‘Riverdale’ Star on Penelope and Alice’s Rivalry in “There Will Be Blood”

A long-simmering rivalry was reignited in the latest episode of Riverdale, stemming all the way back to the early episodes of the first season on The CW.

ComicBook.com spoke with Penelope Blossom actor Nathalie Boltt about tonight’s insane episode “There Will Be Blood,” which teased major developments for crimson-haired maple mavens.

Penelope finally had another confrontation with Alice Cooper (Mädchen Amick) in tonight’s episode, who crashes a will reading for the deceased Clifford Blossom after learning about Hal’s involvement — after all, he is a Cooper. The two share some choice words, with Alice letting loose on her nemesis after finding out about her estranged husband’s affair with Penelope.

“We’ve been waiting for this scene for a long time,” said Boltt. “The first time I met Alice was in Season 1 when I slapped her and offscreen, of course, that was the solidifying of a wonderful friendship [with Mädchen].”

Despite the off-camera friendship, there’s no love lost between their two characters.

“Alice just says the most hilariously disgusting things to Penelope. When she calls her ‘a ten cent, half melted trollop’ or something and talks about the inbred cesspool that is our family. Yeah, I mean it’s wonderful,” Boltt said.

“To be honest, it was really hard to keep a straight face when we shot it because the words are so wonderfully hideous and credit to the writers for coming up with those phrases. I think they really sit around going ‘okay we cant just say I hate you. You suck. How can we say something really complex and ultra insulting’ and I think they nailed it in the scenes, so I can’t wait to see people’s reactions to it.”

Seeing a war of words between Penelope and Alice always makes for great television particularly because the two characters are dysfunctional parents in their own right, with a rivalry that stretches back into their younger days in Riverdale. So can fans expect to see more interaction between the two as we reach the end of the show’s second season?

“I don’t think [Alice is] required any further aggravations from Penelope because she’s had so many other characters pushing her to her limits,” Boltt said, “but certainly going forward there will always be an interesting dynamic between Penelope and Alice, who both consider themselves to be top dogs in their own sort of domains.

“But Alice is, of course, so suburban and wants to be the ultra uber mother and Penelope is so on the outskirts living in her own sort of fantasy world and is the ultra uber terrible mother that yeah when they do have another reckoning or whenever they get together there’s gonna be sparks.”

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW. Penelope’s evil plan continues in next week’s episode, “Primary Colors.”

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