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briangroth27 · 7 years ago

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Riverdale Season 1 Review

I’m not usually into teen dramas that don’t have a genre bent, but I do love a good murder mystery. Some of the first mysteries I remember really engaging with and trying to solve were on soap operas when I was home from school for summer as a kid, so perhaps the teen soap-with-a-killer Riverdale was always going to be right up my alley. I've liked what I've read of Afterlife with Archie (also by Riverdale’s creator, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa) and the old Archie's Weird Mysteries cartoon was a lot of fun too, so apparently I dig a darker side of Archie Comics. With engaging characters and a compelling mystery, Riverdale certainly delivered on that front! I’m not well-versed in Archie lore, so the changes this show made to the characters didn’t bother me and I wasn’t worried about sullying the wholesome Archie image; as Cole Sprouse (Jughead) pointed out during a Critics’ Association panel, Archie’s met Predator before! Clearly, everything is on the table. The cast, cleverly comprised of newcomers and teen heartthrobs from 20 years ago, was solid all-around and most of the characters seemed just like their counterparts from other versions of Archie (though I can't speak to the adults’ accuracy and I know Chuck was drastically altered), so it's impressive how versatile these characters are even with a radically different tone.

I loved the world of Riverdale. The town felt real and there was a sense of true, dense history between everyone, kids and adults alike. You could tell these people had known each other for a long time and their lives were intimately entangled. It never felt like there were connections just for the sake of whatever plot points needed to connect in the moment. Nods to the comics, like Jughead’s Classic Archie dream and Jughead's burger-shaped birthday cake, were perfect and I hope they do more. The pilot's scene with Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead sitting in a booth at Pop Tate's was iconic. I also loved that they included what I assume are the Archie Comics stand-ins for real brands, like Veronica’s “American Excess” credit cards. The show did a great job of at least touching on relevant issues like classism, slut-shaming, and white guys telling minority women’s stories for them. I love the implied supernatural darkness this season—I totally believe Clifford did see a ghost and the Blossoms have been involved in dark rituals (what's up with their cult-like board of directors?)—and hope they open those floodgates next year. Like Jughead asked, is Riverdale a good place, or is it full of (supernatural) darkness?

Full Season Spoilers…

My biggest issue was the Fake Miss Grundy (Sarah Habel)/Archie (K.J. Apa) fling: it wasn’t portrayed as some forbidden true love—Grundy shot that down when Archie asked what they had—but all the sex scenes and their picnic were shot so dreamily that it wasn't depicted as a bad thing either. Even though Grundy was forced to leave town in (secret) disgrace, the final scene of her creepily scoping out other teen guys seemed like a twist to show her true nature—and that Archie got played—rather than an indictment of their relationship. Fred Andrews’ (Luke Perry) almost total lack of response to the news his son had been sleeping with a teacher also felt way off and minimized the seriousness of the situation (which was implied to have also gone on between Grundy and Jason Blossom). While it’s true Grundy clearly hurt Archie and he didn’t see their relationship as “scoring with the hot teacher”—it was never something to brag about—they should’ve explored the illegality more, particularly as this show is so steeped in film noir. I wasn’t satisfied with Grundy getting off so easily and Archie dealing with nothing more than heartache. They could’ve gotten a strong arc out of Archie dealing with the clear statutory rape of it all instead of playing it like any other failed teenage romance. I wouldn’t necessarily want Archie’s life blown up by the news (though it came out later among the students and no one really cared), but a bigger deal should’ve been made of it. Had it been Betty or Veronica sleeping with a male teacher it would’ve been a much larger issue and probably would’ve destroyed their reputations, so at the very least exploring that double standard would’ve been appreciated. Riverdale subverted other clichés, like dismissing the Betty/Veronica kiss in the pilot as a dated way to appear “hot and edgy” (which in retrospect is even funnier, given The CW marketed the show with that kiss in all the trailers), but I feel like they could've found a way to subvert expectations with the Archie/Grundy relationship too.

The show’s biggest surprise was how likable and three-dimensional Veronica (Camila Mendes) is. That this is her first professional acting credit (at least according to IMDB) is astonishing, and Mendes is going to have a bright future. I was constantly impressed with Veronica’s ability to cut to the point and bring people together or make things happen. She and Jughead quickly became my favorite characters, something I never would’ve thought having seen the spoiled Veronica in Weird Mysteries. Like I saw pointed out in an early review, it was very smart of them to make Veronica and Betty (Lili Reinhart) friends first before the love triangle with Archie takes effect. In fact, Betty and Veronica’s friendship was the strongest part of the show. I'm glad Veronica provided Betty with "sometimes they just don't like you" advice about Archie rather than the usual "hang in there and win them over/they'll see what they're missing" plan. I didn’t exactly buy all of the power structure in the Lodge family—Veronica making demands to know things and Hermione (Marisol Nichols) caving and telling her felt a little “TV kids have more power than they should”—but otherwise I found the Lodge family dynamic interesting and entertaining, especially given a third of it never appeared onscreen. Veronica’s “negotiations” with Hermione were not what I’d imagine normal people do, but they were certainly fun to watch. I was surprised at the depths they continued to give Veronica as the season went on: not only did she go about atoning for her past spoiled behavior, but she went out of her way to make up for the damage her father left in his wake as well. I thought Veronica and Archie finally getting together worked—she seemed to understand him (and he her) better than Val did—but it did result in the one part of Veronica’s arc I didn’t feel was entirely in-character. Not telling Betty that she and Archie were dating felt off, especially since she told Betty about their kiss in the pilot almost immediately and they were much better friends by the end of the season. Fortunately, the eventual reveal of Veronica and Archie’s relationship didn’t come with the clichéd jealous fireworks; instead, their friends were simply happy for them (a welcome departure from the norm!).

Jughead was my other favorite character and I loved that the series was framed through his true crime novel. While I do think some of his narration was a little too melodramatic even for teen angst, like him describing himself as not a person (although it’s led me to wonder whether there’s actual dark weirdness going on), it always matched the heightened reality of the show. My sister wants his narration to wrap up an episode with “…in a little town called Riverdale” as an homage to the Weird Mysteries cartoon, and I’d love that next year! The one bit of his character that I had a hard time connecting with was his rift with Archie: it seemed like one missed camping trip shouldn’t have ended their friendship and I thought there must’ve been something else to it, but nothing ever surfaced. On the other hand, Jughead and Betty coming together as school paper reporters investigating Jason’s murder felt like a natural and well-crafted development of their friendship, as did their romance. I would’ve liked to see the show incorporate the current Archie Comics’ asexual Jughead to increase representation, but Sprouse and Reinhardt’s chemistry has made me a Betty/Jughead shipper. As the show peeled back more layers to Jughead and Betty’s lives, their relationship made even more sense and I loved the support they found in each other. Riverdale’s writers also found some great comedy between Betty and Jughead, like when creepy Grandma Blossom emerged from the shadows of Jason’s room and Jug hid behind Betty like she was a human shield! I also enjoyed him referring to her singing happy birthday as "haunting," because as good as her voice is, it definitely was. When the show drove wedges between the couple, it never felt like unearned or random drama. I felt sorry for Jughead when Betty’s mom tried to use a “family dinner” between the Coopers and Jones’ to interrogate his dad and was glad Jughead reasonably didn’t blame Betty for it for too long, since she was aware of some of her mom’s plans but didn’t know about the larger plan (and didn’t know Archie and Veronica were using it as an opportunity to search the Jones house). I really liked the low-key exploration of class differences between the Jones’ and Coopers; there was a strong thread running through the season about how Jughead didn’t feel he fully belonged in the middle-class Riverdale. I didn’t expect Jughead to start out living at the town’s drive-in theater, and his subsequent moving in with Archie worked well to help rebuild their friendship (even if Jughead was often sarcastic about sharing their feelings). The Jones family proved an excellent source of drama and Sprouse knocked scenes like FP Jones (Skeet Ulrich) telling him to get lost from a jail cell and Jughead’s mom heartbreakingly telling him not to come live with her and his sister in Ohio, even when he had nowhere else to go, out of the park. FP’s criminal past and present, Jughead’s resulting move to the south side school, and his later induction into the South Side Serpents certainly dealt major blows to his connections to the rest of the cast (though we are getting Hot Dog out of it!), and I’m interested to see how those connections are maintained and rebuilt. I wonder if he accepted the Serpents jacket (and his seduction to the dark side as he put it on was palpable!) to be/feel closer to FP, since he knew his dad’s attempt to push him away was done to protect him. Might we see dark Jughead next season? Whatever his affiliation with the Serpents brings, I can’t wait to see where Sprouse and the writers take Jughead!

Betty Cooper was initially presented as the good girl next door, but the show quickly dispelled that notion. Not only is she repressing her anger to the point of digging her fingernails into her palms until they bleed and going beyond standing up for herself to threatening people like Cheryl when things escalate too much, but she has some sort of dissociative disorder where she has no memory of taking on a different, much darker persona. Going by “Polly,” she nearly killed Chuck (Jordan Calloway) when she and Veronica were trying to get him to admit he’d slut-shamed several high school girls. I loved this darker side—and the fact that it hasn’t been resolved yet—and it definitely felt in line with the show’s Twin Peaks lineage. Those “Polly” moments could’ve easily been way over the top, but Reinhart made them real, and really dangerous. I liked the implied reason for her Dark Betty persona: she needed comfort and support from her big sister Polly (Tiera Skovbye) as a kid, and now she needs “Polly” to deal as a young adult. While the show started with Betty being eternally smitten with Archie and touched on the classic Betty/Archie/Veronica love triangle in the pilot, I’m glad they largely avoided it. Both through the beautifully-written Betty/Veronica friendship and the well-developed Betty/Jughead romance, any sort of triangle with Archie was sidestepped, and frankly the show didn’t need that added layer of drama. I'm also happy they let Archie and Betty be friends without ignoring how hard that can be when one person likes the other. Of course, Archie was more involved with Fake Miss Grundy this year, and Betty and Veronica’s reaction to finding out about it was surprisingly understanding and well-handled. In fact, Betty’s empathy in general was a standout part of her character, and I loved the concern she showed for all her friends, particularly Jughead (again, their issues are very compatible and I’m glad they’ve found each other). Betty’s empathy was put to great use as she delivered her “We are All Riverdale” speech, reminding the people that Riverdale isn’t just a clean-cut “town with pep!” but it’s also the lower class people who the rich would rather forget and write off as criminals. It would’ve been easy to write Betty as a naïve, somewhat helpless girl to counter Veronica being so driven and present, but instead they had Betty pursing the murder case even moreso than anyone except Jughead. Reinhart handled the range inherent in this Betty’s characterization with ease. I’m interested to see where Betty goes now that Jughead is joining the Serpents and it seems like her opinions on class differences—and more pressingly, Jughead’s inner goodness—are going to be tested.

I liked Archie, though I have to say he didn’t have as exciting an arc as the other main characters this year. Once he was free of the Grundy mess his material improved a lot, though I still think we needed to see more fallout: digging deeper than just his pain inspiring his music would’ve fueled his arc much better. On the other hand, as one of my friends pointed out, it was refreshing to have a central character just trying to figure out who he is and what he wants to be; Archie (and Apa, who like Reinhart is a relative newcomer to acting) felt like a normal, genuine, all-American kid. Sure he displayed some of the classic Archie obliviousness like not realizing Betty was into him, but he also showed some great maturity, like when he gave up his football team captain spot, knowing he couldn’t handle the time commitment, and when he immediately gathered a group of guys to help out with his father’s construction project when his crew got better offers and left. I really enjoyed his music sessions with Josie (Ashleigh Murray) and Val (Hayley Law); he seemed to get much more out of them than he did working with Grundy, both in terms of musical application and some social awareness when he broached the subject of writing songs for them to sing, rather than them giving a more accurate depiction of their own experiences by writing their own music. As with the show’s handling of the classic triangle, I’m relieved there was no cliché jealousy over Archie’s friendship with Veronica or Betty from Val or from Veronica over Archie and Val dating (something I’m told is drawn from the recent Mark Waid Archie comics; good to know they’re pulling from all eras!). Almost across the board, the teens in Riverdale seemed to respect and trust each other in a way that a lot of TV teens don’t. I was impressed. Archie’s best qualities came out when the show got into how much he cared about his friends, particularly Jughead—offering up his house as a home for Jones—and, surprisingly, Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch). Even after he realized Cheryl’s parents were manipulating him through her, he didn’t stop caring about her well-being. The frozen lake rescue scene was incredibly intense (Apa even broke his hand in real life!) and seemed like a moment that will bond the kids tightly for a long time to come. One (extremely minor) aspect of Archie’s life I thought was random was part of the set: he’s got multiple Justice League posters up in his room. The Warner Brothers/Greg Berlanti connection aside, I’m pretty sure Archie—and no one else, in fact—has ever mentioned being into comic books or superheroes even once on the show. He didn’t strike me as a superhero fan at all, so having posters that aren’t even of the movie adaptations felt like awkward product placement. I’d also like to know what was up with the werewolf mask he had in his room and why he hallucinated the jocks wearing similar masks while he sang on stage. What was that about? I liked Archie finally finding happiness with Veronica—they seem to complement each other well—though I can’t imagine what possibly losing his father is going to do to him…particularly if one of the Lodges was behind the hired gun.

Cheryl Blossom was a fun minor villain who revealed hidden depths over the course of the season and I was surprised by how sympathetic she was by the end. The writers and Petsch (another very talented newcomer) found a great balance between Cheryl’s genuine humanity, like when she was forced to confront the fact that her brother wasn’t always a great guy and when she genuinely seemed to accept Polly as a sister, and her more toxic mean girl side as queen bee of Riverdale High. Cheryl embodied the heightened reality of the show more than anyone with her often campy (but never out of place) vibe, and I loved it. I wouldn’t want the show to be pitch black noir anyway, so her character’s brand of high school villainy struck the perfect semi-comedic balance to the darkness. Her reaction to finding out her father killed her brother��confronting him at dinner, rather than getting out of the house like Betty warned her—was so perfectly Cheryl! It was an excellent use of the melodramatic nature of her character to reveal which of the Blossoms was the murderer. Petsch also did a great job in her melodramatic frozen lake suicide attempt and I really thought they might kill her off, but I’m glad they didn’t. Cheryl burning down the Blossom mansion was great and I can’t wait to see where she goes from here!

The parents of Riverdale were, on the whole, far from the best parents you could find. The Andrews were the best of them, though again I would’ve liked some more parenting from Fred when the Grundy affair was revealed. Otherwise, Fred Andrews was the upstanding, salt-of-the-Earth dad who’d made bad choices in his youth but was a better man in spite of them; he reminded me a lot of Smallville’s Jonathan Kent. I liked his relationship with Archie and Jughead and I hope he survives his shooting. Archie’s mom Mary (Molly Ringwald) was likable too; I enjoyed the fact that she was simply above all the drama the rest of the parents in Riverdale came at her with and I was surprised she didn’t show up with a boatload of issues of her own. Another one of the best parents was Sheriff Keller (Martin Cummins), who despite some classism blinders showed surprising support for his son Kevin (Casey Cott): instead of being stereotypically ashamed of his gay son, he wanted him to date safer guys than Southside Serpents. I hadn’t considered it until I heard it pointed out, but this allowed the show to dodge a lot of cliché “gay kid in a small town” plotlines. He also seemed level-headed, if not the most effective criminal investigator.

While the rest of the parents weren’t the best role models, they certainly fit the film noir leanings of the show and proved that not only is no one perfect, but your past can and probably will come back to bite you. The moral grayness got to the point where I was surprised all the adults reacted like real parents after Archie told them they'd broken into FP's house: I expected at least one of them to congratulate them and cheer them on. Alice Cooper (Madchen Amick) made for a subversive, overbearing, and serious villain to contrast with Cheryl early on (and a cool shout-out to the show's dual inspirations in that she was on both Twin Peaks and Dawson’s Creek), before revealing that her heart really is in the right place. Though the Cooper’s reasons for locking Polly away were extremely flimsy, they still sounded like something a real parent would say; I was impressed by that. I liked that Alice was the one leading the charge against Fake Grundy and Amick showed us Alice’s deeper caring side as the season went on, particularly after she threw Hal out of the house. I ended the season thinking she needs to back down and let her daughters live their lives, but overall liking her (and Amick was consistently great!). Perhaps we’ve already seen a bit of mellowing on Alice’s part, like when Betty was hungover and Alice barely said a thing. I liked the dynamic she brought to the school paper and I’d like to see more of her mentor side come out as Betty and Jughead (and Veronica?) continue their investigations (not that they needed much help!). I wonder if further exploration into Betty’s dissociative disorder is going to cast Alice back into a darker light, though; it seemed like she was trying to keep Betty away from things that got Polly “into trouble”—“bad girls” like Veronica/Cheryl and redheads like Archie/Jason—and she’s certainly encouraging her daughter’s medication, so how far will she go to protect Betty once she knows the truth?

Much like Alice, FP Jones initially came off as a terrible parent, but Ulrich and the show did a great job of peeling back layers to draw a more complex picture of him. While Skeet Ulrich playing a dad made me feel old, since I remember him as a teen in Scream (Jughead climbing into Betty’s room through her window was a cool homage to that movie, BTW), he was great as Jughead’s criminal-yet-caring father. We didn’t get much of FP as a caring man, but I liked what we did see (allowing a houseful of teens to drink and play a terrible secrets game notwithstanding) and believed he was truly trying to put his life together for his son…right to the point of blowing it up to protect him. I also liked that the bad blood between Fred and FP wasn’t made out to be entirely either man’s fault and they were both to blame.

Hal Cooper (Locklyn Munro) had much the opposite arc; going from a guy who I figured had no backbone at all to one of the most despicable parents on the show. I knew he was the one to steal Sheriff Keller’s murder board, but I thought he’d done it under Alice’s orders. Once Betty started questioning whether he was behind Jason’s death, he started showing some shadiness and when they revealed he’d tried to force Alice to have an abortion and intended to do the same to Polly, I hated him. Even the reveal that he’d stolen the murder board to protect Polly in case there was evidence against her was too little, too late; it was nice to give him dimension, but wasn’t enough to redeem him in my eyes. I certainly wasn’t expecting him to be carrying on a hundred-year blood feud with the Blossoms—or for the Coopers to be Blossoms!!! I also wonder how he’s going to react to Polly’s incestuous twins once they’re born and to the son Alice didn’t abort when he inevitably resurfaces…whether Chic Cooper is Hal’s kid or not.

Ah, the Blossoms. Penelope Blossom (Nathalie Boltt) makes Alice and Hal look sane, Grandma Rose (Barbara Wallace) is super creepy, and Clifford (Barclay Hope) is a straight-up murderer who is fully willing to hurt teenagers. Then there’s all those rumors of dark magic and occult dealings in the family. If Grandma Rose has “gypsy blood” (and she totally does, given her predictive abilities) so do Betty and the rest of the “Coopers,” BTW. It’s great that there’s this town mythology about the Blossoms: it gave the whole family a mystique that would’ve been sorely missed if they were just a rich old miserly family. I wanted to believe they truly cared about Polly, but they’re the Blossoms and I know it was just the twins…speaking of, Clifford and Penelope’s “incest, whatevs!” reaction to Polly and Jason’s relationship was so gross, yet I laughed at how perfect it was for them. Aguirre-Sacasa had Cheryl and Jason in a maybe-incestuous relationship in Afterlife with Archie, but I never thought The CW would go there, even if Polly and Jason were third cousins. Penelope seems to be losing it in the wake of her husband killing her son, and I hope that brings some dimension to her, because while I believed her sorrow and wrath, I never came around on her like with Alice and FP. I thought they played Clifford very well, keeping him a certainly compromised parental figure but not really tipping their hand about how evil he was until late in the season. I did figure out he was the killer before they revealed it, but it took a long time to disabuse me of my initial theory. Looking back, there’s more than enough evidence of how little he cared about Jason (he often seemed more disappointed, to be honest) to fully buy him as the murderer; the most satisfying mysteries are unexpected but inevitable in hindsight, and this one certainly was that. Cheryl raised a good question, though: if Clifford didn’t care about the incest or the drugs, why’d he need to kill Jason? I’m excited to see more of Clifford in flashbacks (I assume) next year to get those answers. And did he really hang himself? I think he did, but I think it’d be fitting if Polly did it. I could also see it being Cheryl, but not Penelope. What's going to happen to those two now that their house is gone? Are the Blossoms not as rich as they claim? Just how lucrative is the Blossoms' maple syrup company and how much of their wealth is from heroin?

I liked Hermione Lodge and appreciated how her connection to her husband Hiram (Mark Consuelos) adversely affected her attempts to get a stable job, but as the series wore on I became more and more convinced that she’s the real schemer in the family. She’s the one forging her daughter’s name on contracts, after all. Since the Blossoms made it sound like they had their choice of who to send to jail, I wonder if Hiram’s really guilty of anything at all. Either that or Hermione was guilty too, but Clifford didn’t think she’d be a problem. I still think the payments the Blossoms were sending the Lodges for the past several decades were repayment for the Lodges getting them out of legal trouble when Great-grandpa “Cooper” was killed, but I’d like to find out exactly what went down back then. I’m excited to meet Hiram next year and I hope he’s much more honest than the Clifford-lite we’ve been led to believe he is. Seeing him on the legal rebound, genuinely trying to rebuild his reputation, would be a cool twist after we’ve been told for so long that he’s a terrible man. Still, he seems like the logical guess as to who put the hit on Fred, but I don’t think Hermione is any less capable.

Fake Miss Grundy stealing the classic Geraldine Grundy’s ID is a classic move for Greg Berlanti when it comes to adapting comic book characters. Regardless of how I felt about Fake Grundy, I appreciated the respect he gave the source material while doing something fresh. Unless she comes back to bring feelings of being used to the surface in Archie and to fully play out the implications of a student-teacher relationship, I won’t miss her, however.

Like many of the parents, I appreciated that what we thought we knew about Polly Cooper didn’t turn out to be true at all. I thought for a brief moment after she escaped and went missing that Jason’s death had snapped Polly, but I’m glad she was never the crazy girl her parents made her out to be. I was surprised Hermione was able to take her in—albeit briefly—when they apparently couldn’t afford Veronica going clubbing, but that was the most minor of quibbles. I was even more surprised Polly chose the Blossoms over going home to her family, even though her parents had tried to force an abortion on her and shipped her off to a nunnery, but I loved the twist that she’d gone to be a spy. I wish she had found out more vital information about Jason’s death, though. I did think Polly just going back to school like nothing was a bit of a stretch, but the season finale also featured a lengthy school escape and Archie, Veronica, and Betty waltzing into the Southside Hell School, so I guess late enrollment isn’t that big a deal. Haha I liked what we saw of Polly this year, and I’m interested to see what she’s like after fully processing Jason’s death. I can’t imagine life is going to be easy once word gets out that her twins are the product of incest.

I wish we’d gotten to know Jason Blossom (Trevor Stines) better to sympathize with his loss more, but I was impressed that we got enough to paint him as an imperfect, complex person rather than either a saint or a secret scumbag. My sister called him faking his death (and someone else subsequently killing him), and I liked that the dreamy storybook quality to his and Cheryl's boat trip was a subtle indicator that it wasn't real. I wonder if he’ll keep popping up in his zombie visage next year.

I was sure the Southside Serpents were a red herring for Jason’s death, so I was surprised they were as involved as they were. I knew they’d burned his car, though. They were well-utilized as both the town threat and as a representation of the “wrong kind of citizen” classism going on in Riverdale. I can’t wait to get to know more about their softer side as Jughead is inducted into their ranks…if they have one, that is. We know Alice is from the South Side; could she have been a Serpent at some point in her youth too?

I liked Kevin Keller and his love of drama, but even though it’s understandable they don’t have time to showcase everyone, I hope he gets some meatier material next year. Hopefully that’ll be the case, as Cott’s been made a series regular for season 2. His relationship with Joaquin (Rob Raco) didn’t feel very tragic when the latter skipped town (to San Junipero, of all places…uh oh) because we didn’t get to see them building their bond as much as we could have. I liked that Kevin got to play a role in resolving Jason’s murder, even if “I’m asking you as the Sheriff’s son” was a little melodramatic.

Josie and the Pussycats were fun local celebrities and their rendition of “Sugar, Sugar” was playful and catchy enough for me to forgive it being their song and not Archie’s (though in truth, I was familiar with the original version, but never knew that The Archies were THE Archies haha). I like that Josie’s focus on branding herself and the rest of the Pussycats, even in highschool, allowed for the iconic cat ears to be ever-present without being over the top. Murray brought a strong drive and focus to Josie that made me believe she’s going places, if she can get out of Riverdale. It was also great to get to see Josie’s family life and the pressure her parents, Mayor Sierra McCoy (Robin Givens) and Myles McCoy (Reese Alexander), put on her to excel; chalk up a couple more well-meaning but problematic adults! I hope the second season has Josie and/or Val mentoring Archie more; again, he seemed to get a lot out of working with them. I also liked that Val was levelheaded and straightforward the whole season and I’d like to get a glimpse into her home life next year. I wasn’t expecting her to dump Archie, but she was totally right to do so. I didn’t dislike their relationship, but her unwillingness to put up with his or the Blossoms’ foolishness—from a place of self-respect rather than jealousy, no less—felt so fresh and mature; definitely not something you’d get on run of the mill teen soaps. Like Kevin, I hope Josie and Val get more screentime next year, along with Melody (Asha Bromfield), whom we know nothing about thus far.

The rest of the kids got minimal screentime. Ethel (Shannon Purser) was an interesting addition with the biggest arc of the supporting students, going from slut-shamed quiet girl to gleefully watching Betty almost murder Chuck to finding confidence through her friendship with Betty and Veronica. I enjoyed her interaction with Veronica when it became clear what the Lodges had done to her family and I’m glad she forgave Ronnie instead of holding a grudge. It felt like a cleverer and more reasonable choice to forgive the innocent kid instead of blaming her for her father’s actions. Again and again, the teens on this show actually seem better-adjusted than their parents. Well, not Reggie (Ross Butler), who’ll be recast next year due to scheduling conflicts. Butler was fun as the stereotypical jock jerk with just a hint of a heart, though I hope having an actor who’s more available will give Reggie greater dimension next year. Moose (Cody Kearsley) being gay felt like it was going to be a bigger storyline, but by Episode 2 it seemed like an open secret and it (and he) were barely mentioned again; only popping up to get beaten up by Clifford’s hired thugs at Fred’s construction site. Dilton Doily (Major Curda) came off like Dwight Shrute, Jr. and I want to know what drove him to become a survivalist (which I suppose is the noir equivalent of a science brainiac). At least he’s comfortable being a self-proclaimed weirdo. You do you, Dilton. The one really egregious one-dimensional character was Chuck Clayton, who was unapologetically 100% evil. This was an unfortunate choice, given he is so out of line with the character in the comics. Chuck was Archie Comics’ first prominent black character, in fact, making the change an even more questionable decision. I wish he had more layers, but I’m not sure they can bring him around at this point.

The central murder mystery was very well-crafted. I loved how it unfolded and even though I’d pieced it together before the reveal (though possibly not the motive and I didn’t expect such deep Serpent involvement; my final theories can be found here), it was still emotionally satisfying. I wasn't expecting so quick a wrap-up of the penultimate episode’s cliffhanger (great pun, Jug!), but I liked that it allowed the characters to deal with the fallout in the season finale. While I always wanted the show to veer into supernatural Lovecraftian horror (and it could so easily!), it’s smarter that they resolved Jason’s murder within the mortal realm instead of pulling the rug out from under everyone in the last episode of the season. At one point, I thought they could bring Sabrina the Teenage Witch in as a "psychic" to help the cops investigate Jason's murder, but again, that may’ve been too much for season 1. The only point that didn’t make sense to me was why neither Archie nor Fake Miss Grundy thought to say they were at the lake by themselves; either one of them could’ve just said they heard the gunshot while camping on their own. It seemed like that generated a lot of unnecessary drama between the two of them, but since it was a red herring all along, it didn’t bother me in terms of the mystery. Besides Clifford’s motive and the Blossom/Lodge payments, the big red herring that still hasn’t been addressed is why Jughead asked for a lawyer when questioned about his whereabouts the week Jason died. Fred went so far as to create an alibi for him, no questions asked, and the tie-in comic doesn’t indicate any criminal behavior, so what was Jughead doing? Did he just not want to answer, feeling the classism working against him? Was his way of bucking the system? It felt a little odd for the show not to follow up on this, even with a line explaining it away, and I hope it does next season.

Riverdale had a great first season and I can’t wait to see how much crazier they’ll go next year. If they do go supernatural, I have no doubt that the well-drawn characters, strong actors, and more-than-capable writers will ground it enough to keep things relatable and fresh, no matter how crazy things get. If you haven't checked out Riverdale yet or want to hook your friends, the first season is streaming on Netflix now! Until it returns in October, we have the Riverdale tie-in comic for a glimpse before the series and between episodes. I'm not sure how groundbreaking it can be, but I'm glad to have it.

I can’t wait for season 2!

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