This novel follows Layla Patel, a woman in her twenties who returns home to her family in San Francisco after she loses her job as a recruitment consultant and breaks up with her boyfriend. Her father, who runs a Michelin starred restaurant, offers her the office upstairs so she can start her own business. He also creates a profile on an online dating site to find her a husband and sets up dates, however she doesn’t know until the first man comes knocking on her door.

Another problem comes in the form of Sam Mehta who is the CEO of a corporate downsizing company and has his life carefully ordered. He finds a new office above Layla’s parents’ restaurant, but communication goes awry and he’s forced to share his space with Layla, her family, and a parade of suitors, all disrupting his ordered life. Sam decides to use this as an opportunity to get Layla married and then out of the office space. The two strike a deal: he will be her chaperone on the ten blind dates if she agrees to leave the office when she finds her match. But if she doesn’t find her match after ten blind dates, Sam agrees to vacate it.

An enemies to lovers romance is at the heart of this novel, but it is very well done so that both characters are still respectful and honest to one another without being totally rude. The two engage in hilarious witty banter that make the reader fully engaged in their relationship.

The characters are also very strong and well developed. Layla is a strong female character and her strength doesn’t disappear just because she wants to find love. She goes through a lot of self discovery and really figures out and embraces who she is as a person. She is also a curvy woman and while she is never described as plus-sized, the representation is appreciated. Sam is grappling with something that happened to his sister in the past and his need to avenge her. He is very controlled and organised and originally clashes with Layla because of her lack of organisation. He goes through a large change throughout the book which is very apparent. Both characters grow and help each other despite their initial dislike.

The book is told from a third person point of view so you get to watch the story unfold for both characters. We get to see Sam accompany Layla as a chaperone while she meets the suitors that her father has picked out for her as potential candidates for an arranged marriage. The two characters make it into a game to see which one will get to keep the office, but it turns into something very different. The plot has hilarious banter that keeps the readers interested and invested.

This is also an own-voices novel and the main characters are children of Indian immigrants. It’s full of Indian culture, traditions, and fun Bollywood references. But one of the best parts of the book are the descriptions of the food as Layla has a large sweet-tooth and her family owns an Indian restaurant that is largely featured.  Family is also a huge part of this book and Layla’s family is always around and in each other’s business, but they are also very protective and supportive. Family is becoming a topic that is featured a lot more in romance books and I am very glad to see a representation of a healthy family relationship.

Overall, The Marriage Game is a hilarious blend of humour, romance, and family. It’s a funny romantic comedy that I highly recommend to anyone who already loves the romance genre or anyone wanting to try the genre out.

The Marriage Game is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of June 9th 2020.

Will you be picking up The Marriage Game? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

A high stakes wager pits an aspiring entrepreneur against a ruthless CEO in this sexy romantic comedy.

After her life falls apart, recruitment consultant Layla Patel returns home to her family in San Francisco. But in the eyes of her father, who runs a Michelin starred restaurant, she can do no wrong. He would do anything to see her smile again. With the best intentions in mind, he offers her the office upstairs to start her new business and creates a profile on an online dating site to find her a man. She doesn’t know he’s arranged a series of blind dates until the first one comes knocking on her door…

As CEO of a corporate downsizing company Sam Mehta is more used to conflict than calm. In search of a quiet new office, he finds the perfect space above a cozy Indian restaurant that smells like home. But when communication goes awry, he’s forced to share his space with the owner’s beautiful yet infuriating daughter Layla, her crazy family, and a parade of hopeful suitors, all of whom threaten to disrupt his carefully ordered life.

As they face off in close quarters, the sarcasm and sparks fly. But when the battle for the office becomes a battle of the heart, Sam and Layla have to decide if this is love or just a game.

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This episode starts off with the cast singing “Wicked Little Town” as they watch the third round of videotapes that were delivered to their doorstep. Betty has talked to all of Jughead’s teachers and prepared a colour-coordinated binder for him so he can catch up and graduate with his friends. However, apparently Jughead’s near death experience changed him and homework is too boring for him. So, naturally, he asks Charles if he can help crack the videotape mystery in his spare time. (Why is the FBI letting teenagers handle this?)

Elsewhere, Hiram keeps skipping his doctor’s appointments in order to go to the gym. When he is nearly crushed during a bench press, Archie lets it slip that he knows about Hiram’s ‘condition’. Hiram swears him to secrecy as he doesn’t want Veronica to know.

At school, Kevin is organising a variety show when Mr. Honey sweeps in and bans his song. Kevin wanted to sing a song from Hedwig and the Angry Inch and when Honey says no, Kevin decides to rebel. Fangs then gives Kevin a weird pep talk and advises him to ‘go rogue’ in order to ‘stick it to the man’. Great advice Fangs, why don’t we risk getting Kevin expelled?

Meanwhile, Archie also signs up for the variety show, but signs the core four up as well as The Archies. When he tells them, Jughead is not down for the name but Veronica approves of the name and they agree to rehearse later. For now, they have to head to the music room, where Kevin (in full Hedwig costume) is performing “Tear Me Down” (which is my favourite musical number from the episode).

Naturally, Mr. Honey hates it, unplugs the speaker, and kicks Kevin out of the variety show. But thankfully, Kevin has a sleepover with the girls planned and they know how to cheer him up. How you might ask? Why with singing and wigs, of course! By the end of the number, they have a plan: Everyone agrees to perform songs from Hedwig at the variety show.

However, when Cheryl brings the idea to Mr Honey the following day, by adding a performance of “Sugar Daddy” (my second favourite number from the episode), he refuses. Then, he promises to ban everyone who performs a song from Hedwig at the talent show, from the senior prom (which is the worst punishment for high school seniors). So, when they all show up to protest by wearing Hedwig wigs in the hallway of Riverdale High, Mr. Honey cancels the variety show completely.

And then we head into couple drama. When Hiram collapses, Archie tells Veronica that her dad’s been working out at the gym, and she goes off on him for keeping this from her. Betty then finds Jughead blowing off his homework in order to watch videotapes and help Charles and he shoots back with: “death changes a person.” At the same time they are all singing “Exquisite Corpse”.

After both couple’s fight, Jughead and Veronica blow off rehearsal and only Betty and Archie show up. The two sing “The Origin of Love,” and we get flashbacks of Betty and Archie’s relationship, dating all the way back to the pilot of the show. And by the time the song is over, they kiss.

The next scene shows them appearing to feel guilty as both Jughead and Veronica return with excellent apologies, but as soon as they’re alone, they’re looking at each other longingly through their bedroom windows. Then they reprise “Wicked Little Town” as they reenact the school dance from the pilot, and it’s clear that these feelings are not going away (and I don’t know about you, but I am not down for this relationship if it’s created because of cheating).

When the variety show is cancelled, Kevin gets the idea to put it on at La Bonne Nuit, and we end the night with The Archies performing “Midnight Radio” as the core fore exchange a lot of longing glances. Then, as The Archies (plus Kevin) perform on the roof of Pop’s, Jughead notices everyone recording them, and gets paranoid about the videotapes.

The episode then ends with Jughead going back to the bunker, where he watches a videotape of someone in a Jughead mask getting hit over the head with a rock by someone in a Betty mask. So, someone is watching them.

Final Thoughts?

The musical episodes on Riverdale are always my favourite even if the singing isn’t always perfect. As I said earlier, I am not a fan of Archie and Betty becoming a couple because it started out with them cheating on their significant others. A show aimed at teens and young adults should not be condoning cheating!

What did you think of ‘Wicked Little Town’? Sound off in the comments below!

The post Riverdale Recap: 4.17 ‘Wicked Little Town’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

First, we get to see Jughead’s underground life, which he’s decided is about as close to death as one can come despite the fact that he’s obviously alive. For two weeks, he microwaved his meals, typed away on his typewriter, and studied everything he knew about the kids at the prep school. Oh and he didn’t shower (we think).

He also breaks down who knew what: Jellybean figured out he was alive on her own, and Betty told FP (but only after awhile). Archie went rogue and told his mother, and Veronica was backed into a corner and had to tell Hermosa after she started snooping.

Now, Betty and Jughead are headed to Stonewall Prep to lock Mr. DuPont, Donna, Bret, and Joan in a room and try to unravel this mystery, in an extremely dramatic way.

The two start at the beginning when Moose was invited to Stonewall Prep, then Jughead was drugged, woke up in a coffin, and was freed in time to find out Mr. Chipping had practically shoved Moose out the door and into the Army. Why would he do that, you might ask? Well, because Moose was going to get murdered and Mr. Chipping was trying to save his life.

This then brings us to the Baxter Brothers writing competition. Jughead reminds Mr. DuPont that he exploited his grandfather for the original Baxter Brothers novel, a secret he would do anything to keep lest someone find out that the franchise upon which he built everything wasn’t his idea. And it all goes back to the Baxter Brothers contract: Why did Chipping’s wife say he hated it so much? Because there was one part of the writing competition Jughead never heard about: In order to prove you could write the perfect murder, you first had to commit it. Betty and Jughead linked each of the missing Stonewall Four to the years that new ghostwriters. That brings us back to Moose.

Chipping invited Moose to Stonewall Prep to be the next victim to be killed by the next chosen ghostwriter. But when Chipping couldn’t go through with it, he told Moose to run, and then he killed himself. And when Jughead won the contract, DuPont gave the students a new challenge: Commit the perfect murder against Jughead and get the contract.

So, the students worked together: Donna kept Betty busy, while Bret led Jughead into the woods, and Joan hit him over the head with a rock. It was Jonathan’s job to make sure Jughead was dead (and he clearly failed). Then, they placed the rock in Betty’s hand and pointed Archie and Veronica in her direction.

But when Betty finally came to, she immediately started CPR on Jughead, while Veronica used the beanie to stop the bleeding. They were able to revive Jughead long enough to tell them not to take him to a hospital as Jughead had a plan. So, Betty called Charles and the FBI medical van to take Jughead away, where he didn’t regain consciousness for thirty-six hours.

Once Jughead came to, he met with the former Baxter Brothers ghostwriters and told them their theory: That they’re all murderers. Additionally, Jughead and Betty discovered that three members of the original literary society had been murdered, otherwise known as the only people who would know that DuPont stole the idea from Jughead’s grandfather. There’s only one living member left, and that’s when Betty opens the door to reveal FP, Charles, and the original Forsythe. Apparently, one of Forsythe’s classmates came to him and warned him about DuPont years ago, and when that person turned up dead a few days later, Forsythe had no choice but to abandon his family and run, and ever since he’s been collecting evidence against DuPont.

And that’s when Chipping invited Jughead to Stonewall Prep: as a way to lure Forsythe out so that DuPont could finish the job. Now, the FBI is at DuPont’s house but before Charles can arrest him, DuPont jumps out the window. (Charles is not a good FBI agent, as we’ve already seen.)

After that, Charles interrogates the world’s most privileged kids, and when that doesn’t work, he lets FP and Jughead work on Bret with some brass knuckles – so clearly a bad FBI agent – until he gives him the location of his videotapes and Quill & Skull is officially disbanded.

As for Betty, she has another thing to take care of: At Donna’s dorm, Donna is packing and preparing to transfer schools and relaunch the Baxter Brothers books as Tracy True. And that’s where Hermosa’s information comes into play. It seems Donna’s grandmother was one of the original classmates that DuPont killed to cover up the truth. Furthermore, DuPont stole the character of Tracy True from Donna’s grandmother. So not only does that give Donna a motive, but it links everything back to her. Betty then threatens to send out the medical file linking Donna to her grandmother if Donna does anything Betty doesn’t like.

Back at Riverdale High, Cheryl tells Betty that ‘no one ever really dies in Riverdale’ despite the fact that people definitely have. Then, she calls Betty out on her feelings toward Archie. Betty says it was all pretend but Cheryl responds and says, “It looked real to me.”

When Jughead goes back to Riverdale High, the core four meet at Pop’s. They only have a few months left of senior year, and they’re determined to graduate on time. And it ends with Kevin telling them about his variety show (or rather the annual musical episode).

Final Thoughts?

So, thankfully this episode actually did kind of make sense and showed that the writers actually had a plan for this season’s mystery, however, the season is far from over so I am a little worried about what will happen in future episodes…

What did you think of ‘The Locked Room’? Sound off in the comments below!

The post Riverdale Recap: 4.16 ‘The Locked Room’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Monday

Archie wakes up before 5am in order to give everyone at Andrews Construction coffee and doughnuts, and then also makes coffee for Monroe’s mother, who has been helping watch the community center. And somehow, in the middle of all this, Archie decides now that he’d like to go to college, but Mr. Honey quickly informs him that he’s too late to apply and that he can’t walk with his friends at graduation.

Then, we switch to Hiram Lodge who’s disease is affecting his muscle control, and when he yells that he doesn’t need Veronica’s help, she decides just to go to school. Veronica has a new attitude about life: stop thinking about the future and enjoy the time she has left with Archie. And by this, it means have sex every chance they get.

Over at Stonewall Prep, Jughead is kicked out of Quill and Skull. DuPont also informs him that they’re terminating his Baxter Brothers contract for ‘failure to deliver satisfactory material by March 15, which is on Friday, so it hasn’t even happened yet. Jughead vows to write an entirely new novel in five days and Betty gives him the idea to base it on his experience at Stonewall. So, it’s a prep school thriller, which really makes me believe that this might just be the plot of his book.

Monday then ends with Hiram showing up at the community center looking to train away his weakness.

Tuesday

Jughead gets to writing, but seeing as how it took him a full day to write 10 pages about Jarhead and the prep school students plotting to kill Bison, it’s not really going well. But Jughead has another problem: DuPont informs him that Jonathan is accusing him of plagiarising the short story that qualified him for Yale. When he goes to find his old laptop, it’s gone, so he can’t prove the story was his. He has until Friday, the Ides of March, before he goes in front of the disciplinary committee.

For now, Betty has an idea: She has Jughead take a lie detector test in front of the other Stonewall students, which I guess proves something but is actually pointless.

Then, she and Jughead search all of Stonewall for his old laptop, but they come up empty-handed. Well, sort of. What they do find in DuPont’s desk is a Baxter Brothers envelope that reads ‘ready to print’ and contains an edited version of Jughead’s original book: The Boy in the River. DuPont explains that the Baxter Brothers contract details that the brotherhood owns everything Jughead submits, even if Jughead’s classmates rework the material.

Elsewhere, Veronica is trying her best to ‘have fun’ but work gets in the way. When a mystery woman who is very clearly Hermosa in a wig tries to get into the Maple Club, so Toni, Cheryl, and Veronica set a trap. It ends with Veronica ripping off Hermosa’s wig and finding out that Hiram only told one of his daughters about his illness.

Speaking of Hiram, he suggests that an exhausted Archie sell one of his businesses, and his plan is to let go of Andrews Construction and pay Tom Keller a legit salary to help run the community center. But that plan will have to wait until after Archie takes the fall for the rum Mr. Honey finds in Veronica’s locker (which only results in Archie getting a week’s detention).

Tuesday ends when Archie confronts Veronica on her behaviour and she tells him Hiram is dying. His advice? Get Hiram fired up.

Friday (The Ides of March)

Veronica, in her plan to make Hiram mad, throws together an ad campaign presentation for Red Raven rum, demonstrating that it demolished Lodge rums in a taste test and surprisingly, this works.

Betty is back at it with her murder board, and she has a new theory: DuPont is the master mind controlling the students. She takes Donna out for some milkshakes to see if she’s on the right track, but Donna literally laughs in her face.

Cut to Jughead, who threatens to tell the disciplinary committee everything about this school, at which point Bret reveals that he does have a sex tape of Betty and Jughead and he’s not afraid to use it. At the hearing, Jughead agrees to leave Stonewall Prep.

When Bret invites Betty and Jughead to the Ides of March party in the woods, Jughead says yes, before promising Betty that he has a plan and is going to take care of things. Then he tells her he loves her before they kiss.

Archie couldn’t bring himself to sell Andrews Construction and as far as school is concerned, he has a plan: go to summer school for his diploma, take a gap year, and apply to colleges for the spring semester. Veronica is on-board.

At the party, Jughead shows up wearing his Serpent jacket and a mask, at which point he follows Bret into the woods to settle unfinished business. But as he follows Bret, Betty follows Donna. Alone with Betty, Donna reveals that she’s done some investigating of her own. It seems she paid Evelyn Evernever a visit and learned ‘the magic word’. She’s talking about the world that makes Betty go into a fugue state and hurt people she loves.

Veronica and Archie then find Betty holding a rock over Jughead’s dead body.

What did you think of ‘The Ides of March’? Sound off in the comments below!

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Archie

Archie and Uncle Frank are wrapping up a workday when Ted Bishop, an old friend who served with Frank, shows up to deliver some bad news: Someone named Greg died. As Ted puts it, cancer rotted him. Archie invites him over to his house for dinner, where he asks him to stay the night.

When another old friend calls Frank saying someone else died, Frank realises something is off just in time when Ted tries to stab him. Archie hits Ted over the head with a frying pan, but Ted runs off. Frank explains that after the war, Ted hired Frank to work at a private security firm and they were mercenaries. Now, Frank thinks Ted has been sent to tie up the company’s loose ends and Ted isn’t going to stop until Frank is dead. Archie gets FP involved and the plan is to use Frank as bait and then have FP arrest Ted, and at first it works, until Ted tells Frank that he broke the code, which means ‘all bets are off now.’

Just as Frank decides to run away to Alaska, Ted breaks out of prison because Riverdale cops aren’t good at their jobs. Ted then attacks Archie at school, where the guy slams Archie’s head into a mirror and then throws his body through a porcelain sink (um how is he still conscious?). Kevin walks in and distracts Ted, giving Archie an opportunity to knock him out with the toilet lid. The guy gets up again like three seconds later and chases the two of them down. He knocks Kevin out with one push into the lockers and starts strangling Archie before Frank returns and knocks him out with a trophy. And somehow, that works. (This is Riverdale, we just go with it.)

They turn Ted over to the feds, and Archie convinces Frank to turn himself in as well but Frank doesn’t listen. Instead, he leaves Riverdale and Archie behind.

Veronica

Veronica heads to New York with her parents as they’re going on business and she has an interview at Barnard. She meets up with her old friend Katy Keene, who is into fashion so she’s the obvious choice to help Veronica pick out the perfect college interview outfit.

After this, Katy takes Veronica to a drag show and they catch up. Katy asks if Archie will follow Veronica to college, and she says Riverdale wouldn’t survive without him, so their plan is to do the long-distance thing. Katy then reveals that her mother is sick and though we don’t know her yet, the news somehow ties into the episode.

It turns out that Hermione and Hiram didn’t go to New York for business. They went to see a specialist. Hiram has a neuromuscular disorder that will weaken him and cause him to lose his motor skills. They did catch it early, so maybe there’s a chance he’ll be okay. Veronica changes her name back to Lodge and tells her parents that she’s been accepted to Barnard.

Cheryl

Cheryl finally fills Toni in on her past with Nick St. Clair when he shows up at the Maple Club. Toni sees this as an opportunity for revenge: she drugs Nick and enlists Kevin and Fangs to make a video with Nick to use as blackmail if he ever sets foot in Riverdale or assaults another woman again. I am not okay with this storyline, but again, it’s Riverdale.

Betty and Jughead

Jughead and Bret duel in this episode. They agree to the terms: there will be a fencing match, a ‘bare-knuckle brawl’, and a chess match as a tiebreaker (if necessary). They’re each allowed to choose a ‘second’ to help them, and Jughead chooses Donna for some reason.

The fencing match goes down in the seminar room and Bret wins and we move to the brawl, which Jughead wins with one punch (huh!).

While all of this is going on, Alice is trying to fix her mistake: She tells Mr. Honey that she acted alone in getting the quiz show answers, but he doesn’t believe her. Instead, he suspends Betty for a week, strips her of her editor-in-chief title at the paper, and bans her from her senior prom. Oh and Bret also took out a restraining order against Betty.

But Betty has other things to work on: she enlists her mother in looking into Mr. Chipping’s death. They start by talking to Mrs. Chipping, who doesn’t believe for one second that her husband was having an affair with a student. All she knows is that Mr. Chipping wished he never got the Baxter Brothers contract, so why would he kill himself when he was so close to being done? Mrs. Chipping has a lot of questions, and she leaves behind a box of her late husband’s personal things so Betty and Alice can look through it and find army pamphlets.

This brings us to Moose who reveals that not only did Chipping suggests the army, but he was actually the person who recruited Moose to play football for Stonewall Prep in the first place. Then, when the story came out about Moose, Chipping practically shoved Moose out the door. Apparently, he learned that Bret had videotaped Moose having sex with a classmate in their dorm and added it to ‘his collection.’

So, Betty and Alice head to the dorm to see if they can find said collection. Instead, they find Bret, who denies any knowledge of such tapes. That leads to Plan B: while Jughead and Bret play chess in the seminar room, Betty and Alice will search the school’s basement where the Quill and Skull meetings take place.

And Betty does find a tape collection there, but it’s not what she thinks. When Bret gets alerted that the Quill and Skull alarm is going off, they pause the game and head downstairs, where he reveals that all Betty has found are the tapes of every Quill and Skull member’s initiation testimony. So she hands them over and he and Jug get back to their game, at least until Jughead throws it. It seems Jughead is no longer interested in honour the way Stonewall defines it.

Once back home, Betty reveals that she managed to sneak Donna’s tape out and her confession is similar to the story she told Betty about her affair with Mr. Chipping, except her tape is about an affair with a different teacher. Turns out, Donna’s been lying this whole time. Her story about Mr. Chipping was a rehearsed speech that she’s given at least twice.

Final Thoughts?

I really liked seeing Katy Keene for the first time, and I’m excited to see what the rest of the season has in store for us!

What did you think of ‘Men of Honor’? Sound off in the comments below!

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The episode starts out showing us Alyssa’s past (you know the annoying mean girl who is now rooming with Hope) and we see how she ended up at the Salvatore School and how she is annoying Hope by making out with Jed in Hope’s bed! We are also introduced to the monster of the week, who people can’t seem to see at the moment, but it gets in their heads and and manipulates their thoughts.

Meanwhile, Josie, Lizzie, and Alaric are trying to figure out a way to banish the mora miserium and the darkness, but nothing is working. According to Alaric, they have tried more than ten different spells and when the twins suggest they put it in the prison world with their Uncle Kai, Alaric refuses and heads off to find another way. However, the two girls talk about creating another prison world.

Landon and Hope are training as Landon asked her to start training him and Hope is very frustrated because of Alyssa. Landon tells her that she’s a bully and says to talk to her as bullies hate being confronted.

In other news, Emma is back to run Coven Day and Alaric talks to her about helping Josie, but she doesn’t quite know how to help as she didn’t know they still existed. Also, cue a super awkward reunion between Emma and Dorian.

Coven Day is an opportunity for the witches to come together, learn about each other, and celebrate being witches. Hope tries to talk to Alyssa who says that she doesn’t like Hope. She then asks if they can start over, but the monster is speaking to Alyssa telling her that she has to get rid of Hope. Alyssa says she wants the room back to herself.

Wade gives a presentation about his coven and says he doesn’t fit in and Alyssa and others laugh at him. He says that he has been misdiagnosed and is a fairy, which is super weird and no one really understands. Alyssa teases him and makes Wade run off the stage in shame, and Emma gives Alyssa detention.

Now, Hope is affected by the monster and is acting rude to her classmates. She steals shoes from another girl, saying they look better on her and also takes someone’s milkshake. Landon asks her how everything went with Alyssa and the monster tells her to get rid of him and so she tells him that his advice was useless and so is he.

Landon is obviously hurt and Wade shows up in his dorm saying he has a theory as to why Hope is acting the way she is. His theory is that they’re dealing with a monster called a kareem, which is from Arabian mythology and feeds off insecurities. He says that he can see the kareem because he’s a fairy, but the others can’t until it crosses over to their plane.

Emma decides to have a sort of meditation exercise to get the witches to calm and work on themselves. Lizzie interrupts them, and Emma makes her join them. She tries to get them to keep positive thoughts, however the kareem gets in their heads and soon a sort of screaming fight ensues and Emma sends them all to their rooms. Hope figures out that something is wrong and recruits Lizzie.

Meanwhile, Alaric speaks to the Sheriff about his daughters and her children, which is honestly a cute moment and he asks her out for dinner and it really makes me miss Ethan and Maya.

The fighting and rude comments get worse, and Wade and Landon tell Lizzie and Hope about the kareem and they try to come up with a plan. Wade and Landon look for the kareem’s weakness and Wade finds out that it’s weak to fairies and myhr, but Hope still doesn’t believe he’s a fairy, plus Hope is still being affected by the kareem and picks on Wade and Landon. They are interrupted by Alyssa who informs them of the monster who is now able to be seen by everyone.

Meanwhile, Josie gets knocked out by the kareem and seems to encounter her dark side and when she wakes up, she finds out that the sand clock was taken by the kareem. Landon then realises he’s infected when he says something rude to Hope and Lizzie, and then goes to find Wade for his help. Landon tells him that fairies run on belief and they need to get other people to believe in him so he can defeat the monster.

This doesn’t work though as the students don’t really believe, however, Landon believes and he is able to prove it by getting the monster’s attention so the monster fights Landon. This ends up working and Wade shows that he has wings and defeats the monster, while Hope saves the sand clock, but it’s starting to break.

We then get a flashback with Alyssa who apparently did something to Josie and Alaric wants to send her away. But Emma, decides to wipe her memories instead so she can stay at the school.

Lizzie and Josie then talk to Alaric again about the mora miserium and ask him for permission to handle it. Emma and the other witches help them out with the spell to create a new prison world and Josie and Lizzie apologise to each other and finally say they love each other, which is super cute. The spell works and they banish the mora miserium to a new prison world. However, Alyssa acts really suspicious during it which makes me nervous.

Hope then seeks out Landon and apologises, saying that she loves how he uses his brain to help them. But she says she doesn’t want him to be the hero because she doesn’t want him to die and she says she’s going to stop training him. However, Landon says he’s going to find someone else to train him if she won’t.

Lizzie and Josie have a cute heart-to-heart in their room and Hope joins them, asking if they have room for another. However, as soon as the moment starts, it ends with the twins disappearing into thin air, leaving Hope confused.

Emma then admits to Dorian that she’s in town to help a troubled student, but they are interrupted by Alyssa who wants to confess something to Emma. Alyssa says she remembers her erased memories and something Dr. Saltzman did and then says she sent Lizzie, Josie, and Alaric away for revenge. She says she switched the ascendants when they were performing the spells and linked the Saltzman’s together with a linking spell to send them to the prison world, but not the new prison spell. Alyssa then erases Emma’s memory.

However, Hope figures it out herself and threatens Alyssa, saying they need to talk about boundaries and she asks Alyssa what she did. The episode ends with the Saltzman’s in a prison world that isn’t the one they made that day along with Sebastian (who’s not dead, yay!) and the mora miserium. Turns out Josie’s problems are far from over.

Final Thoughts:

Ah! I am so excited to see Kai, whose return is approaching fast. Also, I do not like Alyssa who seems like she’s trying too hard to be like Penelope or Katherine, and it’s not working. Overall, I loved this episode.

What did you think of the episode? Tell us in the comments below!

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We start this episode with Spirit Week at Riverdale High as they are leading up to the big state championship football game. Thanks to Munroe, the Bulldogs have finally made it to the big game where they will face the Stonewall Prep Stallions who are apparently really good. However, it’s because they cheat. Betty discovers this while writing an article on the game that the Stallions consistently injure the star player of their opponent and yet somehow have never been caught?  Brett tells Betty in a scene that, “Football is a sport of gladiators and you win by debilitating and slaughtering your enemies.”

The Stallions then take a golf club to Monroe’s knee, after which the Bulldogs show up at Jughead’s new school and start a fight where Brett seems genuinely surprised that he can bleed? What even is this show sometimes?

Archie’s uncle picks him up from jail after the fight. Remember Frank? I didn’t, but he’s been staying at the community center for a while now, and Archie decides it’s time for them to tell his mother. She is not a fan of Frank but decides he can work at Andrews Construction until he screws it up. Archie and Frank then bond over boxing, however, eventually things get complicated and Archie learns that his dad took the blame for Frank’s DUI back in the day. Archie confronts his uncle and they talk it out, but when Frank offers Munroe some drugs to play through the pain, Archie’s not too happy. However, Munroe plays well enough to get an offer to play at Notre Dame and suddenly Frank is allowed to stay at Archie’s house.

Then that takes us to the Vixens. Mr. Honey brings in the cheer squad’s new coach, Ms. Appleyard, and Cheryl has them go on strike until Honey threatens to ban them from prom. In the end, Cheryl locks Ms. Appleyard in a classroom so the Vixens can go cheer, but they aren’t able to cheer the Bulldogs to victory.

While all of this is going on, Veronica has been fighting with her dad. She launches her rum, which she’s been able to make and sell even though she’s not even old enough to consume alcohol? Hiram however delivers a cease and desist as a chemist compared their rums and decided the recipes were too similar. But by the end of the episode, she decides to combine her rum with the Blossom’s maple syrup.

Over at Stonewall Prep, Jughead gets a new laptop and a Yale interview (despite never applying). DuPont claims his friend is the recruiter and that he slipped him some of Jughead’s stories. Jughead is hesitant seeing as how it’s Betty’s dream school and she was rejected, but he decides to sit for the interview and he is praised and offered a spot.

Betty discovers that Jughead is in a secret society when she sends Veronica to a Stonewall party as part of an undercover operation and she is not pleased. However, they ultimately work it out but it takes us one month into the future where Jughead isn’t going to Yale (because he’s dead) and Brett and Betty are? This is just even adding more twists to the story.

Also, as the final part of Jug’s initiation into Quill and Skull (the secret society), he has to divulge his ‘deepest, darkest secret’, which seems a little personal and also something not everyone can just come up with at a moment’s notice. Donna’s has to do with an uncle who made a pass at her when she was 13 and caused her to cut herself and Brett’s is about a night he spent with a hooker at the age of 14 because he was scared his father would kill him if he didn’t. Jughead decides to go with a night where he watched some drunken businessman beat up the guy who used to protect him from junkies when he was homeless. He says that not doing anything to help is his greatest shame and he’s never even told Betty this. (I think he has darker secrets, but whatever. This show doesn’t make any sense anyway.)

Final Thoughts: Overall, this was a fairly uneventful episode, but I am excited that it’s back.

What did you think of ‘Varsity Blues’? Sound off in the comments below!

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We start this episode with flashbacks where we learn the Necromancer has escaped Malivore’s clutches, but he is now having to live a miserable new existence in Texas, complete with a strip mall gig, a new name (aka Ted) and absolutely no powers whatsoever. Fortunately, he’s found a kindred spirit in one of his co-workers named Chad.

Meanwhile, at the Salvatore School, Hope Mikaelson is moving back in. She used to have a single last year, but in her absence, another student took over her room. Also, Josie and Hope don’t seem to be close, in fact, Josie seems to be ignoring Hope. In other news, Lizzie and Sebastian are now basically a couple (I guess!) and he is constantly making Lizzie late because of their make-out sessions.

Alaric Saltzman doesn’t want Sebastian to enrol at the school without a full investigation, so he enlists Landon to give him the tour and tests in order to make sure Sebastian is ‘safe’. (I get that Landon can come back from the dead, but Alaric still shouldn’t be putting one of his students in harm’s way like that.)

Lizzie then realises how Sebastian has been distracting her, so she enlists the help of MG (whom she’s been ignoring for a while) to give her something else to think about. Of course, he gives her comics which Lizzie has always thought were lame, and he’s not pleased when she tells him that she’s using comic books to distract herself.

Landon takes Sebastian to see the wolves and makes him play dodgeball with them after Sebastian tries to take verbal shots at Landon for not being there for Hope.

Back to the Necromancer who is practising using his powers again. However, he has been without practice for months and he is making almost no progress. So, he’s taken to moping around on the couch while Chad does all the cleaning and work, until Chad tries to lift his spirits and take him back to the Malivore pit. They find out that Malivore has been defeated and Ted concludes, “if Malivore can be beaten, anything is possible!” Then he kills Chad because he says he has to sacrifice that which he valued most.

However, Chad isn’t dead for long as the Necromancer raises him from the dead with his new old powers. Chad is not pleased when he realises that he was dead, but the Necromancer basically dismisses it and hands him a red robe. He then takes Chad to Virginia and the Salvatore School to start his plan.

Back at the Salvatore School, Alyssa (Hope’s new roommate) talks to MG about Sebastian. We all know how MG feels about Sebastian—he hates him—and Alyssa uses this information. Alyssa tells MG to run Sebastian out as in get him to perform poorly on his behavioural tests.

Alyssa cuts herself with a piece of glass, which causes all the vampires to surround her with hunger. Luckily, before any harm is done, Dorian steps in and gets the vampires out of there. Unfortunately, Sebastian isn’t the one affected by the blood and instead MG is. Sebastian steps in and gets MG to calm down and get his urges to stop. So, basically, Alyssa’s plan failed.

Josie is still doing black magic spells that Clarke was having her do before his demise, and Dorian catches her looking at them in the library. Before she has to explain herself, Hope steps in and offers to help Josie. Dorian leaves them alone, but Josie at first refuses Hope’s help. She tells Josie that Lizzie told her about the black magic and the mora miserium as she says her friend Vincent (from The Originals) told her that a protection spell could prolong its destruction.

Landon takes Sebastian to see the witches as the last part of the trial. Lizzie is there hanging out with the other witches and so is Alyssa who proceeds to taunt Sebastian. Alyssa asks Sebastian if they can use a crystal ball to read his emotions as vampires have heightened feelings and emotions. Sebastian agrees however, Alyssa proceeds to taunt him more. She says that he’s afraid of his past and afraid of the modern world and not being allowed to stay at the school, along with “he knows that Lizzie is better than him and that he doesn’t deserve her,” which sets him off. Landon tries to stop the witches and Sebastian but Sebastian throws him to the side (literally!). The witches all descend on Sebastian, performing some kind of spell until Lizzie stops them.

Sebastian takes out his frustration by sword fighting and is interrupted by Landon who has come to see if he is okay. He then decides to tell Landon some of his past, saying that when he was eight years old, his parents sold him to sailors. However, he ran away at every port but he was always found and punished. He says that the world is cruel and he thought Lizzie would be a bright spot for him.

Hope helps Josie with the spell and they are able to reconnect a little bit. Josie asks her why Clarke chose her and Hope responds that she’s a very trusting and powerful person, while Josie says that she doesn’t feel like herself anymore because of the black magic, but Hope reassures her that it isn’t just her magic. Josie asks Hope how she moved past her jealousy when she first saw how everyone had moved on without her, and she said it wasn’t easy but she also tried to move on.

Landon tells Alaric that Sebastian passed the test and says he isn’t more dangerous than anyone else there and Alaric says he’s surprised to hear it. However, we see that Alaric has been doing research of his own and it’s clear that he has his own opinion.

We then see Sebastian outside the gates and going for a walk where he meets a jogger. He decides to feed from her which seems very out of character for him after everything we’ve just seen. Alaric catches up to him and shoots him with an arrow, before telling him that he’s going to be keeping a close eye on him. Sebastian then taunts Alaric that he’s been ‘controlling’ Lizzie and that Alaric can’t protect his daughter from him. Sebastian says the only way that Alaric can protect his daughter is to kill him. (And I am very worried that Alaric will take him up on that.)

Meanwhile, Chad tries to kill the Necromancer in his sleep because he doesn’t like the fact that the Necromancer is talking about killing kids. However, he fails as the Necromancer is undoubtedly stronger and the Necromancer makes Chad understand that he’s Chad’s master, but Chad tells him that Malivore actually gave the Necromancer a chance to start over and find peace, but he didn’t take it. After that, the Necromancer gets to work creating a new portal to replace Malivore.

Back at the school, Dorian introduces MG to his new intern which turns out to be Kalem’s sister Kym which turns MG’s mood around. Josie then talks to Landon how lonely she feels now and she says that she should stop pushing people away. Landon then says how he wants to be a hero and how much he’s missed being Josie’s friend.

The two then reveal Hope’s new made over room to make Hope feel more at home which was the cutest thing ever. Hope loves it and hugs the two of them which makes us feel like everything might go back to normal. Then, Alaric tells Lizzie that Sebastian chose not to stay, but I think Alaric knows something that we don’t. Lizzie says it’s a good thing through tears and finally we get a hug from Alaric and Lizzie.

The episode ends with The Necromancer sending the first monster from his own pit to the Salvatore School to bring him back something he needs.

Final Thoughts:

All in all, I thought this was a good episode and I am so excited for Josie and Hope to be friends again!

What did you think of ‘I Couldn’t Have Done This Without You’? Sound off in the comments below!

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With one day of summer left, Jughead fills us in on how the past weeks have gone. Since Fred’s death, the core four have spent every day together to try and help Archie grieve and attempt to move forward. On their last night before the school year, they’re hanging out at Veronica’s (where there are no parents in sight), and reminiscing about how they suck at reminiscing. Also, apparently getting sentimental makes Betty horny because she starts making out with Jughead while both Veronica and Archie are still in the room. Archie and Veronica then go to her bedroom… All of them then oversleep and are late to high school the next morning.

The next morning, as the core four run into school late, they meet their new principal. Mr. Honey is the new principal as Weatherbee is gone. Mr. Honey is not okay with their tardiness and makes that very clear.

At school, Archie invites Mad Dog (who’s real name is Monroe) to join the Bulldogs, a move that makes Reggie very angry, mostly because Monroe makes Reggie look bad at practice and his abusive father watches every practice. Long story short, Veronica tells Archie about Reggie’s dad so Archie confronts him during practice one day, and then Reggie takes matters into his own hands and takes a baseball bat to his dad’s car’s windshield. Apparently this causes the two to talk things out, which seems very suspicious, but I’m glad that they are tackling this.

Elsewhere at school, Jughead is called to the principal’s office to meet Mr. Chipping, a teacher over at Stonewall Prep who served as a judge in a writing contest over the summer. It seems Jughead had submitted a short story, and even though it didn’t win, it left an impression on Mr. Chipping, who invites Jughead to switch schools. Jughead is not interested but when FP gets involved, he agrees to go on a tour with Betty.

The tour then turns into Jughead sitting in on an English class where they discuss Moby Dick and Jughead is so pleased that everyone has actually read the book. It’s Betty who tells Jughead that he should transfer schools. How much do you all want to bet that this school is creepy or has something weird happening in it because Jughead goes missing come spring break?

As for Betty, she spends the episode plotting with Charles. It seems Alice missed another check-in with the FBI and Betty is very worried. And when Kevin comes to her and tries to apologise for the way that he treated her (aka dragging her across the floor into an operating room so Edgar could harvest her organs), Charles sees an opportunity. After he catches Betty reading classified information, he just decides to tell her everything (okay, so he’s a terrible FBI agent), and explains that Kevin still texts with Fangs, but Fangs has refused to meet with him in person. So, Betty pretends to forgive Kevin and tells him some fake information about how they have found someone to testify against the Farm, and just like that, Fangs meets with Kevin to get the intel. However, the Farm won’t let Kevin come back in unless he finds out the identity of the witness.

Of course, Betty calls out Kevin on meeting with Fangs, and together with Charles, she interrogates him. But when Kevin claims he was lonely all summer and Fangs was the only person who would text him back, Betty believes him. She goes against Charles’ advice and warnings and tells Kevin the truth about her mother being an informant. She asks Kevin to help her find out where the Farm is hiding. She believes that if Kevin tells Fangs that Penelope Blossom is the informant, they’ll give him that information. And it works as Fangs takes Kevin to the Farm’s new digs at an abandoned motel, and though he didn’t see Alice, he did see Edgar and he’s armed.

In less exciting rivalries, Cheryl declares Mr. Honey her new enemy after he cancels the back-to-school dance because people were murdered at the last one, which honestly is a good idea to cancel it. Instead, Cheryl throws a party which is quickly broken up by the police after Mr. Honey calls in a noise complaint. Cut to Cheryl dropping a literal beehive on the new principal’s desk. Honestly, this is such a weird storyline. These kids have no respect for authority.

Veronica, meanwhile, finds herself at the center of a media scandal when an article comes out claiming that she’s responsible for the crimes that put her father behind bars. Also, apparently the paparazzi get into the school which is not something that would be allowed at all. With her parents’ court dates coming up, she’s being pushed to pick a side and release a statement. She visits her father in jail and asks why he leaked the story about her crimes (because he’s clearly evil, obviously), she makes a decision: she’s going to change her last name to Gomez (aka her mother’s maiden name) and she’s going to release a statement to the press.

She invites them to her club for a press conference, which comes after a ‘special performance’. She takes the stage with Toni and Cheryl and performs “All That Jazz” for no reason which was super random and unnecessary.

At the press conference, she admits to doing everything the article said she did, and says she did it under duress as Hiram threatened her. As for which parent she supports in the trials, she answers saying neither of them.

Final Thoughts:

I didn’t love this episode but it wasn’t terrible. I still think that there is a serious lack of suitable guardians in this town.

What did you think of ‘Chapter Fifty-Nine: Fast Times at Riverdale High’? Sound off in the comments below!

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The new season picks up during summer vacation as everyone is either going home, or staying at school. Josie is staying at school to look after her dad who has stepped down as the headmaster of the Salvatore School, while Lizzie heads to Europe to be with her mother. Raf is still stuck in his werewolf form with Landon looking after him, and Kaleb brings MG home with him to Atlanta.

Meanwhile, Hope is busy trying to navigate and stay alive inside of the Malivore pit. She is joined by Clarke who is determined to stay alive by sticking with Hope and trying to escape along with her. Also, there’s basically nothing else to do there and Clarke desperately wants back into the real world almost as much as Hope. However, Clarke doesn’t tell her anything and Hope misses many chances to return home.

Since Hope is still able to use magic in Malivore, she uses a truth spell on Clarke in order to get him to tell her everything. However, she makes the bad decision of leaving him alive and by the end of the episode, it is clear that Clarke is soon going to be let free from Malivore, even if Hope didn’t release him. Also, since time works differently in Malivore, Hope returns to the real world to discover that almost three months have passed since she was trapped in there.

With Hope gone and Raf a full-time werewolf, Landon has been alone with his thoughts and not very many people to talk to. Landon is depressed but doesn’t know why and so he keeps ‘killing’ and resurrecting himself (due to him being a Phoenix) in order to try and figure out what he can’t remember.

Josie starts getting worried about him and ends up spending a ton of time with him causing them to bond and grow a real connection with one another. This ends up being good for both of them and Josie tries to convince him that just because he’s a phoenix doesn’t mean he has unlimited lives and she’s right because none of them really know about being a phoenix or what multiple deaths could do to him in the long run. Also, whenever he drowns himself in the lake, he has visions of Hope though he doesn’t remember her.

Josie and Landon also start to develop a romance and a kiss is witnessed by Hope who sheds some tears and you really feel for her.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Kaleb and MG are preparing for Kaleb’s family’s fourth of July barbecue and they have a heart-to-heart because MG misses his family even though he knows they suck and hate the fact that he’s a vampire. Also, while MG is there he is helped by Kaleb’s sister, Kim, and Kaleb lets him know that she’s off limits, but I doubt that that’s the last time we’ll see her.

Josie and Lizzie are constantly talking and Lizzie tries to get Josie to figure out what their father is hiding about the merge. Josie finds out all about Kai Parker and how he is trapped and they want to reach out to him, but are told that Kai is crazy and they definitely should not. Lizzie also admits that she has been in a lot of therapy and is trying to get better and we start to feel a slight shift as if Josie might be the rebellious one in this season.

At the end we see Hope return to the Salvatore School and run into Dorian who doesn’t remember her at all. Hope then sits at a bus stop and talks to the Landon in her head who convinces her to stay in town despite no one remembering her.

Final Thoughts:

I thought this was such a good episode! It was very emotional and I am very excited to see what is going to happen this season!

What did you think of ‘I’ll Never Give Up Hope’? Sound off in the comments below!

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