Riverdale is the most ridiculous bullshit I've ever seen. And I loved every second of it.
I've been excited for this series since I saw the first trailer. Not legitimately excited, but excited to see what weird, likely cringeworthy teen drama tropes would be employed to completely dismantle the characters from the long-running Archie comics series. And my oh my, did this show ever surpass my expectations of bad. I know that I'm not exactly the target audience for teen drama shows, but I'm just amazed. This show is impressively bad. Every single element of it fails so spectacularly, and yet it's the guiltiest pleasure I've experienced in years.
I'm certain, more than I've been certain about may things in my life, that this series was not intended to be an adaptation of the Archie comics from its inception. That's not to say that the show had to completely adhere like the comics, but it's so radically different that any connection between the two mediums exists only on the surface. I think the real story behind this series is that The CW wanted to make a new teen drama show and they had no way to market it, so they decided "Let's make it about Archie, I guess. That hasn't been done before."
Because that's what The CW's target demographic loves. Archie Comics. Of course.
As an adaptation, this show is so far removed from its source material that it's laughable, and that's only where the show being laughable begins. Tonally, it tries to be very serious, and if it was being delivered ironically, with some sort of "meta" touch, then maybe it would work. The tone falls especially flat because the characters in the Archie comics have such ridiculous names, and those names beingthrown around in heated, dramatic arguments were among the funniest points in the show. For some reason, it's hard to get caught up in dramatic tension when a character calls another one "Juggie."
The fact that this show is ostensibly a murder-mystery kind of says everything you need to know. A murder-mystery isn't exactly the kind of story i would associate with Archie, but if the show wants to do its own thing, that's fine. The best adaptations understand the spirit of the source material, but are able to create their own version to fit their own storytelling medium. But Riverdale doesn't do this. Riverdale takes a somewhat well-known property and slots the characters into roles that don't fit them. I'm no Archie purist, but the comics have been running since 1942, so the characters have been more than established. Why couldn't the show just tell a story around the characters, rather than doing something so ridiculously out of left field?
Riverdale takes quite few liberties with the characters from the comics, but instead of transforming and modernising them into more complex people, it makes them into even blander stereotypes. Jughead (Cole Sprouse) is an emo kid who's obsessed with an investigation, and has a film purist attitude out of nowhere. Kevin (Casey Cott) is an embarrassingly out-of-touch gay stereotype, the kind that SNL wouldn't even mock anymore. Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) is a complete sociopath, and it doesn't help that she refuses to speak anything like how humans speak. Everything about Riverdale is so unnatural, like we're watching a show about a bunch of aliens trying to fit into human society. It's like 3rd Rock From the Sun, except every single character is operating on the same, bizarre level. Also, the humour is unintentional here.
The idea of adapting the Archie comics in the modern day isn't dead on arrival. There is an interesting story to be told with the characters, but this show really misses the point. The characters are nothing more than stagnant, outdated archetypes. Archie (K.J. Apa) is a blank slate, and the supporting cast doesn't do much to help him. The show does try to be unique, and doesn't even address the obvious character drama, which is the love triangle between Archie, Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica (Camila Mendes). I almost would have preferred that plot being explored. It wouldn't have been particularly original, or even compelling (probably), but it would have been something. It tries to be progressive and adds the expected amount of diversity for a CW show, but it doesn't do anything with the new material.
I mean, the largest conflict in the show was built on a dispute about maple syrup. I couldn't make that up if I tried.
What I hope for with shows like these is that at least the acting will be good, but not a single person gives a good performance. Everyone feels so stilted and awkward, which is largely due to the absolutely horrendous writing that they had to work with. The writers really seem to think they're funny and clever, but they couldn't be more wrong. Every opportunity for "jokes" rely on pop-culture references and characters speaking like annoying caricatures of millennials. Or making references that the writers think millennials would make, but nobody actually would. From one of the very first scenes, when Archie pulls down his shirt over his ridiculously chiselled abs while Betty and Kevin ogle him, with Kevin proclaiming "Archie got hot!", it's fairly obvious exactly what the show is gong to be in terms of dialogue.
If Riverdale loves anything, it's "lampshading". It's difficult to count the number of times that characters point out the inherent ridiculousness of everything happening around them and then just move on, but instead of establishing some sort of ironic tone, it points out how lazy everything is. I feel like every teen show tries to be ironic and meta now, but this show draws too much attention to those moments and references. Again, something new could have been done with the tropes of teen drama shows, but this show goes through the motions at the lowest possible level of quality. The show is unremarkable in every way, and yet I couldn't stop watching. I was engrossed, addicted to the failure that is Riverdale. I couldn't wait to see what happened next, or what ridiculous revelation was waiting around the corner.
The show seems to constantly be at war with itself. It clearly wants to be a gritty, serious drama, but the show might as well be set in Twin Peaks in terms of realism. I can't think of a single moment across the season that I related to, or found to be a believable thing to happen. It wants to tell the mystery of Jason Blossom's murder, but it also wants to make a "statement" about slut-shaming, or tell a story about student-teacher relationships, or secret gay relationships, or undefined mental illness. The show piles on sub-plot after sub-plot, detail after detail, but the writers don't have the time or the talent to do any of it properly. The show just gets progressively more hilarious, as it gets more and more ridiculous.
Despite all of that, the season finale was legitimately well-put-together, and managed to unironically get me on-board for the first time in the whole season. So I'm not sure where I stand now. I think I might actually enjoy the show, even though the enjoyment was rooted in a place of laughing at it. I am excited to see what happens in season 2, whether it's actually entertaining or just hilariously bad. Riverdale has struck such a weird balance.
Riverdale was an entertaining time from start to finish, even if that entertainment factor didn't come from anything of quality. I got some brief nostalgic flashes when things like Josie and the Pussycats or Pop's Chock-lit shop would appear, but any positivity associated with those wore after the first time. The show's intro describes the town as "once wholesome". Well, maybe they should have stuck with more wholesome, innocent story. A more lighthearted atmosphere certainly would have fit the characters and source material more. The most interesting aspects of the story are the ones that aren't related to Jason Blossom's murder, so if those had been focused on, the show might have been able to deliver anything worth watching. Riverdale could have added in the diversity and the modernized aspects, while still utilizing what works about the comics. But it didn't, and we have a generic teen drama that serves as a terrible adaptation of the Archie comics, and an endless source of unintentional cringe comedy.
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