I’m going to make a bold claim. I think I find the parents of Riverdale are far more fascinating and psychologically rich than the teenage main characters. Part of that is undoubtedly because of the note-perfect casting of people like Uhlrich and Mädchen Amick. The other aspect is that their storylines are proving to have a depth and intensity I wasn’t expecting. FP isn’t just at the party to support Jughead but to get information from Joaquin. Veronica’s arc has actually made her less interesting but it’s added to dimension to Hermione. She’s an “unequivocally good woman” as Smithers (Tom McBeath), the butler to the Lodge family puts it, married to a man who is anything but. Veronica is more a pawn than anything else particularly after Harim threatens to implicate Hermione if she won’t testify as a character witness on his behalf. She relents of course. Then there is Alice’s brief confrontation with FP once the party dies down. Apparently, she’s from the South Side which makes her obsession with perfection even more fascinating. “Snakes don’t shed their skin easily,” FP warns. Then there’s the introduction of Archie’s mother, Mary, played by Molly Ringwald. Guess that divorce isn’t happening after all. While I tend to be most eager to watch the adults it’s really the relationship between Jughead and Betty that drives this episode.