Riverdale’s season finale was not a traditional one, mostly due to it wasn’t planned as a season finale. With TV production being shutdown from Covid-19, season four ended a little sooner than expected.
Episode 19, “Killing Mr. Honey,” wasn’t an episode I was looking forward to watching. As much as I don’t like the principal, it seemed a little silly to want to kill him.
Playing out a revenge fantasy in Jughead’s (Cole Sprouse) short story for a college admissions essay made it a little easier to take.
While this episode was not how we wanted to end the season, and there is more to the story, it gave a much-needed awakening to the characters.
Riverdale is not the easiest place to grow up. These young adults have seen more in their high school years than they should see by the time they’re 30. But that doesn’t mean they need to get away with every prank they do.
There were a lot of moments that I was not too fond of Mr. Honey, and there were some moments where I respected his method. Then it just got tiring, watching them fight with him. Canceling prom is extreme, and that won’t help anyone when they graduate high school, but some of the other things made sense.
There’s no way Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) should get away with locking a teacher in a closet, but maybe detention or suspicion would have sufficed.
While they were getting punished for their evil deeds, they missed all the good he was doing. It doesn’t seem like any of us noticed that no students were killed under his tenure. That makes him the most successful Riverdale High principal ever, alone. But the fact that more students are going to college and underserved students have full rides, that’s incredible. He even wrote Jughead a letter of recommendation even though Jug was part of the reason he got fired.
They’ve all been so in the drama of high school they couldn’t see the bigger picture. But now Jug sees the light, but it may be too late.
Other than Betty (Lili Reinhart), did anyone else see Jug’s story? He did keep leaving it around the school. Did the mysterious tape sender happen to find it? That’s the only way to explain the reenactment of his original story. What are the implications? All things we will have to wait until next season to find out.
It appears most CW shows haven’t figured out how they will handle the episodes they didn’t get to finish yet. Do they film them and keep them as is or work the stories into the next season? I know Grey’s Anatomy plans to do the latter.
It’s hard not to feel unfinished when we usually find out who the villain is and then have a new cliffhanger for next season.
I was delighted that they may have got a wake-up call, or at least Jughead did. Some of the storylines have been so frustrating because it’s all about making someone else suffer. I much preferred the storylines of Veronica (Camila Mendes) trying to one-up her dad in business. Going back to the days of the crime-fighting duo of Jug and Betty would be nice too. The days where they solved mysteries and not created them.
Maybe Riverdale has become a little bit too twisted for me. But I still love Veronica and Jughead, and they keep me coming back. I also love Varchie and Bughead. I like the strong relationships they have formed, before the whole Barchie fiasco in a few episodes.
Season five will also take on what Riverdale does about the college years. But it’s hard to think about that when we still have prom and graduation. For now, season four ends on a strange note, and when we will see the main four again is also unclear. All we can do is wait together to find out what’s next for our beloved characters from Riverdale.
What did you think of the finale? Tweet me @MandyTTCarr or leave a comment below.
