What do gargoyles, speakeasies, and maple syrup have in common? Nothing, really, but that hasn’t stopped Riverdale from making several inexplicably intertwined plotlines involving each of them. After capturing the attention of preteens everywhere in 2017, Riverdale had the momentum to be an iconic show amongst the next generation of TV watchers. So what exactly went wrong?
In the premiere season, the plot and characters were both complex enough to be engaging and simple enough to hold people’s attention. The small, picturesque town of Riverdale was rocked by the murder of Jason Blossom—and teen amataur detectives Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones would stop at nothing to solve the mystery of his death. Throw in diners, small town drama, and witty one liners, and the CW had crafted an intriguing show with a cult following.
Tragically, the first season established a standard that subsequent seasons would consistently fail to reach. The relatively simple plot line devolved into madness as the show introduced more and more mysteries, including several murderous patriarchs, a magical gargoyle king, and a grieving sister bordering the line of insanity by living with her dead brother’s body. The show ventured beyond a murder mystery into a world of magic, chaos, and random musical episodes that neither added to the plot nor covered the songs very well. Unfortunately, every ambitious and nonsensical plotline they undertook was done poorly, and it seemed as though whenever the writers grew tired of working on one of the existing plot points, they would simply throw in three more, or reveal that yet another one of Betty’s family member was secretly a murderer.
Beyond butchering the plot, Riverdale writers consistently fumbled plotlines involving more interesting and entertaining characters. Characters such as Cheryl Blossom, whose sarcastic quips and attitude made her a standout of the first season, were put on a back burner in order to devote an unnecessary and lengthy amount of time to the backstory of Hiram Lodge—Veronica’s father who just keeps popping back up, no matter how many times he’s been dramatically shot in the stomach. The more genuine plot lines—such as Archie coping with the loss of his father (a tragedy that shook the cast in real life), were often overshadowed by the inexplicable arcs that the show chose to explore in depth. Some new bloodthirsty villain would spring up and occupy the protagonists’ attention for the episode, or the writers would fill time with yet another montage of Archie pondering whether to pursue music or football (similar to High School Musical, if Troy Bolton took his shirt off every ten seconds).
Rather than developing the motivations and personalities of each character, Riverdale seemed to become obsessed with shocking the audience, and incorporating whatever they needed to do it, regardless of how ridiculous or repetitive the plot lines became. If the writers believed that audiences were becoming bored of the Betty/Jughead/Archie love triangle—surprise, suddenly, a new murderer or comically named drug was wreaking havoc on the citizens of Riverdale and distracting from the fact that Betty and Archie just do not have convincing chemistry.
In all of its bizarreness, Riverdale has reached a type of impact that few shows strive for or achieve. Those who still watch immediately have to clarify that they watch it “ironically,” and those who unironically watch should probably be focusing on their pre algebra homework instead. To both the cast and the viewers (who may or may not be gripped with some version of Stockholm Syndrome), Riverdale is a proverbial car crash, which keeps those in its orbit paralyzed from looking away. Now only one question remains: how much longer can a show with writers who don’t seem to be familiar with the concept of rejecting a plot line stay on the air?