Dispatches from the Riverdale Register: "A Different Kind of Cat"
Josie's return is a delight; the rest is a mixed bag
We need to talk about this episode of Riverdale, “A Different Kind of Cat”. But first: some business.
I was happy to be back on the DMV Comic Book Nerds podcast this week, and I plan to be there for their reviews of Episodes 18 and 19. As for the series finale, we’ll see how things work out schedule-wise. I plan to watch the finale live on cable in the rental my family and I will be sharing that week. There will be a delicate balance between mandatory family vacation fun and my need to process this important hour of television. That edition of the newsletter might be 5,000+ words long. Only time will tell.
Speaking of the finale. In general, I tend to subscribe to April Wolfe’s mantra about spoilers: it’s not what happens, but how it happens, that makes a story interesting. Even so, I’ve always tried to avoid spoilers for Riverdale because experiencing its off-the-wall storytelling fresh is one of life’s simple pleasures. But when you’re covering the final season of a television show, spoilers are going to come your way. I still have no idea how Riverdale’s going to pull its finale off, but the details I have learned are going to inform my reflections on the show from here on out. So, spoiler warning I guess.
We need to talk about Josie McCoy, Ashleigh Murray, and the blunders along the way. I touched on this a little bit in my review of the Season 7 premiere, but it’s worth doing a more thorough recap. From Season 1-3, Ashleigh Murray was one of the Riverdale regulars, playing the iconic Josie McCoy of Josie and the Pussycats. From the jump, those kinds of comic book fans frothed at the mouth that a Black actress was playing a traditionally White comic book character.1
After Season 1, many Black supporting characters - the other Pussycats Val and Mel, Chuck Clayton - were eventually written out after having very little screen time to begin with. Josie remained a series regular, but didn’t get too much to do other than sing. In Season 3, Josie and Archie have a brief fling, and Ashleigh Murray shared the responses she got to that storyline:
Josie moved to the short-lived spin-off show Katy Keene. I never watched Katy Keene, but from what I can tell it finally gave Josie the ample screen time she deserved, befitting Ashleigh Murray’s serious acting chops. Unfortunately, Katy Keene was cancelled after one season.
Before Katy Keene’s cancellation, a Twitter troll kicked off an overdue Riverdale reckoning in May 2020. In a since-deleted Tweet, this person insisted that Josie and the Pussycats were written off of Riverdale because Ashleigh Murray was a diva (very loaded adjective there). Murray and Vanessa Morgan, who plays Toni Topaz, immediately set the record straight. Murray pointedly stated, “I love the Pussycats more than any show ever did.” Morgan—who, after Josie’s departure, had the dubious responsibility of being the only Black series regular—called out the racist implications of “BLACK women being called DIVAS for sticking up for themselves.”
Morgan didn’t stop there. She revealed some not at all shocking but disappointing truths - that she was the lowest paid series regular, and that she felt Toni had been sidelined as a token bisexual biracial character, there for representation brownie points but not any substantial storylines. The other former Pussycats, Hayley Brown and Asha Brom, backed this up.
Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa eventually responded with an apology to Morgan: “We hear Vanessa. We love Vanessa. She's right. We're sorry and we make the same promise to you that we did to her. We will do better to honor her and the character she plays. As well as all of our actors and characters of color.”
Your mileage may vary on how the show did in Season 5-7; that’s a bigger conversation for another day. To return to Ashleigh Murray, she and the Pussycats were given a proper send-off in the Season 5 episode “The Return of the Pussycats”. In an interview Murray did with Entertainment Weekly, she had this to say:
In this episode, it felt like Josie was returning to Riverdale with a different perspective on her time there.
Yeah, exactly. I know that my own emotional maturity — not that I've ever been terribly immature, I was born 35 — be that as it may, due to the pandemic, I myself have grown stronger and have a better understanding of who I am and what I want. The word "agency" has been a big part of that, of my own self growth. Stepping back into that space and this character gave me a sense of agency and gave Josie a sense of agency that neither of us felt like we had, so it was cathartic in a way. It was cathartic for this character to be able to face her past and be honest about the friendships she felt like she had. And then also, I had my own agency of coming back to a place where I didn't feel fulfilled or seen as an actor and I didn't feel a part of a show that I loved so much, and I finally got to be a part of it and feel good about it. (link here)
But Season 7 is not the original timeline Riverdale, so what’s in store for 1950s Josie? Basically, its an acting showcase for Ashleigh Murray, who dons an Transatlantic accent and introduces us to a Josie McCoy who is this universe’s Eartha Kitt (another famous Black woman associated with cats). Josie’s two performances in the episode are specific shout-outs to Kitt. The first is an actual Eartha Kitt number, “I’m a Different Kind of Cat”; the second is a pastiche of “Moving Uptown” from the musical The Wild Party, which Kitt won a Tony for.
But 1950s Josie McCoy is more than just a one-to-one reference to Kitt. She’s a little bit Lena Horne, a little bit Ruby Dee, giving us a crash course in the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement. I’m a big theatre history nerd, so this stuff is catnip to me (pun absolutely intended). My favorite scene is when Josie visits the Black Athena student group at Riverdale High School. One of the students asks her if she’s had to compromise, and Josie says she’s built her career on not having to compromise, and that none of them should have to. It’s a little bit like Josie is talking to original Season 1 Josie. We also learn that Josie is in town to premiere her film—that she wrote, starred in, directed and produced—because she wouldn’t compromise when they wanted to cast Lana Turner (a White actress) in the role that she had won a Tony for.
Notably, this episode is written and directed by Black creatives. I would love to hear from the Black Riverdale writers and directors about their experience on the show, hint hint.
What else happened this episode? Jughead invents Sabrina the Teenage Witch for Pep Comics, further cementing my theory that Jughead is going to create the classic Archie comics. Betty might also become a notable author, as she’s planning to publish her collected Teenage Mystique articles. Will Archie become a famous poet? We’ll get to that.
I loved Betty and Cheryl’s friendship in this episode. It starts when Betty reveals that she’s The Girl Next Door, and Cheryl fully fangirls over her. I love that Betty wants to burn her small town to the ground via a book (how Grace Metalious/Peyton Place of her), but I do wish that she and Cheryl and Toni would reconsider publishing their underage lingerie pictures as part of this plot. That being said, Betty looked so hot. She also learns how to masturbate this episode, so maybe her horny vibes will finally settle down.
Speaking of horny vibes, we unfortunately confirm that Archie and Reggie had a threesome with Twyla last episode. Newly deflowered teenager Archie Andrews is of course catching feelings. After Twyla rejects him, Archie redirects his affections to Mrs. Grundy, culminating in a truly embarrassing performance at The Dark Room where he reads a poem about how much he wants to bone her. Thankfully, she rebuffs him, but I feel like we didn’t have to do this storyline at all! Yes, it’s a reverse of Season 1, but it would have been better if they’d just stuck with Ms. Thornton being there, providing healthy mentorship to Archie. Even if they had to bring back Grundy, why did Archie still have to have sex with an adult woman?!? Ugh. Anyways, Grundy tells Archie to write about pain instead of love, and Archie of course writes a poem about Fred. Uncle Frank flips out when he reads it and rips it up! 1950s men don’t know how to process their feelings, news at 10.
Stray observations
As much as I didn’t like the Archie plot, we did get to cry one more time about Fred Andrews/Luke Perry.
There were a couple of loaded reference to an atomic bomb this episode, which, more than just being a nicely timed Oppenheimer reference, seems to foreshadow what’s going to happen in next week’s episode. I will surely have more to say about that when we get there, but I for one cannot wait for Riverdale’s version of Twin Peaks: The Return’s best episode.
Josie says Veronica will see her at dusk and not a moment sooner. Is this a sly reference to when Josie was a vampire in Afterlife with Archie?
The cross cutting sequence between Fangs performing “Great Balls of Fire”, Betty masturbating, and Cheryl painting a picture of Betty, is one of the greatest sequences in Riverdale history.
I audibly screamed when I thought Kevin and Clay had ruined the film stock for Josie’s movie.
Chuck Clayton gets a shout out. Apparently in this universe he’s an actor, going by his full name Charles Clayton, and he starred opposite Josie in Macbeth. Alexander Cabot, who was on Katy Keene, also gets a shout out
Toni telling Josie why she started Black Athena: “I’m tired of treading water in a sea of Caucasian opinions.”
Old time slang words of the week: Jughead calls eyes peppers, which is always delightful. Toni describes Archie’s horrendous poem as “off the cob”, which means overly hokey or sentimental…you know, corny. I feel like Archie’s poem was less corny and more cringe, but maybe they didn’t have a 1950s equivalent for that. “Down in the mouth” means someone is feeling sad and dejected, referring to a frown. And snapped your caps makes a return.
Off-brand product names: Josie apparently was a founding member of the Black American Theatre Project, which I think is a reference to both the American Negro Theatre and the Federal Theatre Project’s Negro Unit. We get another Kingsley shout-out, as well as a Riverdale staple, The Wall Beat Journal.
Real life product names: The Babylonium is showing the 1954 A Star Is Born. Veronica name drops the 1954 Audrey Hepburn film Sabrina to give Jughead inspiration for his teenage witch. Real actresses Veronica Lake and Lana Turner are mentioned. Veronica also references two famous New York City apartment buildings, The Plaza and The Dakota.
Next week, maybe we’ll meet the origin of evil in the Riverdale universe! Maybe other Twin Peaks actors will cameo! Maybe aliens will appear, for real this time! See you then!
The CW has a history of this happening - see Candice Patton on The Flash.