#bughead meta

Riverdale is smart. Just go with me here. The writers are smart, we may not like them right now but they are, why? Because they write these characters and let them live and breath and act like they would if they were real people. (I can't tell you how many shows I've watched where plot dictates the characters actions.)

Jughead: he is a self loathing 16 year old with LARGE abandonment issues, his mother left him, his dad for the better part of his life was not a very good father. He has always been looked down upon, bullied, treated like he didn't matter and never thought he could ever matter. And THAT influences his decisions. He is told BY Archie that Betty does not love him and sees the dark turn he is taking and does not like it so she wants nothing to do with him. Now a person with severe abandonment and trust issues is inclined to believe his BEST friend. He is self deprecating and was honestly just waiting for this moment to happen in the back of his mind. And it hurts it hurts SO MUCH more coming from a guy who is like a brother to him. He doesn't believe Archie would lie to him what does he have to gain from that, so he believes him.

Betty: She is a 16 year old girl who tries to appease everyone, a person who tries to protect everyone and will do anything for the ones she loves even if that mean it brings harm to herself. And these character traits influence her actions. she can't hurt Jughead she can't even bring herself to end things with him because it hurst so damn much she is being put in an impossible situation and she asks for help from someone who has been with her since day one someone she can trust. This kills her but she believes she can fix it she's Betty Cooper she can solve anything she's Nancy Drew meets girl with the dragon tattoo, but really she is just a broken girl trying to do her best to keep the people she loves safe.

-now these are traits that influence the choice these characters are making, its natural, its real, its painful, and heartbreaking... but its honest.-

Now on to that pesky kiss... its a strategical move on Toni’s part 100% she saw Jughead in a vulnerable place and took advantage of that. And going back to Jughead’s personality traits and personal issues it makes logical sense that he would succumb to this very human (and also tv dramatics but whatever) reaction. He hates himself more than anyone ever could and he is being show affection in a vulnerable and heartbreaking moment so he gives into his self hatred to feel connected and to quite the voices telling him he is not good enough not worthy. So many people make the wrong choices in moments of self doubt and loathing its what he does after that that shows who he really is and whats worth it to him.  

The car!      Wow. That’s what you’re thinking about in the middle of our moment?

Riverdale 1.06 – Faster, Pussycats! Kill! Kill!

The “Hey there, Juliet” scene in 1.06 is one of my favorites. But of the many great moments within this scene, there’s one I want to call out because I can pinpoint exactly where I went from you two are cute when you sleuth together to full on I’m so gone for this ship Bughead trash.

And it’s not the kiss, as amazing as a lot of the details from their first kiss are. It’s the fond and amused look Jughead gets after Betty shoves him back a little and out of nowhere says, “The car!”

For me, that was the moment where I went, Oh, shit. He likes her, the actual strange and obsessive person Betty Cooper is. Betty’s reaction is so intensely individual, character-driven and quirky, but makes sense for who she is and what she’s going through.

And I love that Jughead’s reaction to Betty being such a weirdo is not annoyance or hurt feelings or a ruffled ego, but fond amusement followed by surprisingly gentle sarcasm and then actually listening to what Betty is saying even if it means he has to switch gears emotionally. Jughead’s reaction says so much about who he is and what he feels for Betty.

How well they know each other and how much they value each other's specific qualities—both strange and unstrange—give me hope that they'll get through the gauntlet of season two a little damaged and with some of the starry-eyed shine worn off perhaps, but still intact.

I remain charmed by how intensely peculiar they are both as individual characters and as a couple.

i’ve actually answered this in a roundabout/pseudo-fic sort of way here, but to answer you directly: yes and no

(directly, she said)

i think the feelings that jughead had for betty would technically classify as a crush, but not in the way that gives a perfect parallel to betty’s unhealthy mooning over archie. i don’t think he pined—rather, i think he did everything in his power to not pine.

rather than calling it a crush, i think he mourned the one that he could’ve had on her, if he’d ever allowed himself. 

if he’d been someone else, someone who made sense with her, someone who didn’t already have a juvie record and an increasingly deadbeat dad. essentially, i think his own self-loathing got in the way of allowing himself to ever categorize a crush, if that makes sense. 

but seeing betty realize her feelings for archie were fantasy, jughead realized that his were the opposite, in fact the refusal of such, existing in spite of such. and i think he felt emboldened, once they began working on the paper, as he finally allowed himself to feel what he’d been bottling. 

that’s what i like about the ship; two people who really grapple with the identities forced upon them, and navigating how much of that is imprinted onto them, and how much is themselves, or the people they want to be, let alone the people they want to be with. 

source x

You know what I realized and what makes this so monumental to me? This isn’t just the first time that Betty says she loves Jughead, it’s also the first time she says she loves ANYONE. Even when confronting Archie about her feelings and talking about it with Veronica and Kevin, Betty never says she loves Archie. She asks Archie if he loves her and Archie says he does, just not in the way she wants him to and she says to Veronica “The boy I like doesn’t like me back”. 

It just reinforces how Betty’s feelings for Archie probably stemmed from an idealized fantasy about being the childhood sweetheart with the boy next door. 

Bughead, on the other hand, was entirely organic. He brought her to the trailer, yes, but with no plans of what they were gonna do (I wish we’d heard the dialogue when he asked her to come home with him). Clearly they had no idea where this was going. Everything flew just seamlessly and that scene was written perfectly. Betty being Betty said she was never going to give up on FP and that was the cue for Juggie to admit what he’s been feeling. I don’t think he thought he was going to say it out loud, but her absolute belief in his dad made him lay his heart bare. I cannot stress enough how vulnerable Juggie was at this moment. I recall Cole saying he’d be without his beanie in a key moment in the finale. This was the only moment where we actually SAW him taking off the beanie! His security blanket was off and his heart and soul were completely naked before her. His eyes spoke of his raw vulnerability (Props to Cole for playing this scene so well) while the trembling of his voice told of how new this was for him, being so exposed before another human being. And up until Betty walks up to him and says those words back to him, he’s still waiting with trepidation. Since he’s been hurt so many times by the people he’s loved. And Betty does say it back to him - with a laugh, a carefree abandon, her eyes full of joy that she’s able to tell the boy that she’s loved for a while now how she feels, that they’re finally without the shackles of family and other pressures burdening them, that this moment could be FOR them and them alone to confess and take pleasure in just their feelings, something they never had since the time he first kissed her in her bedroom. His face when she tells him is so exposed, emotions playing all across - acceptance that this beautiful girl loves him back and it’s not a dream and he’s finally willing to let go and bask in the bliss of loving her. And somewhere during that kiss (when it deepens), Jughead finds his playfulness. When he lifts her up.

And then *that* scene! I wish we’d seen how her coat came off, because the way they were going at it when he slammed her on that counter makes me think things got heated gradually. None of it is planned. It’s clumsy, uncoordinated, hurried, their clothes getting in the way - the intent is there, but they’re guided by something more than just lust and passion. Their passion stems from their love for each other, their open smiles even in the middle of their obvious lust is what gets to me every time. And they way he reaches for her lips, just content to kiss her, although she’s half-naked before him. This is a pretty important event for them since they’re both virgins (I’m assuming Jughead is too since we haven’t seen evidence to the contrary), but the openness, the absolute trust and faith they show in the other as they willingly submit to the other and take pleasure in their bodies can only come from the deepest feelings of love that we know Bughead share.

After this episode I am convinced that Jughead/Betty are endgame. In an episode that would have resulted in a breakup on another show or with another couple it only succeeded in making them stronger as a couple. Jughead starts the episode feeling like an outsider, talks about how he’s “weird” and mentions how he wears his hat all the time but yet at the end he’s without it, vulnerable and confiding in Betty about why he feels the way that he does. He bares it all to her, which is why him not wearing the hat is so telling because he’s shedding that comfort and security so she can see the real him. Just like she confides in him about her darkness. Because he has these same feelings and insecurities and she trusts that he won’t judge her or look at her differently. Just like she does for him.

Betty asking her mom about when her father and mother first started dating is very telling as well. Her mother asks if she’s falling for Jughead and Betty proceeds to liken them to her parents, who were together and married for many years. In Betty’s mind, Jughead is a permanent fixture now. He’s not going anywhere, if she has any say about it. Her parents might not have had a happy ending but to Betty it’s obvious that she sees Jughead as a long term partner otherwise she wouldn’t have asked her mom the way that she did.

Just had some musings about the way Bughead love and why they fit so perfectly. ~

Thanks for the question, nonny!

This was not the Bughead breakup I was expecting. The amount of anguish portrayed during the breakup—Jughead’s devastated face hearing the news from Archie, Betty crying on her window seat late at night—set an expectation that what just happened was a Big Deal that will have Significant Consequences. But after going big on the breakup, the show then barely ticked the box on them getting back together.

Betty and Jughead’s breakup is like a gun that Riverdale has been slowly introducing since the end of last season with the horrified look on Betty’s face when Jughead puts on that jacket. Riverdale’s been flashing the gun around with Betty and Jughead’s lies of omission, failed communication and eroding trust. Despite some of the shaky pacing and murky character motivations, Riverdale successfully created a looming sense of dread around Betty and Jughead’s future together built out of a deliberate accumulation of internal and external conflicts that applied more and more pressure to their relationship. A viscerally upsetting sense of looming dread is a difficult emotion to create in an audience and Riverdale managed it! We watched Jughead slowly come to believe that he can’t avoid joining the Serpents or pull out of this downward spiral. We watched Betty feel Jughead distancing himself from her, slipping away into this new life that has an ever shrinking role for her in it.

In 2.05 the show pulled the trigger on the breakup. We all flinched, only to find out in 2.06 that the show had fired a blank.

Getting them back together so quickly means we didn’t get to see these characters confront their failings and mistakes. We didn’t see them gain a more accurate understanding of themselves, each other or the world around them.

Betty and Jughead got back together in the most nominal way possible: by way of voice-over. Their reconciliation in 2.06 was unsatisfying because it was unearned. All the critical conversations happen off screen without much fanfare. None of the underlying issues driving Betty and Jughead apart have been addressed. This is a deliberate choice the show is making, which leaves the narrative door open for another, bigger breakup down the line. 

Breakups are one of the big-stick threats hanging over couples in shows like Riverdale where relationships drive a significant degree of audience engagement. But every time a show breaks a couple up and then gets them back together, the audience cares less. And the first breakup is generally the one that packs the biggest emotional punch. 

So I’m puzzled that Riverdale would waste the first, most impactful breakup of arguably their most popular ship on an estrangement that lasts one episode and which results in no character growth, no dramatic tension, no significant advancement of the plot. Jughead even decided to fully join the Serpents before hearing that Betty was breaking up with him, so the show somehow manages to get zero narrative mileage out of the breakup. They weren’t even apart long enough to gain a new appreciation for each other and why they want to be in a relationship together.

So how might this choice make sense? Firstly, this could be a Cat Scare: that moment in a suspense scene where an initial tension is built up and then the audience is startled by—oh… that’s just a cat. Never mind. This is usually followed up by the true scare while the audience has their guard down. In this scenario, this initial “fake” breakup—because, critically, we knew it was not a genuine breakup all along—will be followed by the true breakup, which will be driven by the serious unaddressed problems in Jughead and Betty’s relationship. To function effectively within a narrative structure, this second breakup would have to keep the characters apart for a significant period of time.

The other option is that Jughead and Betty will stay together for the foreseeable future. The show will build back up to a confrontation and moment of crisis that, as in 1x10, ends not in a breakup but with increased self-knowledge, vulnerability, communication and character growth within the context of their relationship.