Riverdale Season 4 Episode 2 Review – Chapter 59: Fast Times at Riverdale High

This Riverdale review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 4 Episode 2

“After everything I’ve lived through, I don’t think going back to text books and cafeteria politics is really my scene”

With this line, Mad Dog sums up the problem with tonight’s Riverdale.

Following seasons packed with serial killers, cults, and murderous RPGS, it’s hard to care about the stories of typical teenage life that this episode places front and center. How can we possibly be concerned with things like football practice when we already have seen Archie nearly murdered by a bear while on the run from his girlfriend’s drug kingpin father? I’m sorry, but as a viewer I’m just not capable of the cognitive dissonance required in order to buy what this episode is selling. 

Fortunately, this is Riverdale. By the time the end credits roll we are reminded that in just a few months Jughead will go missing and life in the town will return to (chaotic) business as usual. Besides, Betty’s mom is still in a cult, Cheryl is having heart to hearts with her dead brother, and Veronica makes the stupefying choice to hold press conference in which she performs a standard from Chicago for no good reason. So this ain’t quite Party of Five territory. Still though, high school-based stories? Hard pass.

As Jughead tells us in his opening narration, the rest of the summer was spent trying to help Archie cope with the death of his father. (As seen in last week’s excellent installment). But now the time has come for the gang to begin their senior year. Colleges have to be applied to, dances need to be planned, etc. There’s a new principal at Riverdale High, Mr. Honey (Kerr Smith).

He’s presented as an enemy for wanting to bring “order, discipline, consequences” to the school. His first order of business? He cancels the Back to School Dance that Cheryl and Toni were planning. (“At the last student dance multiple students were murdered,” he deadpans). Despite seeming to have a reasonable grasp of the hellhole he was assigned to, Mr. Honey is viewed as an enemy, someone who dares to challenge the hair-flipping wunderkind that is Cheryl Blossom.

Meanwhile, another new authority figure, Mr. Chipping (Sam Witwer) read the short story that Jughead wrote in the previous episode and was so impressed that he simply must have our burger-chomping, mystery-solving savant attend the prestigious prep school he works at. Veronica warns Jughead that there is no school “more nihilistic or privileged” than Stonewall Prep, but he doesn’t care. Why? Because he can have a deep conversation about Moby Dick there, maaaaannnn. Given Riverdale‘s history with Heathers, I could only think of that flick’s referencing of the Melville classic and try to find a narrative through line here. Frankly, I’m exhausted.

To recap: Jughead, a man who goes on endlessly about how the most important things in the world are his friends, his family, and the Serpents, decides to drop off all the above in order to do some Dead Poets Society cosplay with characters who have names like Bret Weston Wallace. Sure, this is totally in line with what we know about the character and not at all a contrivance. Eye-roll commencing.

But with Jughead off to indulge in intellectual pursuits, Betty has some free time to try to track down her mom. As she and Charles do their own half-assed remake of Mindhunter, Kevin appears and actually gets some screen time this week. Then he immediately betrays Betty after begging for her forgiveness then runs back into the arms of Fangs/The Farm.

“You are so messed up Kev” indeed.

Betty being a total sweetheart and never one to distrust someone who is clearly betraying her tells Kevin all about her mom’s infiltrating of The Farm. Eventually Charles agrees with Betty’s tactics, because in the world of Riverdale it is perfectly normal for law enforcement agents to have no idea what they are doing  — if they aren’t just outright hooligans to begin with. (F.P., I kid). So next week we will have a Farm Throwdown, whereupon which Kevin may or may not screw over Betty again before disappearing from the show for weeks at a time. Whee!

Then comes Reggie. A storyline that could have been a thoughtful exploration of the impact of child abuse left turns instead into a jarring Ferris Bueller’s Day Off homage. I genuinely have no idea what the hell this was all about. Somewhere there is a great connection to be made about how the children of Riverdale are continually being forced to answer for their parents sins — especially in light of how Veronica declares “I stand with and for myself” after wowing a quintet of journalists with her take on Fosse choreography — yet none of that comes across on screen. Playing lip service to such a serious topic is not a good look, and something that Riverdale should aspire to be better than.

With the season just ramping up and having to establish what its driving plots will be, it is somewhat understandable that this episode was such a clunky wheel spinner. Could this be the worst installment the series has ever done? I’ll leave that to you to debate in the comments…

Riverdale Roundup

– Since the title of tonight’s episode is a spin on the 1982 classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High, I took the liberty of creating the above image. You’re welcome.

– Both Toni and Reggie nearly stumble upon Jason’s corpse in this episode. What’s the over/under on how long Cheryl’s secret chats go on before she is found out?

– Rumordale is not, as of this writing, an actual website. Heading to www.rumordale.com will lead you only to a landing page at the Warner Brothers website. Hopefully content will be added there, because a TMZ-style takedown of these characters updated after each episode airs would be extremely fun.

– Despite the fact that we are led to believe that Veronica is being absolutely hounded by the paparazzi, we only see five reporters covering her performance/press conference at La Bonne Nuit. Perhaps other journalists realized how ridiculous this sequence was and fled for the hills?

– Veronica mentions a teacher named Ms Verbal, whom I desperately hope we get to see teaching SAT prep classes.

– Cheryl declares that Mr. Honey will be beheaded by homecoming. In this town? You can pretty much guarantee that will happen.

– Mr. Mantle’s car has the vanity license plate MGNFCNT. In Archie Comics, Reggie regularly refers to himself as “Mantle the Magnificent.”

– Apparently there was footage with F.P., Jughead and Jellybean filmed for this episode that were edited out, as stills from the deleted scenes appeared on the CW press site. My guess is that Jellybean convinces Jughead to attend Stonewall Prep in this scene, because it still seems like an extraordinarily out of character decision for him to make…Betty’s encouragement aside.

– What does the future hold for Veronica Gomez and Archie? There’s no possible way she’s going to Harvard because that would seriously complicate plans for the show’s next season.

– F.P. mentions his estranged father, Forsythe the First. That character will make his first appearance in a few weeks and will cause huge headaches for the entire Jones family.

– Continuing with the show’s love for alliteration, we learn that Mad Dog’s real name is Monroe Moore.

– We are gifted with two Cheryl hair flip sound effects in tonight’s episode. What a magnificent time to be alive!

– Miss Haggly (Glynis Davies) appears briefly in tonight’s episode, a nod to the long-running teacher character of the same name from the comics.

– The Thistlehouse grounds come complete with a neon cherry sign, obviously.

– When Cheryl and Toni give out invitations to their Back to School Bash, the song playing is “Archie’s Party” by, you guessed it, The Archies. This marks the first time an original recording of an Archies song as been featured on Riverdale, and it comes from the group’s Jingle Jangle album. Awesome.

– Fake Brand Alert! Kevin waxes nostalgic about hooking up through the “Grindem” app, a play on the real-world Grindr app with the same purpose.

– At one point Jughead remarks that “my pal Archie is a fighter.” This is a subtle reference to the recent Your Pal Archie comic, which was a modernized take on the characters.

– Yo, Cheryl would absolutely be expelled for that beehive stunt.

Keep up with all of our Riverdale season 4 news and reviews right here.

Chris Cummins is a Philadelphia-based writer, producer, and comics historian. Read more of his work here. You can find him on Twitter at @bionicbigfoot and @scifiexplosion.