burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

I finished Season 2. (Apparently a few days ago it was announced that Season 3 will begin on October 10th.)

The Carrie musical episode was not really worth it, but I am so here for Cheryl.

Also, where is all my meta?

I want people who know more than I do about YA genre tropes to talk about how our Core Four keep breaking up and getting back together again (not even about romantic/sexual relationships, but how the friends keep turning on each other and then reaffirming their bond ... how in some ways this constant cycle is deemed necessary for narrative tension, but is it also telling us something about how actual teenagers experience and navigate their relationships?). And about how that both parallels and is in contrast to actual family relationships on the show (including "family" relationships like the Serpents), how people (usually adults) will often weaponize ideas of loyalty to "one's own" and how the Core Four trouble those dynamics (while also often buying into them).

And talk to me about the show chose to bring in stuff-of-the-moment.
Were they doing a Love, Simon promotional tie-in in that one episodel? But more broadly, what do we think about the various narratives around and embodiments of queerness? Let's talk about the Sisters of Quiet Mercy in a year when we also had The Miseducation of Cameron Post.
Also, fictional media often has the tension of endorsing the carceral state vs. our heroes being vigilantes/bureaucracy being inefficient/etc., but does bringing in a mobster who is operating both outside (because organized crime) and within (e.g. controlling the mayor's office) the law complicate that narrative any or does it just reinscribe that dichotomy without substantively critiquing the carceral state? (I don't think Riverdale substantively critiques the carceral state, but I do think some of Southside Serpents vs. Riverdale Bulldogs can function to give us pause about whose violent/disruptive actions get coded as "criminal" or "undesirable" and whose don't.)

Also, we could just revel in the glow of some of the excellent music choices. Nothing's gonna top "Shout" (feat. Malia J) by Think Up Anger (Tears for Fears cover) at Jason's memorial service (1.05 "Heart of Darkness"), but I'm also digging grandson's "blood//water" in 2.21 "Judgment Night."

Vacation Achievements:

• finished watching both seasons of Stranger Things on Netflix
  
• caught up on this season of Riverdale

I definitely thought that was the season finale. The PR leading up to it was promising ( cut in case you are as spoiler-averse as I tend to be ) and both those things happened. And they set up for Season 2 like whoa. So where do you go from here that's not Season 2? How is next week's episode not a letdown after this? This was such a good season finale. I don't understand.