http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/RiverdaleS07E15Chapter132MissTeenRiverdale
The girls turn a competition for Miss Teen Riverdale into a small-scale war against conformity.
Tropes
- Beauty Contest: The focus point of the episode. It showcases talents, swimsuits and dresses. Prizes include a college scholarship, a new car and and a Hollywood screen test. It’s also shown to have conventional beauty in mind, the swimsuits are objectifying, and Betty despises the whole thing. This year, the girls team up to demand of the judges that the swimsuit part be omitted and Ethel Muggs be allowed to compete.
- Didn't Think This Through: Midge signs up for the pageant despite both the risks to her pregnancy and the fact that the swimsuits and dress fittings will expose her. Sure enough, Alice finds out and immediately gets her carted off to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy.
- Hypocrisy Nod: The other girls accuse Betty of this for brushing off beauty pageants as exploitative when she did a strip show with Archie and flashed her panties on television. Betty defends the former on it having been them mutually stripping for each other and the latter on it having been her choice rather than having been pushed into it.
- Imagine Spot: Ethel has one where she imagines winning the contest, her parents being alive and in the audience, and Jughead being her boyfriend.
- Internal Reveal: Midge’s pregnancy is discovered when Alice notices her weight gain while the contestants are being fitted for dresses by Mary, manipulates her into spilling the beans and then tells her parents, who ship her off to the SOQM.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: Nobody signs up besides Betty, Veronica, Cheryl, Toni, Evelyn and Midge (later replaced by Ethel).
- Mythology Gag: In Ethel's fantasy of winning the pageant, one of her wishes is that Jughead is her boyfriend. In the comics, Ethel is often infatuated with Jughead to some degree, how much depending on the story.
- Not So Above It All: Betty runs down the pageant as awful and objectifying...but hearing they're giving away college scholarships sways her.
- Out of Focus: The male main cast members only appear in a handful of scenes.
- Serious Business: Despite it being a small town contest with only six competitors, Miss Teen Riverdale is treated as if it’s Miss America.
- Shout-Out: Mary Andrews’s dress shop is called Perky In Peach.
- Wolf Whistle: Jughead lets out a whistle in appreciation of Veronica's look, as the boys watch the pageant at Pop's.
