When I first heard of Riverdale, CW’s gritty reimagining of the Archie comics, I thought this new TV show would be something; something different, new, fresh. At first it seemed like that, until I kept watching it, the show started to ignore things that don’t make sense. Don’t get me wrong, the acting is fine, but the story line is like watching a racoon trying to wash cotton candy.
In season two, Betty starts webcamming horny creeps to deal with her internal “darkness” and it is never mentioned again. What happened to those people? Did she just ask nicely? Did she say, “Hey man, I would really like it if you just never talk about me flirting with random, forty-year-old pedophiles while wearing lingerie and a wig, cause If you do, I’m going to get in huge trouble from my mom.”
Throughout each episode I had to convince myself that something is going to happen, literally anything that will make it interesting, but no. I forced my ass in front of the TV and wasted away as I watched the giant pile of trash with hot guys in it.
Riverdale is hard to put into words, because when you’re watching it all you’re doing is trying to process what just happened 5 minutes ago. How is it that the town’s sheriff can’t solve one case before these 10th grade wannabe Nancy Drews beat him to it? How the hell did he get appointed sheriff when these kids are doing his job for him?
So many things happened that are not only irrelevant and ignored but are never explained. Why do all these girls in season 2 get seizures all at once and then the writers brush it off as nothing. It took watching the show TWO TIMES to understand why this was happening and turns out it was the fizzle rock drug runoff, what an amazing way to end that problem. And Cheryl (a girl coming from an extensive line of incest and fucked-upped genes) does stuff like putting a pig’s heart in her friend’s locker and blaming one of the many morally bankrupt high school students at her disposal, but she is still beloved by all.
For a show that is so popular with young teens, it so inappropriate. The cast are the oldest-looking high school students I’ve ever seen. They all look like their 24 when the character is supposed to be 15, and they just don’t age from there, are they vampires? And you will always see them at pops but never at work, there is not even a mention of a job. How are they paying for all these goddamn milkshakes? Then there is the fictional, and ridiculously named drugs, Jingle Jangle and Fizzle Rocks that just appear out of nowhere and are as addictive as cocaine, and yet one slap on the wrist users just stops and move on with their lives.
The cringiness of these three agonizing seasons aged me twenty years. The story line made me want to high dive into the Grand Canyon and it took some serious convincing from a straight white girl with no taste, to convince me to watch season four. Even after watching that, it just proved my point even more.
The principal, Mr. Honey, takes villainy to a ridiculous degree. He has a brain the size of a pea and a heart the size of a slightly bigger pea, and for reasons known only to the show’s writers, INSIST’s on canceling prom at every school he’s gone to. Where’s the point? I can’t find it and I’m not sure the writers could either.
Another question, why only now does Archie have feelings for Betty? After three painful years, no, after seven years of Betty simping over Archie. Years filled with Archie rejecting her, but now that Betty is happily in a relationship–and might I add Archie is also in a relationship with Veronica–he suddenly “can’t stop thinking about her” and is making fucking love songs? If you’re that lonely, go to your girlfriend, not the girl next door.
Their godawful musical episodes. Stop, just don’t. Please save me my sanity. Riverdale, you can be a teen drama, a thriller, or High School Musical. You cannot be all of them. You just can’t.
After much calm and thoughtful deliberation, I have concluded that this show is a literal landfill; full of trashy plots, cringy dialogue and palatable characters. The characters make no sense and for a show about high schools’ students when are they studying, or in school for that matter?
Riverdale, you wasted precious hours of my life. Like a gym teacher filling in for physics class, no matter how hard you try, you make no sense whatsoever.
Image Credit: Jeff Hitchcock
8forty.ca 
I wonder if the point is “good people” are really bad and “bad people” are really good. There’s a lot of that nonsense going around lately.
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