‘Riverdale’s Stunning ‘Cabaret’ Cover Points to a Dark Future for Reggie and Veronica

Spoilers for Riverdale “Chapter Forty-Four: No Exit” past this point.

“Maybe this time,” Veronica (Camila Mendes) sings over the closing montage of this week’s Riverdale. “I’ll be lucky… Maybe this time he’ll stay.”

A lot happens while she sings the song in the background, including the discovery of a bevy of dead faux-nuns and the hatching of a plan to take down the villainous Gargoyle King. Oh, and also Archie dies (or maybe not).But most relevant to the Veronica storyline, she and Reggie Mantle (Charles Melton) look deep into each other’s eyes while standing in the empty club La Bonne Nuit, and finally kiss.

#Veggie rising! Yeah! So exciting!

…Unless, of course, you look at the song she’s singing, understand the context and analyze what it means for the future of the relationship.

Let’s rewind to the beginning of the episode, which opens with a cover of “Cabaret” from the musical/film Cabaret, sung by Josie (Ashleigh Murray). For those of you not familiar with the movie (or stage show), first of all, shame on you. It’s one of the best shows ever put on the stage, please correct this mistake right now. That aside, it’s set in a, uh, cabaret called The Kit Kat Club during the fall of the Weimar Republic in 1931, and the rise of the Nazi Party. By the end of the movie (I’m just going to use “movie” for now because that’ll be our main touchpoint, cool? Cool) the Nazis have taken over, and the hopeful decadence that pervaded the club and the characters at the beginning has been sucked out, replaced by intense danger and a lack of hope.

“Cabaret” is actually sung at the end of the film, once the Nazis have pretty much replaced every other patron of the club. It’s ironic, rather than celebratory like it is on Riverdale:

Ignore that the video says “Maybe This Time,” by the way. I realize that’s confusing, but that’s Josie singing “Cabaret,” not the other tune.

Anyway! The Cabaret parallels that run through the episode, excellently written by Arabella Anderson, are strong. Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos) is exerting his influence on the town of Riverdale, using the menacing Gargoyle Gang to crack down on anyone who tries to flaunt his rule. That includes his daughter Veronica… By the end she thinks she’s freed herself from his iron fist, but her actions — smashing an expensive egg, hiring a gang of her own — have turned her into Hiram 2.0, and La Bonne Nuit into its own pit of crime, versus the safe haven it was at the beginning of the episode.

That all culminates in Mendes’s gorgeous cover of “Maybe This Time,” which was originally sung by Josie until she was scared out of the club by Hiram.

So y’all ready for some [football announcer voice] musical theater hiiiiistoooorrry?

“Maybe This Time” wasn’t originally part of the score of “Cabaret” when it first debuted on Broadway in 1966. In fact, the film version jettisoned a number of songs from the stage version, adding in others composed by John Kander and Fred Ebb, including the currently relevant tune. If you’re familiar with it and haven’t seen the movie, that’s probably because later stage productions have added it back in (the song is superb), so it’s become a standard based on Liza Minelli’s performance of it in the movie.

The song is sung pretty early on in Cabaret, but it’s a microcosm for Minelli’s character, Sally Bowles, a cabaret singer who eventually loses everything by the end of the film. She’s struck up a relationship with a Brit named Brian Roberts (Michael York), who she previously thought was gay but bullied into a relationship. And as we find them at the start of the song, they’re in the first flushes of love: playing around in bed, making each other laugh, reading silently across the room and stealing glances at each other.

The second half of the number paints a different picture. Though Minelli’s performance remains hopeful and pure, the club is half-filled with bored patrons and fellow performers, stubbing out cigarettes and waiting for Sally to finish. By the end, director Bob Fosse films Minelli with the spotlight behind her, not in front. Her arms break the light, creating shafts of darkness that almost shoot out of her hands. Though she’s trying to hold on to that light, that happiness, the darkness comes out of her instead. And the number ends with Bowles shrouded in darkness to half-hearted applause.

I know, I know, I’m the first person in history to mention that Bob Fosse is very good.

For completionist sake, I’ll also mention that Kristen Chenoweth did a fantastic cover of “Maybe This Time” during her 2015 concert tour. Chenoweth’s take is sadder, older than Minelli’s… A singer who has lost so many times before she doesn’t believe love will really happen for her again, even when it does.

Okay, back to Veronica Lodge. The cover on Riverdale is decidedly more modern and has a twinge of that Chenoweth sadness to it, which matches more with the lyrics versus the purposeful juxtaposition of the movie version.

Maybe this time
For the first time
Love won’t hurry away
He will hold me fast
I’ll be home at last
Not a loser anymore
Like the last time
And the time before

That’s what Veronica sings as she looks at Reggie across the room, right before they kiss in private. It’s a pretty clear nod to her relationship with Archie Andrews (KJ Apa), or at least from her perspective. While she was busy clearing Archie of murder charges, he ran away from town and broke up with her. She’s upset, she’s mad, but looking at Reggie hopefully not be a meathead like her Ginger Stallion.

But here’s the thing. Inasmuch as you can predict anything about Riverdale, what happens to Sally and Brian in Cabaret points to an extremely dark future for Veronica and Reggie. In the film, Brian gets beaten by Nazis (shades of Reggie getting beaten by the Gargoyle Gang), Sally has an abortion, and oh yeah, the Nazis take over. The movie ends with the entire audience at the Kit Kat Club filled with Nazis. Everyone has lost everything that meant anything to them.

Veronica’s singing kicks back in over Betty discovering the bodies of the fake nuns, the literal dead end into her investigation of the vicious Sisters of the Quiet Mercy. But worst of all, we cut over to Archie, lying dead on his bed (he’s not dead, calm down) discovered by two park rangers.

All the odds are in my favor
Something’s bound to begin,
It’s got to happen, happen sometime
Maybe this time,
Maybe this time, I’ll win.

That last line soars over a shot of Archie’s bloody, unblinking body, which, hey, there’s some more juxtaposition for you!

Could Riverdale just be sticking with the Cabaret parallels this episode? Sure! But at the same time, it makes sense to interpret the subtext there as Veronica and Reggie’s relationship ultimately being as doomed as Sally and Brian’s. It may not turn out the same way, but even in her moment of triumph, Veronica has lost everything. She just doesn’t know it yet.

Where to stream Riverdale