-I'm exactly Riverdale's target audience. I'm a lifelong fan of Archie Comics. I love high school shows and crazy Teen Soaps like The O.C. and Pretty Little Liars full of twists and snappy dialogue and sexual tension, which Riverdale has in spades. I also love the "suburban noir" Twin Peaks-esque vibe Riverdale is totally going for with their small town full of secrets. Yet despite loving all these things and planning to watch every episode of Riverdale, I had no expectations that this show would be any good. It wasn't that I think Archie can't be a crazy Teen Soap Murder Mystery show (I definitely think that), it was the way the show was marketed. Every ad, every hint that Archie and the gang were carrying dark secrets, every glimpse of angry angst-filled Jughead, every time they went to that shot of Betty kissing Veronica, it all seemed calculated, like some kid trying to prove how dark and edgy and cool they are. The marketing wasn't that misleading and it clearly established that this wouldn't be your father's Archie but after watching Chapter One: The River's Edge, it became clear that the marketing was selling the show short. Yes, it's a darker and sexier Riverdale than we're used to, but there's a lot of fun and warmth to be found in Riverdale too. It's a different, subversive take on Archie but it's still Archie and Riverdale is shaping up to be a worthy addition to the Archie universe.
-Over the 75+ years of Archie comics, a certain image has developed around the character of clean, fun wholesomeness. The Archie gang is all about burgers and milkshakes and love triangles and goofy capers and an ever constant status quo. What you see is mostly like you get. It's an image that's definitely justified, but not entirely accurate anymore, particularly since Jon Goldwater took over as CEO of Archie Comics in 2009 and began pushing to make Archie relevant for the 21st century. This started in 2010 with the introduction of Life With Archie, a series that depicted two different futures for Archie (one where he married Betty, one where he married Veronica.) and tackled more adult themes and stories about growing up, as well as the introduction of Kevin Keller, the first openly gay Archie character. After the horror-themed Afterlife With Archie became a runaway success writer Roberto Aguire-Sacasa (The showrunner of Riverdale, who developed it with producer-of-basically-everything-comics-related Greg Berlanti) was awarded the position of Chief Creative Officer of in 2014, and kept pushing to modernize Archie, most significantly through a reboot of the whole Archie universe in 2015, led by comic superstars Mark Waid and Fiona Staples. Through it all, the Archie brand has proven that it's incredibly versatile and can tell literally any kind of story, while still remaining true to the characters and the world. Archie has faced zombies, Predator, and has even died. So while the grit and darkness of Riverdale will definitely be off-putting to some, it's nothing really that new for the character or his world, and if you can embrace it, you'll find plenty to love about Riverdale (even if it's not perfect).
-As most people who read Archie will tell you, Archie is always typically the least exciting part about Archie. He's the everyman, our identification figure who guides us through the world so he can't be as vibrant or splashy as Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Kevin, Reggie, Hiram Lodge or basically anyone else. It's not that he can't be interesting, it's just very difficult to make him interesting and he's easily the blandest part of Riverdale so far. Oh, K.J. Apa gives it his best go and brings a much needed affability and relatability to the character, but it's just not that exciting to watch him try and figure out how to pursue his music or tell his dad Luke Perry that he doesn't want to follow him into construction or decide if he wants to play varsity football. Also "Archie got hot over the summer working construction" is literally a plot point because that's the best way they could come up with to explain why Veronica would be into him (Betty was already interested). This is all par for the course for Archie though. There's a reason we're introduced to almost every other major character before him and a reason why the show's called Riverdale and not Archie. Hopefully he'll become more compelling down the road but if not, that's fine because almost everyone else is much more interesting.
-If you need a reason to watch Riverdale, I can give you two: Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica (Camila Mendes). You'll fall in love with Betty immediately. She's bright and sweet and adorable, an overachiever who needs to be pushed to take action a bit, but once she takes charge, there's no stopping here. She more than holds her own against Mendes Veronica, who's sophisticated, confident, witty and sexy. Veronica has what I always felt was an unfair reputation for being kind of a unlikable rich snob in the comics, but the show avoids that by having her be someone who is trying to be a better person, even if she occasionally falls into old habits.
-If this episode has a key moment, it's when Veronica is accepted for cheerleading over Betty but tells Cheryl that "Betty and I come as a matching set. You want one, you take us both". Betty and Veronica have a super weird comics dynamic, where they're best friends but also fierce rivals and although both want Archie for themselves, they're basically cool with him dating both of them (The new Archie series thankfully changes that last part). Riverdale seems committed from the get-go to really developing an actual strong friendship between the two of them that's complex, but true and it's really nice to see. Yeah, there's a bit of a love triangle, but at the moment the love triangle is secondary to the relationship between Betty and Veronica. There's a really camaraderie between Reinhart and Mendes and you instantly start rooting for their friendship. Veronica is fun and feisty and drives Betty to be more assertive and confident and tries to help Betty and Archie get together. When she does kiss Archie during Seven Minutes in Heaven, it feels like a betrayal and you can tell she feels terrible about it, even if she doesn't quite regret it. I'm not excited to watch Archie mope around on the guitar or play football or whatever, but I'm really excited to see Betty and Veronica try to work out their friendship and figure out their dynamic.
-OK, I have serious apprehensions about Cole Sprouse's moody, angst-ridden take on Jughead. He's barely in the episode, beyond providing opening and closing narration and one scene with Archie so I can't really judge it yet, but beyond the good advice he gave to Archie, he just doesn't feel like Jughead yet. Also, the narration is presented to us as part of a novel Jughead is writing about the town and he seems to be writing it in real-time with the events of the narrative, but then it becomes omniscient in the last scene and I don't know how I feel about that. The show needs to establish clear rules for how the narration works and fast.
-I'm not super familiar with Kevin Keller, beyond his portrayal in Life With Archie and the relaunched Archie comics, but Casey Cott is a lot of fun and immediately the most interesting male character. The Gay Best Friend character is a well-worn trope and Riverdale is aware that it's a well-worn trope, but Cott brings a lot of energy and sass to the role, providing a nice counterbalance to Archie's sulkiness and Betty's uncertainty that complements nicely with Veronica's assertiveness. He also sells lines like "Game-Changer. Archie got hot! He's got abs now", like they're the most normal thing in the world. Kevin's still a relatively new character in the Archie universe, but it's great to see him getting so much exposure.
-Ashleigh Murray doesn't get a whole lot to do as Josie McCoy, leader of Josie and the Pussycats, but the small amount of screentime she does get makes me desperate to see more of her. She makes an instant impression.
-Every Teen Soap needs a great villain and Riverdale sets up two of them with Betty's Adderall-pushing perfectionist mother Alice (Mädchen Amick) and Riverdale High Queen Bee Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch). Alice is introduced dramatically declaring that Jason Blossom can burn in hell and she quickly establishes Alice as someone to root against, a toxic person who emotionally abuses Betty (while basically forcing her to take her medication) and is definitely responsible for the mental breakdown of Betty's sister Polly, even if she would rather blame Jason. Petsch's Cheryl meanwhile is a lot of fun as Riverdale's resident "shady bitch", relishing in stirring up chaos and tossing barbed quips. Her one-dimensional brand of villainy could get old pretty fast, but for now it's very watchable.
-It should be noted that if you like shows with naturalistic dialogue that sound like how real people talk, Riverdale is not that show. If however, you like super stylized, pop culture reference-laden dialogue where people say things like "I'm like Breakfast At Tiffany's but this place is strictly In Cold Blood" or use "too season 5 Betty Draper" as an insult (Maybe the best insult of all time by the way, provided you're familiar with Mad Men, which all the characters apparently are), you're going to love how ridiculous a lot of this dialogue is. The dialogue is also nice, because it helps keep the show from being too dark or self-serious.
-Teen Dramas have a long-standing tradition of focusing on the adult characters almost as much as they focus on the kids. So beyond Alice, you get Luke Perry as Archie's dad Fred (Amicably divorced from Archie's mother in this version) and Marisol Nichols as Veronica's mom Hermione (Dealing with the fallout of Hiram being arrested for fraud and embezzlement). They're not super interesting yet, but you just know that Fred and Hermione are going to hook up at some point (They used to date) so I'm stoked for that. Also when Archie's mom does show up, she'll be played by Molly Ringwald, so that could be a lot of fun.
-If Riverdale was going to murder someone to kick off their story, Jason Blossom is a good candidate. He's the also-ran of the Blossom siblings and a 3rd-stringer Archie character, but notable enough that his death has instant stakes to it. Also, although I knew how the episode would end the moment Jughead tells us that the death was ruled an accident because no body was ever found, but I was still pumped for that last scene when surprise, surprise, the body does show up with a big bullet hole in the head. The murder isn't the most exciting aspect of Riverdale, but as long as it's kept relatively in the background to these characters and their development, it could be a lot of fun.
-Archie's summer love affair with Ms. Grundy (Sarah Habel) got a lot of publicity before Riverdale started for obvious reasons and looks to be a big plot driver, since it's connected to the death of Jason and it's the main reason Archie can't commit to the idea of a relationship with Betty. I'm not a big fan of this story so far. I can understand why it's in the show. It gives Archie a secret and connects him to the murder in a way that's natural, but television has a bad track record at portraying student-teacher relationships, tending to focus on the forbidden love aspect without engaging with all the dark, ethically murky implications of a person in authority sleeping with a minor and the reasons why they're a crime in the first place (See: Pretty Little Liars). Riverdale doesn't seem to be romanticizing Archie's relationship with Ms. Grundy but I'll remain skeptical for now.
-Really, the only misstep in how Betty and Veronica are being handled so far was the kiss. Having Veronica kiss Betty to play on outdated taboos for shock value and then immediately having another character call the kiss out as playing on outdated taboos for shock value doesn't really change the fact that the kiss was unnecessary, flimsily justified, and just there so they could throw another shocking thing into the promos.
-Also Betty was introduced in her underwear and Archie is introduced shirtless, both of which seemed excessive, but in a fun way.
-Kudos to Riverdale for bringing more diversity into Riverdale. Veronica and her mom are Latina, Reggie's Indonesian, and Josie, The Pussycats, and Pop are African-American. It's a small thing really, but something that makes Riverdale better reflect our world.
-Moose being closeted is definitely a different take on the character, but I'm willing to see where it goes. It's mostly played for laughs here before leading to the discovery of Jason's body.
-Reggie is probably the 5th most important Archie character in the comics, but he's basically an extra here, reimagined as a total bro jock who doesn't seem to have much of a rivalry with Archie. I'm assuming that'll change as the season goes on though. Reggie is much too interesting a character to just let go to waste.
-Keeping Hiram Lodge off the board for now is smart. He's the best antagonist in all of Archie and the most well-defined adult character, so having him in prison gives everyone else a chance to develop and become compelling in their own right (Plus maybe get a romance between Fred and Hermione going) before he inevitably comes on the scene to stir everything up. He's already covertly sending Hermione money. Who knows what he'll do next?
-Riverdale, like most Teen Soaps, has a strong soundtrack full of solid indie pop and alternative music. It's great!
-Riverdale's slogan is "The Town With Pep". Archie originally debuted in Pep comics so that's a fun little Easter Egg.
-If you are interested in exploring the world of Archie Comics further, I definitely recommend Mark Waid's relaunched Archie series. It's an all-ages contemporary take on Archie and his friends that actually manages to make Archie interesting and relevant for today's times. I'm less familiar with the relaunched Jughead, but I also hear nothing but good things about it.
-Murder Theory Corner: In which I try and figure out who the murderer is. Right now, I'm going with Josie. Why? Because she's a regular cast member who doesn't seem suspicious, isn't super connected to any of the storylines right now (Though I imagine she'll have a part to play as Archie's exploration into music develops), and she's a big enough character that it'd be shocking, without coming off as a massive betrayal for fans of the character. Actually, it could be seen as a massive betrayal. But guaranteed, whatever happened to Jason, Josie is connected to it somehow.
-So yeah, overall it was a strong start for Riverdale. I'm planning to cover this show weekly so stay tuned for much more sexy Archie shenanigans.
No comments:
Post a Comment