Dispatches from the Riverdale Register: "For A Better Tomorrow!"
"All the pieces are falling into place."
Riverdale and Twin Peaks are always in conversation. The first season of Riverdale is very consciously a riff on Twin Peaks’ original mystery - “Who killed Laura Palmer?” becomes “Who killed Jason Blossom?” The conversation continues: Betty is tormented by visions of the Black Hood like Maddy is tormented by visions of BOB using the exact same shot composition; Betty literally becomes an FBI Agent named Cooper.1
So when I saw that “For A Better Tomorrow!” was going to be in black and white and explore Atomic-Age fears, I was happy to see the Twin Peaks conversation pick right back up. For the uninitiated: Twin Peaks’ third season aired in 2017. The eighth episode is one of its most memorable: it was filmed mostly in black and white, depicted the Trinity Test, and went on a real B-movie frenzy. I wrote about it in detail here:
You can see the comparisons, right? While I wish that “For A Better Tomorrow!” leaned a little more heavily into B-movie tropes (the mini-movie title set-up is largely underutilized), I do believe this episode (mostly) pulls off the Riverdale version of what I believe David Lynch and Mark Frost were going for with “Part 8”. In that episode, Lynch and Frost are visually tying their cosmic forces of good and evil to an event that could well be considered the 20th century’s point of no return. In Season 7 of Riverdale, the 1950s occupy a sort of Schrodinger’s Cat space. The real 1950s weren’t America’s Original Sin, but they were a decade that covered over the curdled ooze of all the isms with white picket fences and apple pie. The 1950s are still the poster image for nostalgia, and it marks its own point of no return. Riverdale’s 1950s are a fabrication, and therefore more malleable. Instead of a point of no return, maybe we can do things differently.
Whatever you think about Christopher Nolan’s new film Oppenheimer, I believe it deserves credit for two things. One: it juxtaposes the nasty jingoistic fervor of an American audience celebrating the bombing of Hiroshima with Oppenheimer’s visions of what the atomic bomb does to a human body. Two: it’s the closest a mainstream American film has come to being pro-Communist, like, ever. I wrote about this earlier in my recap of Episode 10, but the depictions of McCarthyism in pop culture tend to focus on an overly centrist message that McCarthyism and Communism are just as bad as each other. In Oppenheimer, there’s no indication that any of the characters who joined the Communist Party are bad people - even the Russian spy!
Riverdale isn’t as explicit in rendering the horrors of nuclear war, but Jughead does mention photos of Japanese citizens at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the reason why he’s not buying the message of Duck and Cover. Duck and Cover was a notorious educational film aimed at children, where an animated turtle teaches you how to duck and cover to protect yourself from a nuclear attack. It is featured prominently in the 1982 documentary film The Atomic Cafe, a fascinating collage of stock footage about nuclear war and the nuclear arms race that highlights decades of collective insanity.
The thing that makes Duck and Cover so disquieting is its cheery tone and downplaying of danger. One does have to remember this was aimed at children, but what it’s also doing is rendering a world on the brink of nuclear war as the New Normal. In The Atomic Cafe, that’s the real sin. After showing clips advertising homes with built-in bomb shelters, the film cuts to a professor who explains that the normalization of bomb shelters will make the Americans and the Russians more inclined to actually drop bombs. A U.S. Army informational film boasts, “When not close enough to be killed, the atomic bomb is one of the most beautiful sights in the world.”
While everyone else is planning how they’ll survive a potential nuclear attack on Riverdale2, Jughead is determined to make sure this is not a normal part of their lives. How this ends up playing out is where this episode falls short on a thematic level, if not a plot level.
Can you believe a Christopher Nolan film succeeded at something Riverdale failed at? Don’t answer that.
When Jughead sees a man wearing a Blossom maple factory uniform shot to death by Sheriff Keller, he goes to Dr. Curdle for answers, determined not to let another mysterious death get swept under the rug. Dr. Curdle explains that the man was suffering from radiation poisoning. Jughead begins to piece things together - Ethel’s dad and Brad Raybury also worked at the maple factory, and were also killed. Meanwhile, Cheryl has noticed that Clifford’s been meeting with the U.S. military. Could Clifford be helping America stockpile nuclear weapons, perhaps in the abandoned Blossom mines?
Turns out Clifford is developing a nuclear bomb—a palladium bomb!—but he’s actually developing it for the Russians - twist! A boring, conventional twist.
The theme that was set up with the Milkman murders, particularly with the comic book they seemed to be based on, was that the call is coming from inside the house. The Russians and the commies don’t matter. Good old-fashioned American imperialism and capitalism were the enemy right here at home. But this is completely undone by making Clifford and Penelope Blossom sleeper Soviet agents. While I do think we are supposed to view Jughead’s mission as one of ridding us of nuclear weapons in general, in practice it just looks like he wants to stop Soviet nuclear proliferation. It could have been really radical to have Clifford actually be working on the P-Bomb for the Americans, and to confront our role in kicking off the arms race. I was rooting for you, Riverdale.
In isolation, I do like how all the 1950s mysteries were wrapped up this episode, with fairly airtight reasoning. Like I mentioned in an earlier recap, all signs pointed to Clifford being the big bad just like he was in Season 1 (Cheryl even says, “You did a bad thing, Daddy.”). There were also hints since Episode 3 that the Coopers had a strained connection to Ethel. It was a fun change to have Cheryl be Jughead’s gumshoe partner, and Betty is back to her old self, unraveling her family’s secrets and lies. While I may be disappointed in the execution, I never should have doubted that Riverdale would give me answers.
Jughead returns to narrating, which he hasn’t done for several episodes now. More haphazard Riverdale things, or an intentional choice? I’ll just say this: when Ethel drives off into her happy ending, Jughead says, “Ethel was the first of us to leave,” which indicates to me that this is a Jughead narrating to us somewhere in the future. A future where he has his memories back, perhaps?
Stray observations
I’m a big Stephen King fan, and not only did the “Ethel was the first of us to leave” moment feel similar to It, Cheryl tells Jughead that he’s “on the beam” when it comes to his investigation. Now this expression just means that you’re on the right track, but it also invokes “all things serve the beam”.
Shout out to Ethel and Ben! I remember you, Season 3 plotline! Also back from Season 3? Dilton Doiley’s beloved sex bunker.
The film Jughead and the nerd posse watch at the beginning, THEM!, is a classic in the “nuclear war created this giant animal monster” genre.
Last week on DMV Comic Book Nerds, we asked the classic question, “Who is the main character of Riverdale?” The one thing we agreed on is it’s not Veronica, and that was absolutely confirmed in this episode, where she’s basically an extra.
Jughead and Cheryl have really turned a corner from her earlier days of calling him a hobo.
I’ll be cranky about the Blossom twist forever, but I did get a hearty chuckle out of the photo of Nixon on Clifford’s desk.
A big “SHUT UP UNCLE FRANK” to all who celebrate.
Betty’s conclusions about Alice’s motivations, re: Hal’s infidelity, fathering Ethel, Alice being a repressive psycho to Polly and Betty…don’t track to me. I called Hal being Ethel’s dad a while ago, and it tracks that Alice would be messed up over it, but this feels like the same Alice whose husband and son were serial killers - commonplace infidelity feels like a downgrade in terms of angst!
Brad Raybury wrote a story about the danger of the Palladium Bomb. Real life Ray Bradbury wrote a shit-ton about the dangers of nuclear war, including the short stories “There Will Come Soft Rains”, “The Highway”, and yes, Fahrenheit 451.
Dr. Curdle does a great B-movie performance in his small cameo.
General Taylor gets a shout out, who you may recall from Archie’s Army Season 5 plot.
I think the demon Moloch appeared in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but it also feels like a reference to the Blossoms 666 comics.
Proof that the driving simulator in the episode has basis in reality.
I love that Thornhill is a literal Scooby Doo castle.
Archie considering joining the Merchant Marines: “And I do love tying knots.”
Old time slang word of the week: Having a bad case of the zorros does mean you’re feeling anxious or nervous.
Next week…Jughead watches the pilot of Riverdale?!?!! I’m so fucking excited.
Not to mention everything with the Auteur plotline in Seasons 4 and 5, as a more general David Lynch shout out.
Kevin makes the requisite Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull joke about surviving in a refrigerator.
I'm with you with Alice's motives being a bit disjointed. While I'm all for Betty doing the emotional labor of piecing together why her mother acts the way she does, it fell a bit flat! I really wanted Betty to be able to do the work some of us do of recognizing our mother's own traumas and responses without excusing their behavior, and being able to say, well, you were still awful!!
As always reading your recap and thoughts is such a highlight! Thanks Maddie :)