“Riverdale” react: Love is in the air for Archie and Valerie

Riverdale Episode 6 | “Faster, Pussycats! Kill! Kill!” | Aired March 2, 2017

Love is here! But love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be some cases. And by “some cases,” I’m talking about Jughead and Betty. Jughead “Archie Comics’ first asexual character” Jones. Read more about the controversy behind that kiss here.

In other news, Archie and Valerie are together! Whoo! Canon seems to stay around when it’s involving traditional sexual couples! The double standard between utilizing new canon featuring Archie and Valerie’s relationship and disregarding the new canon stating Jughead is asexual is…fascinating. And by “fascinating,” I mean “annoying.”

But for what it is, I’m glad Archie and Valerie have finally tied the knot, as it were. They were circling each other like sharks for two whole episodes. I was hoping the tension wouldn’t be drawn out indefinitely, because I don’t really need to see the triangle gain steam, as much as it was trying to with Veronica’s jealousy peeking its head. Thankfully, she didn’t have long to focus on Valerie, since her mother and Archie’s dad are smashing now and Veronica can’t take her mother’s infidelity. The threat of Archie and Veronica possibly becoming stepsiblings has killed the romance. (I hope. Don’t let this become like the ending of Clueless, writers.)

In the comics, Valerie was good for Archie and in the live-action version, Valerie is still good for Archie. She supports his dreams with a gentle, guiding presence. In both the comics and Riverdale, Archie seems to respond to that approach the most (dare I call it a motherly approach, which could lead to some possible Oedipal stuff since in Riverdale, Archie’s own mother isn’t in the picture). Since Valerie has given so much of herself to Archie, Archie in turn starts to give a lot of himself to her, mainly by stopping his selfish tendencies to hoard everyone’s attention and time. He realizes that Valerie feels lost without the Pussycats, despite her own decision to leave after fighting with Josie. Instead of keeping this knowledge to himself and simply using Valerie for her talents, he decides to get her back in the group so she can be her best self. He wants to see her shine. He cares!

Now, the question is how far and how monogamous are the writers going to keep this relationship? Is Archie going to eventually go full f*ckboy on Valerie, as he does in the comics just once, and is Valerie going to have to get him in line like in the comics? (Hopefully not with a slap, as in the comics, but she’s gotta pull some non-code-switching Black Woman Strictness at some point if she wants Archie to actually be a good boyfriend who doesn’t try to chase both Betty and Veronica at the same time.) I’m intrigued. I hope, though, that live-action Archie is a lot sweeter and less dickish than comic book Archie. He seems like a sweet guy; I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

What did you think of Valerie and Archie finally kissing? Give your opinions in the comments section below!