YMMV / Riverdale S 2 E 16 Chapter 29 Primary Colors

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Fred changing his mind about running for mayor: was it his idea, or was it his ex-wife's idea as a way to get Archie out from under the Lodges' thumb?
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Andy Cohen popping up out of nowhere into the Lodge mansion to support Herimone for Mayor.
• Misaimed Fandom: Entertainment Weekly noted that Jughead's line to Betty of "Go get them Tracy Flick" completely misses the point of how Election shows Tracy as a nearly power-hungry woman who sees nothing wrong destroying all in her path to get ahead. (Although it can be argued Jughead is falling into the various Alternative Character Interpretation views of Tracy).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Veronica vs. Reggie. Since part of the reason Veronica was running was to beat him, it would have been a great opportunity to have Reggie go after her and expose her secrets instead of Ethel and Josie. Not to mention, this was the time to use Reggie, since he has been completely underused even after the recasting.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Oh boy, where to start.
  • Betty. Apparently, the best way to deal with Chic is to threaten him with fire, brag about getting three men killed, and taunt him about possibly dying because of her.
  • We get that Veronica wants to be seen as better than her parents, and she is being forced to pay for their actions, but she ends up bringing a lot of the heat she gets onto herself by running for student body president, something that is clearly a bad idea. She also punches Reggie in the face and gets away with it.
  • Jughead becomes less sympathetic when a) Archie points out that he was only at Southside High for a short period of time, and b) Jughead states that the Southside is only the place where he apparently has fond memories of his family, one that broke up due his dad's drinking, and doesn't appear to have the same good feeling for his mom, who refused to take him in at the end of last season. Basically, Jughead is only reacting this way to hold onto his happy memories that other members of his family don't seem to share.
  • Also Josie, and more indirectly, Josie's mother, in the same episode. While being mad at Veronica for "stealing" the Pussycats is understandable^note Though it's important to remember that Josie herself dumped the Pussycats and also broke off her friendship with Veronica in a very harsh way, all based on the word of her mother without giving Veronica a chance to explain things or apologize, her being furious at Veronica for Veronica's parents screwing over McCoy is pretty extreme. Not only is Mayor McCoy JUST as bad as the Lodges, willingly taking their bribes and oppressing the Southside children amongst other equally immoral and illegal actions, but Veronica also went out of her way to warn Mayor McCoy that her parents were planning on exposing her affair, putting herself at risk in the process. Worse still, even fans who otherwise sympathized with or cheered Josie on felt that she crossed a line by accusing Veronica of being "best friends" with sexual assaulter Nick St. Clair, who not only tried to rape Veronica herself, but Josie also witnessed Veronica beating the crap out of him for trying it with Cheryl.
  • Ethel really loses a lot of her prior Woobie points by how she harasses Veronica over her parents' actions. While what her dad suffered because of Hiram is horrible, Ethel publicly humiliates Veronica in a manner that, as Betty points out, clearly involved a lot of pre-planning to do. Worse still, Veronica makes it clear she doesn't blame Ethel and sympathises with her, then goes out of her way to try and make amends, only for Ethel to, at first claim to accept it, only to then publicly humiliate her again by handing out flyers exposing some of Veronica's dirtier secrets and attacking her character, while dismissing Veronica's attempts at making amends as being a 'cheap bribe', despite the fact Veronica herself was earnest in this and had, previously, been nothing but nice to Ethel.