Riverdale

In a land of endless teen dramas writers and networks are constantly asking themselves, how do we keep audiences interested? Riverdale has kept audiences captivated for several too many seasons and the question is how? I think an important place to start is with the evolution of the teen drama.

Let's start in a land far far away, Capeside. Dawson’s creek wasn’t the first teen drama to exist but it was arguably one of the most groundbreaking, we’ve all seen the famous meme. Dawson’s creek was at its core a coming of age story, with story arcs that covered mental health, sexuality and addiction all conveyed by relatable and grounded characters. No off the wall storylines here.

Dawson’s Creek then gave birth to shows like One Tree Hill. OTH kept the hometown feel and the relatable characters and added ambition, all of the main characters going on to lofty and famous careers. Realistic, no but it did add a level of fantasy and daydreaming to its characters. What kid in a small town doesn’t want more? It did push the envelope of what teen drama’s generally explored; Peyton got a stalker, Brooke got assaulted, Jamie had a crazy nanny that tried to kidnap him, Dan shot his brother, and Nathan got kidnapped. However these storylines are offset by the characters exploring their humanity and how these events changed them.

Enter Gossip Girl, immediately set in a world out of reach for most. Every storyline was heightened. Bart fakes his death, Serena gets drugged and dates a convict, Chuck trades Blair for a hotel and then takes a 16 year olds virginity…it's ridiculous, but somehow still real. You try to relate to the characters, you see the situations they're in and think, well yeah if I had money…which was the point.

These shows were all building blocks to what is now the phenomenon of Riverdale. This show is essentially a writers workshop, it's a safe space where writers can try whatever they want and it all goes to print.

Season 1 has more teen drama moments but it is at it's core a murder mystery. Best season 1 lines;

“6 more reasons to take that ginger bull by the horns tonight”

“Read my glossed lips Justin gingerlake”

“You should the queen bae of this drab hive”

“You wanted fire? Sorry Cheryl bombshell my specialty is Ice”

“I’m a weirdo Betty…”

Season 1 is its most grounded and yet still filled with plenty of unrealistic moments and truly, incredibly terrible dialogue.

Bettie and Ronnie kiss for exactly no reason, and in a show that actually ends up being great LGBTQ+ representation it's very out of place, it makes sense in a pilot because the show very clearly hadn’t found its footing yet. They still haven’t…or maybe they did the world will never know.

We glimpse a teen drama moment with Betty dancing around in her room wearing her cheerleading uniform and feeling pressure from her mother and rebelling. And then we immediately dive back into outrageous when Hermione discovers the massive bag of cash.

Season 1 does a reasonable job of balancing the hometown moments and grounded character interactions with the unrealistic and ridiculous storylines. The interactions with Archie and his father and the kids questioning their futures and trying to figure out who they are is very real and fits into the genre that Riverdale is claiming to be. The murder mystery actually adds a decent twist to the show and that’s what makes it interesting, if you can look past the unforgivably bad dialogue.

KJ Apa got that Taylor Lautner contract, must be shirtless in 75% of scenes. Because a teen drama is not a teen drama unless we’re sexualizing characters that are teenagers. Teenage characters that are sexy…because gross.

The sheer volume of pop culture references in this show is so unbelievably unnecessary…

“It's the rich kids from the goonies”

“Watch it Wednesday Addams”

“Blue Jasmine”

Season 1 is actually upsettingly good. The teen drama base with the twist of murder mystery is brilliant and some of the scenes have very well built tension and character development. The acting is very good and certain moments are very well written. But the absurd amount of hilariously bad dialogue really sinks the good moments.

I called it a writers workshop earlier but to expand it's like being in a freshmen level screenwriting class and the whole class is writing a short film together and there's this 1 guy who's really talented but he is surrounded by a bunch of students whose philosophy it is to shake a hornets nest and throw it into the middle of the room to see what happens.

Now after a show completes its first season you see one of two things; 1) The show runners desperately want to stay relevant and interesting so they lean really far into what they think made their first season successful, and they amplify it. This happens whether or not the show was planned past the first season. Season 2 of One Tree Hill upped the drama, the second season of Pretty Little Liars tried to add mystery to their mystery show. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Or 2) The show runners get brave and they try something completely new, feeling safe and comfortable in the fact that they got renewed. This sometimes happens later in seasons in an attempt to keep things interesting. Vampire Diaries introduced the Originals (arguably one of its better seasons) and then it quickly went downhill after that. Riverdale however took this to an extreme. The only real similarities it shares with season 1 is that the characters exist and the dialogue is atrocious. Oh and we have another murder mystery…only this time it's a serial killer.

Betty’s dad is a serial killer, Jughead joins the southside serpents, Betty does a serpent dance? Archie gets manipulated by Hiriam into fighting fire with fire and he forms The Red Circle which is basically a bunch of untrained vigilante football players. Because that's who's gonna stop a serial killer overconfident teenagers in red ski masks. Juggie is joining the serpents and here’s possibly one of the most upsetting things about this show….the acting is good, they are doing the best with what they’ve got and in it's quieter moments the acting particularly by Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse is phenomenal. The other hilarious thing about the acting is that all of the parents are like big deals, freaking Skeet Ulrich, Luke Perry, Molly Wringwald and Madchen Amick like come on how did they end up on Riverdale…

Now through all the ridiculous things that happen in season 2 it somehow remains Riverdale’s best season. Arguably it's the most compelling storyline, we start to watch the train leave the tracks. Betty doing the serpent dance…I have many many thoughts on this but let's start with maybe this is the reason poor Lili Reihnhart hates the show so much, because we’re oversexualizing characters that are in high school. Now the girls of One Tree Hill have their own podcast and they've talked a lot about how they were treated by the older men in power as young women on set, now no one knows what goes on behind the scenes unless the actors tell us but I have a hard time believing that a production team that is nearly all men that insists on sexualizing high school age characters isn't problematic. Just because the actors playing these characters are of age doesn’t make it okay.

Though a little more out in left field, season 2 was still at it's core a murder mystery. Just with a serial killer that happens to be the father of one of our main characters. This season still has some profoundly teenage moments like when Veronica and Jughead decide the best way to even out the playing field is for them to kiss and Betty and Archie just have to watch, that was fully a teenage response to jealousy and insecurity.

The fact that season 3 is completely built around Dungeons and Dragons, I'm sorry Griffins and Gargoyles…is a choice. We must also talk about the role of musical episodes in this show. Now musical episodes on television are common, once an entire show. Buffy, Greys Anatomy, Supergirl all had musical episodes, some of which were pretty well received. It's fun once in a while, it's a break from the reality of the show normally introduced at a point in the story that is simply too heavy to continue without some kind of alleviation. But in a world like Riverdale, one that is so off the wall and continues to have filler episodes, the amount of musical episodes they have somehow adds ridiculousness to this show. Now music has always played an important role in the show but not in a true introspective and meaningful way that it does in One Tree Hill and not in an entirely numb way that it did on Glee. It walks this line between being relevant and completely out of place. When the musical episodes started they at least fit the overall aesthetic of the show Carrie and Heathers somehow fit into the tone of Riverdale, Hedwig is pushing it but I get it. I will simply never forgive them for doing whatever it is they did to Next to Normal. That show is emotional and weighted and vocally impeccable, it's underrated broadway brilliance and not a single person in that cast has the vocal chops to listen to the show let alone sing it.

Teen Drama Tropes;

Love triangles

Teenagers solving a mystery (Pretty Little Liars, Teen Wolf)

Heightened Stakes (Gossip Girl, Euphoria, The OC, 90210)

Over sexualized teenagers (literally all of them)

Missing or absent parents (literally all of them)

My favorite thing about this show is that the producers and writers really double down on sincerity whenever they talk about the show. And the funny thing about that is that if they would just market the show as satire it would be regarded as one of the most brilliant shows in history and it would still give them the license to do just whatever they wanted, the crazier the better. But to just continue in earnest really makes us as the audience question their sanity.

Season 3 involves a prison break, the farm and of course the epic highs and lows of high school football. Now I will say that the performance of Jailhouse Rock is one of the least offensive throughout the show, it's still utterly ridiculous.

Now though most of these notes were taken during a rewatch, I physically couldn’t handle watching this show anymore so let's discuss the time jump. Also a mark of teen dramas; One Tree Hill, Dawson’s Creek often used to skip the inevitable college separation. The problem with Riverdale’s time jump is that the show was so incoherent and forced just before the time jump that when we came back the very specific and seemingly random 7 year jump was a little too much. They forced Archie and Ronnie apart as well as Betty and Jughead and it's not at all what the characters wanted to do, it was story forced which shows fundamental flaws with the screenwriting and not just the obvious dialogue and setting and plot ones.

The time after the time jump was awkward, the story seemed very lost. The thing with Riverdale is as weird as the story might be, the story is always clear. There is always a very weird but distinct plot that's at least coherent. But season 5 doesn’t have a clear plot. There is a vague idea of one but there's no development and the scenes that could be called plot points are all over the place.

So the origin story episode with Hiram Lodge was interesting…I’ve mentioned how for the most part the acting isn’t bad, but the dude that plays young Hiram Lodge is so so terrible. His eyes have no expression, his delivery for every single line was the same and it looked like he didn’t know what to do with his mouth when he talked. This whole episode was weird and unnecessary. It really just solidified that after the time jump the writers just really didn’t know what they were doing. Are we trying to give Hiram Lodge a redemption arc? Weird choice, Reggie going back to make amends with his physically abusive father? Truly damaging choice, theres bad writing and then theres forgiving abusers and murderers and writers have a responsibilty to the general public to not promote garbage.

Also movies exist in cannon but everything else gets bullshit ass fake names, Marcia’s Vineyard? Lacie’s? Glamrague Egg? It's so bad, but somehow Coyote Ugly exists…mkay

Honestly of all the things this show has done, Cheryl starting a ministry with her mother is the most out of left field thing they’ve done.

The thing that bothers me the most about this show is probably the inconsistent cinematography. Now normally once a show establishes it's style, the only major changes come from doing something like a crossover episode, or a musical episode and the directors want to make a tone shift clear. But Riverdale uses basic teen drama cinematography, first person cam shots, high angle close up shots (as for the drug trips and way too many other random moments that they don’t seem to fit in), and what looks like attempts at horror movie jump cuts just done poorly. They either can’t seem to decide what their style is OR they are simply trying to be creative and are failing miserably at it.

For the most part Riverdale works in archetypes much like the original comics. Riverdale takes these archetypes to the extreme Archie being the golden boy, jock; Cheryl lays it out in season five he’s been a soldier, a fireman, a football coach he does good, he is the hero. Jughead is the outsider, the sleuth, the loner the kid from the wrong side of the tracks. If we’re using Jungian archetypes Juggie would be Rebel. He’s always trying to solve something, to fix something. A crime, his family, his writing, but no matter what he does he always ends up alone. Veronica is the princess, the rich bitch, I would argue she shares the same archetype as her father, The Ruler. She is in charge, she thrives in chaos and she always has a plan. Betty, the Black Widow, the fighter. Betty is a very extreme version of the explorer, she needs to take risks, discover things she always runs headfirst into whatever danger awaits her. Now most stories deal in archetypes in some form or another but the thing with Riverdale is that it only deals in archetypes. Bad teen dramas have been well received for decades now because of the human connection, because of the universality of the emotions, because of the audience's attachment to the characters. But with Riverdale there is nothing more, these archetypes are all there are to the characters, there's no depth, no heart, no weight to them. There was starting to be in the first few seasons but as the show went on the less there was to the characters, it became about the story driving the show instead of the characters which is never a good way to tell a story.

I will say Josie calling out the craziness of her high school friends was a great moment if for no other reason that it shows that the show is at least somewhat self aware. Granted it could have been a complete accident but I choose to believe that the writers meant to imply that after leaving Riverdale you gain perspective and aren’t completely desensitized to the insanity that is this town.

So really any episode on Riverdale could be a musical episode and I say this with complete love and respect to the cast but the distribution of songs is so incorrect. The people that sing the most over all the seasons Archie, Josie, Cheryl um lets just go with shouldn’t have been singing that much and characters that we rarely get to hear, Valerie, Mallory, Betty have incredible voices and we don’t get to hear them nearly enough.

I think it's hilarious that when Kevin thought Cheryl's ministry was about worshiping Jason he was chill with it but when she said they were worshiping Gaia that's where he draws the line. She’s getting magical powers somehow? Literally no explanation…mkay.

Really opening season 6 with a very on the nose twilight zone reference is a bit much. But misusing La Llorona was gross, that was definitely a team of all white writers and it was really unacceptable. This show has done some out there shit and that's fine but disrespecting an actual, cultural story is ridiculous. They could have called her a woman in white or weeping woman the way that supernatural did and it would have been fine but considering the actual translation is wailing woman and they insisted on calling her La Llorona as well as telling her story wrong it's just really unacceptable.

There is a phrase used when talking about television shows that push the boundaries it's called “jumping the shark” this is in reference to the show Happy Days where they literally had the Fonz jump over a shark. The phrase is usually used to determine whether or not a show has gone too far, broken past its boundaries and failed. Now the reality is that Riverdale has had many jumping the shark moments from Juggy faking his death to Archie getting attacked by a bear to the prison break to Betty taking down the trash bag killer, this show is known for pushing boundaries and testing its limits. Riverdale is coming back for season 7 and dear god I hope it ends soon for the sake of the actors. Watch any interview they’re in and they hate this show so much, no one thinks the show is more ridiculous than the poor cast.