogelio just could bring himself to commit that fully to Darci, it seems possible. Look out Bruce.

-Oh poor Scott. When Rafael brings him up, you know there's more to the story than Petra's "he moved away after he and Anezka split" explanation, especially when they remind us of him blackmailing Petra, and as the last scene keeps cutting back to the Marbella treasure hunt you know something will go wrong but it's still a shock when his skeleton turns up on the beach (Or at least a skeleton wearing a vest that says Scott on it. We have no clue if that's really him yet.). The twisty crime mystery stuff has been on the backburner this season after growing stale in season 2 but the apparent death of Scott brings it roaring back to life with a fun, new mystery that ties in a lot of our characters much more organically than Sin Rostro and Mutter did. Who killed Scott? Was it Petra? Anezka? Magda? Rose? Rafael? Swashbuckler Sean? Were they also behind the attempted sabotage of the Marbella's expansion? It gives the show a lot to play with in the coming weeks and I can't remember the last time I was excited about the more overtly telenovella stuff in the show.

-Hey, Minka Kelley is here! She's plays Rafael's long-term girlfriend who owns a greeting card company and who has never fought with Rafael. She gets almost nothing to do in this episode (Which the narrator points out when she pops up near the episode's end) but hopefully that changes soon.

-Jane and Mateo are back living in the Villaneuva home with Alba, which is totally understandable but I hope Jane gets out of there again before the season ends, if only so we can finally explore the idea of Alba having to live on her own that the last episode feinted towards.

-If there was any doubt that Jennie Urman and the "Jane" writers know what they're doing, hopefully this stellar episode erased them. It's a new chapter for "Jane" and it's different, but still beautiful.

Superstore Looks For Love on Valentine's Day

2017-02-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

-Romance is tricky. It can be hard to tell when someone is interested, where you stand with someone, when someone might be misrepresenting key things about themselves, when someone in a relationship is feeling neglected, or if you've crossed a line in your efforts to create romance. All of this confusion can get amplified on Valentine's Day and all of it is on display on another very funny episode of Superstore that has a couple smart things to say too.

-The episode is kicked off when one of the Cloud Nine employees, Miles, proposes to another one Lisa via flash mob. This is the second time in Superstore that someone has proposed via flash mob and it's even more lame and overdone now than it was when Bo did it to Cheyenne back in season 1 (Though everyone just goes with her assertion that flash mobs were cool a year ago), which is used for comedic effect. And even though Lisa was in the bathroom causing Miles to have to start the whole thing over, it gets Glenn wondering what other employees might be good couples. Amy tries to dissuade him on the grounds that matchmaking is a terrible idea in general, especially at work, but when she sees kindly elderly greeter Arthur pining for Myrtle, she can't help but get involved. Her own marriage might be on the rocks but maybe if she's able to get the two oldest people at work together, she'll know love is still out there and the day doesn't have to be a complete waste. So Amy and Glenn engage in typical matchmaker activities, like arranging Arthur and Myrtle to work together, watching them through the cameras, and filling Myrtle's locker with stuff allegedly from Arthur, but the storyline takes a sudden turn when Myrtle breaks down crying because Arthur won't leave her alone and files sexual harassment complaints against all of them.

-Sexual Harassment is a thing that a lot of TV comedies don't tend to take that seriously. Even the first season of Superstore had a couple scenes where harassment was basically played as a joke. While Valentine's Day has plenty of jokes related to the subject though, none of them are at the expense of the victim or imply that the actions taken are OK. When Glenn and Amy are on the phone with HR, suddenly all their innocuous matchmaking activities take on a sinister turn ("She's alleging that you used your positions of authority to force her to work with an employee in hopes of engaging in a physical relationship with him. And she also claims you broke into her locker. Now, what's your side of the story?" "Um, factually similar." "Yeah, but you can prove anything with facts."). Because Arthur seems so sweet, Amy has a hard time believing he could have said lewd things to Myrtle and when the offending comment turns out to be him complimenting Myrtle's sweater, Amy is convinced there was a misunderstanding, ignoring Myrtle's (accurate) insistence that he was talking about her breasts. Because she doesn't want to be an accidental harasser, Amy ignores the fact that Myrtle felt uncomfortable, regardless of Arthur's intention and winds up accidentally victim blaming. It's a smart story that shows how easy it is to enable or aid harassment, even if we have no idea that's what we're doing.

-Eventually Amy lands everyone in a meeting watching a training video on sexual harassment with Jeff supervising in the episode's best scene. Superstore has been getting better and better at doing these big meeting scenes and this is probably their best one yet as everyone tries to determine proper boundaries for asking someone else in the workplace and Michael Bunin plays the harried straight man (Always an excellent use of Jeff). As Amy continues to attempt to defend herself until Arthur winds up going on at length about Myrtle's breasts during his apologizing, Dina attempts to create a database of who's interested in who so no one crosses a line by asking out someone not interested, Miles and Lisa discover they have differing opinions on having kids, and Glenn comes to realize that asking his wife out every day for a year before his father threatened to fire her if she didn't say yes constitutes harassment, everything keeps piling up and up in a cacophony of hilarious chaos that shows how complicated finding romance can be. It's a masterstroke of writing, direction, and acting and it'll be a while before this particular meeting gets topped.

-Arthur is played by Bernie Koppell, an acting veteran best known from his roles on Get Smart and The Love Boat. Koppell is delightful, giving Arthur a sweetness and vulnerability that makes it understandable why Amy would be so skeptical to believe Myrtle and her harassment claims. His turn when he starts going on about Myrtle's breasts also feels believable and earned.

-The Sandra/Jeff fauxmance saga continues as Sandra sends herself a bunch of expensive gifts from "Jeff", including a 140 dollar bouquet, puppies, and a rose gold watch. Even though Mateo knows that those gifts aren't real, he continues to be jealous of Sandra's fake relationship with Jeff because it seems better and more romantic than Mateo's actual relationship with Jeff. Mateo's been dating Jeff for a while and he's not sure where they stand or where it's going so he lets himself get caught up in the fake version of Jeff who sends extravagant gifts even though the relationship is secret These feelings are also egged on by Garrett, who is let in on the secret by Cheyenne and proceeds to just mess with Mateo for the episode. When Mateo is cold to Jeff though, Jeff lets it slip that he considers Mateo to be his boyfriend and it changes everything. Suddenly Mateo isn't some guy dating Jeff, Mateo is Jeff's boyfriend. It's a rare moment of vulnerability from the character that Nico Santos plays terrifically. And once Mateo has a real sense of commitment from Jeff, he feels secure enough that his relationship is real to embrace Sandra's fake relationship. It's a nice turn to a story that was in need of a new direction though I'm curious how long they intend to keep this storyline up.

-Jonah being sent undercover by Dina to catch a woman he's convinced is a repeat shoplifter, only to fall for her and start courting her instead is a small story but a good one with lots of funny Jonah/Dina interactions. Lauren Ash plays Dina like a frustrated police captain/handler in a crime movie and it's terrific. The ending is also great thanks to the fact that we never find out if Shannon was actually a shoplifter or not. There's a nice bit where Jonah realizes his wallet is gone seemingly confirming their initial suspicions, only to immediately remember his wallet was actually in his other pocket, because his chiropractor had recommended switching it up. Typical Jonah.

-Cheyenne has the smallest of stories about working as a greeter so Arthur can work with Myrtle and her growing excitement with each person she greets is delightful.

-When it comes to the Jonah/Amy "Will They Won't They", Superstore likes to zig where you think they'll zag. Their big scene together at the end comes to the two of them just taking out all their frustrations on the Valentine's Day merchandise in brutal and hilarious fashion. There's no awkward exchanges or hidden glances, just two friends fighting back against the most romantic day of the year. As they finish though, we see Brett setting up the merchandise for St. Patrick's Day and the message is clear: for all the meaning and stress we might put into Valentine's Day, in the end it's just another day.

-Best Interstitial: A service dog just goes to down ripping up a teddy bear.

-This week in Mark McKinney is a treasure: Glenn's tearful phone call to his very confused wife after he realizes the dark implications behind how they got together. "Jerusha, our whole marriage is based on a sex crime. No, no, no, you only think you love me. You were my victim!"

-Amy's new short hair officially debuts this week and it's terrific.

-Glenn apparently gets Cupid and the love bug mixed up and is convinced that Cupid spreads his love through bites, which is hilariously creepy.

-The fact that we did a sexual harassment episode and there was no sign of Creepy Sal (As there hasn't been all season) is probably confirmation that they've discontinued the character. Which is a good thing because he was not a great character and it was not believable that he had managed to not get fired for all his creepiness.

-Amy's effort to explain what happened with Myrtle to customers does not go well. "Okay, none of you know the story. She asked me to set her up, so I set her up. She was asking me for it. She asked for it."

-Once again, Garrett is more interested in the people involved with the training video they watch than the content of said video and Jeff is fine with trying to answer the question. "I got a question. The actress in the video, does she get paid per video, or is it more of a flat rate for the whole day kind of thing?" "My guess is flat rate."

-And later: "Found her on IMDB. She was on NCIS. She played "Lady in Pool." Acting life is tough."

-Best line delivery of the week goes to Colton Dunn for "Why does everyone want to f**k Jeff?"