And we’re back from another short Riverdale hiatus! The previous episode saw Cheryl rescued by Toni and Veronica, and now we are treated to a musical episode which gave us tons of theater and music!
Kevin asks Jughead to be the official videographer for the school’s production of Carrie: The Musical, which is the best musical for Riverdale to do. And then we’re given our first group musical number pretty quickly! The group number leads us into Kevin welcoming everyone to Carrie: The Musical.
He runs down the cast which includes: Archie as Tommy (the boy next door), Betty as Sue (the good girl), Veronica as Chris (the mean girl), and Cheryl as Carrie White (which doesn’t sit well with Josie or Ethel). Alice returns to high school to play the part of Carrie’s mother because, as Kevin puts it, there’s “nothing more inappropriate than age-inappropriate casting.” Finishing out the cast is Chuck Clayton who is desperate to redeem his reputation and guys, he can sing!
The production causes a significant amount of drama with Betty mad at Veronica as she thinks Veronica is just perfect for the part of the “privileged selfish mean girl”, and she explains to Archie why his girlfriend is in the wrong. Cheryl is also trying to prove her haters wrong and takes the opportunity to stand up and sing a solo to prove that she can sing. And then a sandbag drops from the ceiling and nearly kills her!
As for who was responsible for Cheryl’s near death, Kevin tells Jughead that he received a letter in his locker from someone claiming to be the Black Hood. The letter was made out of cut-out magazine letters, and it demanded that Cheryl be recast. However, Kevin’s not too worried yet, and as they say, the show must go on.
Right afterwards there is another musical number with Betty, Veronica, Archie and Chuck wearing some amazing 70’s outfits and Archie dancing really well. I request a whole episode with him just dancing! Then we cut to a hallway make out session with Archie and Veronica where he asks if he can keep his car parked at her place since he hasn’t told his dad about it as he knows it will upset him. The Lodges want to keep the Andrews family apart, which is why Hiram shows up at school where Fred is working on the sets for the musical and mentions the car to Fred. As Archie expected, Fred is not happy. Fred had a whole plan for Archie that they were going to find a car in the junkyard and fix it up together.
Jughead who was sworn to confidentiality by Kevin, betrays it and tells Betty about the Black Hood letter. Betty thinks it’s from Ethel who wanted to play Carrie so Jughead and her decide to launch an undercover operation. Betty tries to get Ethel to admit to the letter while Jughead creepily films the conversation until she catches Jughead because he’s not good at being stealthy and tells them she’d never harm anybody.
Back on stage, Josie and Cheryl are rehearsing a song about friendship, which forces Cheryl to apologise for everything she’s done to Josie. Apparently that’s all that Josie needed because by the end of the song, they hug and are friends again.
However, B and V’s friendship is still not looking great. After Veronica sings a song that clearly describes her life, Betty decides to go for it. She tells Veronica that she’s the “literal embodiment of Chris,” a spoiled rich girl with daddy issues who tries to control everyone.
Archie quickly sits down with Betty as he can’t understand how Betty could be so mean considering how quickly Veronica forgave her after the Black Hood forced Betty to say horrible things. Archie poses the question of who should be playing Chris and who should be playing Sue? Then we get Tommy and Sue’s love ballad, which soon becomes a platonic love ballad between Betty and Veronica and they make up.
Meanwhile, Alice goes to see FP, but he’s too busy working to accept her invite to the musical. She walks away from him and refuses to make the same mistakes all over again. She snaps back into mother mode by ditching her leather for cardigans and calls Chic who isn’t speaking to her.
Kevin receives another letter from the Black Hood and Kevin tells Cheryl that he has no choice but to recast. Cheryl doesn’t want to succumb to this, but she doesn’t have a choice when her mother shows up and refuses to give parental approval for the musical. The role of Carrie goes to Midge was the understudy for her, and she gets to sing the mother-daughter duet with Alice, although Alice is singing to Betty. Alice breaks down on stage and asks Betty not to leave her before she runs off stage. Kevin then says one of my favourite lines of the whole episode, “Am I directing a trainwreck?”
Betty goes after Alice who is having a breakdown about how she gave away her son when he was born, and she just sent him away again. Things are also terrible with Hal, which leaves only Alice’s ‘frayed’ relationship with Betty. Betty convinces Hal to come home with flowers and ask to move back in. Alice accepts, and Betty is literally the only person in the world who’s happy about it. Also, when FP shows up to the musical, he sees Hal and Alice together which makes him leave.
Archie’s dad still doesn’t want to talk to him which makes him realise that he’s not the selfless hero that Tommy is in the musical. He goes to Hiram and tells him not to get between him and his father. Archie returns the car to Hiram and heads home where he gives his dad a car that they can restore together. It’s a sweet gesture and it makes Fred cry.
Then we go back to our next group number which has everyone singing an incredible number, A Night We’ll Never Forget.
Surprisingly, the group number isn’t the main event right now. It cuts to Cheryl in a great pink silk dress, going full Carrie by dumping a bucket of blood on herself before confronting her mother. She tells Penelope that she knows she’s working with Claudius, and she knows they tried to kill Nana Rose, and if they try to hurt Nana Rose again, “I’ll end you,”. She says, “I burned one house down, I’ll happily burn down another.” Yes, Cheryl! (Also, I finally got the kind of Hamlet reference with Claudius being the uncle…)
Cheryl demands to be emancipated and says that she will get Thistle House and Nana Rose all to herself. Her final words are “Start packing mommy, you and uncle Claudius are pig people and should live amongst the pigs.” (Mic drop!)
Before the show starts, Jughead finds cut up magazines in Ethel’s dressing room and she swears that they’re for her ‘vision board’ though I think we all know better. Jughead also passes an angry Moose in the hallway as it seems like everyone is a little bit fed up with Jughead’s constant filming. Veronica applauds Chuck’s good behaviour and says he’s redeemed. Then, Chic shows up backstage and says he wouldn’t miss Betty and Alice’s show for the world.
Alice is onstage singing when Cheryl gasps and starts screaming as Alice turns around to find Midge dead with a message (that’s written in blood) from the Black Hood. It reads: “I am back from the dead. All those who escaped me before will die.” And then he signs it with a B.H.
Final Thoughts?
Wow, a murder right in the middle of a musical! How very Riverdale and Carrie of them! Also, if you didn’t know the story of Carrie: The Musical before this, I suggest you look it up. It’s very dark! Also, we all totally knew that the Black Hood would be back! This musical episode was practically my favourite episode to date as I gave it a rating of 10/10. We need more musical episodes on this show because this was so well done, and perhaps they can do one each season?
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