Riverdale is a show that wears its inspirations on its sleeves. The show still doesn’t wholly work even though what it’s aiming for is pretty grand. For starters, Kevin comes across as nothing more than a walking gay best friend stereotype. But what other show on TV name drops classic films like Mildred Pierce, operates as a gloriously arch teen soap indebted to Heathers, and has some killer production design? Riverdale isn’t perfect but when it hits the right note it’s hard to remember what problems I have with it in the first place. This week, Riverdale takes the cheery iconography we associate with suburbia and warps it just enough to make things feel creepy. Take for example the image of Cheryl and Jason drinking a strawberry milkshake at the diner at the very beginning. Jason looks directly at the camera as Jughead’s voice over discusses what would have happened if the red headed troublemaker hadn’t been found washed ashore. Riverdale traffics in the moodiness and interest in dismantling the lie of the American Dream noir has been doing since the 1940s. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised since this week’s title, “Touch of Evil”, references a great film noir from 1958. One of the few things Riverdale isn’t replicating from the noir genre is an interest in psychologically rich profiles. This show is more interested in ripping off the masks these characters wear only to reveal another one lurking underneath. It’s a verifiable hall of mirrors making it difficult to track who these people really are from who they are trying desperately to pass themselves off as. Well, except for Betty. Poor, high strung Betty. After the events of last week she’s keeping Archie and Veronica at arm’s length. Part of the reason is that she’s hurt. I can’t blame her. Especially since her mother, Alice, is insisting she cut pretty much all her friends out of her life which makes it hard to patch things up. Betty decides to carve her own path by trying to remain friends with Archie and Veronica. How could she not? As Archie tells Veronica later in the episode he’s been neighbors with Betty since they were four. They’ve always gone to school together and been in the same classes. These two are inseparable. As for Veronica, she’s pretty much started her own apology tour to get back into Betty’s good graces which includes yellow roses, cupcakes, and scheduling them for a spa day at a local beauty salon. Betty does try to be friendly but even someone as obsessed with being kind as she is has a breaking point. “I thought I could pretend this weekend never happened but I can’t,” she tells Archie before storming off. Betty’s quiet resentment turns into anger when she has an argument with Veronica during cheerleading practice. (Sorry, not calling them RiverVixens.) Veronica becomes a useful target to blame things on. But Veronica counters that Betty was walking on “emotional eggshells” pining for Archie who was totally oblivious. “It’s not my fault he doesn’t like you,” Veronica says. It may sound harsh but it is true. Betty gets a bit cruel insulting Veronica by complimenting Cheryl. “At least Cheryl isn’t putting on an act pretending she’s a butterfly when she’s really a wasp,” Betty says kicking off the fight in the first place. But deciding to warm up to Cheryl proves to be a big mistake but it does produce the best scene of the episode.