Forget it, guest star Kelly Ripa, it's Extra-Reverent Noir Homage Week on Riverdale
TV Reviews RiverdaleWatching “The Red Dahlia,” Riverdale’s most reverent homage yet to the tropes and textures of film noir, a viewer might be reminded of another show well-schooled in pop-culture mimicry, Community. Both programs demonstrated an in-and-out understanding of what defines a certain Dan Harmon’s cult-adored sitcom regularly savaged such genres as the zombie flick or the Western with deconstructive wit, picking apart the clichés in covert essayloads of auto-critique. Riverdale takes the opposite tack and plays everything so unabashedly straight that the on-the-nose-ness itself becomes the joke. Quick, without thinking, first thing that comes to mind: If you were going to spoof one classic line from the cigarette-flavored mouth of a hardboiled detective, what would it be? Something like, “Forget it, Jughead. It’s Riverdale.” Right? Well, guess what!
The only way to pull off a rapid-fire barrage of references to (and it’s possible this isn’t even covering everything but here goes) Raymond Chandler and The Big Sleep in particular, Martin Scorsese, Lauren Bacall, Mark Twain, Brian De Palma, Dynasty, The Godfather Part I, Jennifer’s Body, Bad Boys II, Silence of the Lambs, Chinatown, Chinatown, and Chinatown, is with absolute and unwavering conviction. If we’re doing a noir episode, we’re going all in, monochromatic dutch angles and all. Riverdale would never turn up its nose at any of these allusions as ‘obvious’ because it wants us all to know how much the show loves these people and works. The show won’t interrogate its relationship to these reference points because what it wants more than anything is to be them.
It’s genre as dress-up, and this week sees Veronica donning the sunglasses and statement hats of a Barbara Stanwyck-styled femme fatale. She comes to typewriter-clacker/teen gumshoe Jughead with an assignment to get to the bottom of who shot JR Hiram. That’s on top of his own issues for the episode, which involve disposing of Tallboy’s rapidly decomposing corpse and convincing his newly appointed sheriff dad that he isn’t doing exactly that. (No great testament to F.P.’s skills as an officer of the law that he couldn’t even detect a mouldering body when he was sitting right on top of it. Something about the sheriff’s hat makes the person wearing it oblivious.) And Veronica’s only farming the work out to Philip Marlowe Jr. because she’s got a comatose father to tend to, which mostly means firing his only guards and coming up with a harebrained scheme to affect the appearance of power for appearances’ sake.
Between Veronica dressing down the capos for “mobsplaining” and Archie mouthing off to his supervisor on day one of his new job with his dad’s construction crew, this hour features two instances of teenagers fully convinced that they know more about a given profession than someone with decades of experience. Veronica’s equally baffling choice to burn her cache of drugs — because, I guess, drugs are bad? — reaps bitter consequences for her as well, calling into question the judgement of someone who’s at her best when outwitting the people around her. Archie’s getting worse and worse, and while the writers mean that spiral to be in terms of his approach to the rock bottom of getting drunkenly thrown out of the Bonne Nuit, he’s only growing less entertaining to watch. As he himself points out, his transformation in the woods didn’t stick. Once a dumbass, always a dumbass, it would appear. More inexplicable than merely stupid, this kind of acting-out falls on the wrong side of the show’s belief that it needn’t be beholden to patterns of human behavior.
Veronica and Archie’s respective self-owns drag down what should be the series’ greatest episode, because it is the one in which Betty and Jughead do investigative work at a local bordello. As she so elegantly puts it, “And now, apparently, there’s a not-so-secret sex club in Riverdale.” Her tone conveys the oh-for-the-love-of-god-now-what quality of the discovery and the demands it makes of the viewer. Get on or get out, because at the red-lit Maple Club, it’s “a safe place, as long as you know the safe word.” Betty and Jughead don’t spend too much time there, however, each of them hot on trails leading to Penelope Blossom, Hermione Lodge, and a face from the past presumed deceased.
Let’s see, what else, what else — Cheryl Blossom has donned her foxiest mourning ensemble to grieve the death of Claudius along with her mother, who it turns out has done some serial poisoning over the years. (Thank Jennifer’s Body scribe Diablo Cody for Penelope’s explanation that she had been killing “Not people, Betty. Men.”) The Blossom family’s flair for the dramatic leads once again to some sublime actorly moments, whether that’s Cheryl Blossom’s weirdly-phrased request for Betty to “mourn with us, cousin,” or the percussive shame implied in the final syllable of “My father hung himself in a barn.” If she show was to tighten its focus to a single narrative thread, the ongoing soap operatics between the Blossoms could sustain a viewership for years.
All of this, and not one mention of the five-foot-three elephant in the room, guest star Kelly “The Ripper” Ripa as Hiram’s side piece Mrs. Mulwray. She’s not permitted to have nearly as much fun as she did when stopping by Broad City to get lit up and order some handsome gigolos for herself and Abbi, but Ripa vamps it up as a pistol-toting blonde bombshell from the imagination of Dashiell Hammett. Though she’s as conspicuously out-of-place, as ineffably herself as Andy Cohen was himself, Ripa presents a welcome intrusion on the insularity of Riverdale. She’s a living set piece, a genuflection to camp in the same conceptual ballpark as the kitty-cat burglary from earlier this season. Another reference in this show’s flavorful stew of eclectic influences, she arrives surrounded by scare quotes. It is in this respect that she’s the perfect guest star for this show, in which we viewers must permanently squint and wonder just how seriously we’re supposed to take all this. The best episodes of Riverdale assure us that it’s all in good fun, but “The Red Dahlia,” in its undermining of Veronica and Archie’s scenes, can’t quite manage that much.
Stray observations:
– Veronica’s pitch-perfect blank stare in response to Reggie’s musing that their plan resembles the plot of Bad Boys II reminds us whose cultural vocabulary forms the dialect around these parts. This is a “No Michael Bays Allowed” clubhouse.
– When David Robert Mitchell’s new movie Under the Silver Lake comes out in April, it will absolutely liquefy some of the Riverdale writers’ brains. Talk about your worshipful mash-ups of film noir with other cultural detritus endeared to an idiosyncratic, uncompromising author!
– Last week’s locker-room clip of Reggie’s animatronic “little bitch, Andrews” and “you were attacked by a friggin’ bear?” line-readings has been uploaded to Twitter, and I’ve seen it mocked for ostensibly “bad” writing and acting. What do these people want from this show? Are they disappointed that Riverdale, once a paragon of David Simonesque social realism, has fallen out of touch with plausibility? Do they go to pizza places and yell at the servers for not making Chinese food?
– I’d like to attend the passingly-mentioned Scorsese retrospective at the Bijou. Do you think they mostly stick to the greatest-hits stuff, or can I expect to see a Kundun or a New York, New York? Do they run 35mm prints, or is it just a DCP situation? Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, these are the burning questions we need answered!
– “To paraphrase Samuel Clemens,” Veronica says of her father, “reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated.” Two things: one, not sure that she (or whoever wrote this line) knows what “paraphrase” means, and two, people who refer to Mark Twain as Samuel Clemens are, without exception, nerds.
Spoiler time!
– A corrupt mayor, in murderous cahoots with a corrupt sheriff, and in double-cahoots with the still-living, also corrupt former sheriff? It’s possible that Riverdale may be even worse off now than when it was under Hiram’s thumb.
– One of these days, this show’s allotment of masked shooter ex machinas will run out, but today is not that day. For the moment, there’s no jam the show can’t get itself out of with a well-placed gunman in a ski mask.
– If there’s still any hope that Archie can be salvaged as a character, it’s in the scenes that see him reconciling with a remorseful Hiram and asking Josie to play music again. “Like in the old days,” as she astutely says. Archie’s best self was his “guileless ripped Ed Sheeran” mode, and returning to that would be a preferable alternative to his failed experiments in going edgy over the past two years.
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People crap on Riverdale because its basically the new Glee. aka the writers do what they want whenever they want, it’s built on shipping and social media, it’s has shallow performative rep (at best) whilst possesses no internal logic or governed by any known rules.You wear the glee crown, you’re gonna get ridiculed.
That and the show was, like Glee, desperately overhyped early on and passed off as some kind of quality entertainment.
Also like Glee it actually was kind of good at the start and then immediately crawled up it’s own ass.
And of course its creator/showrunner… wrote for Glee (some of their worst episodes, no less!)
That explains so much.
But that’s not a new thing this season. The built on ships and social media thing was clearly around in season two when it became all about bughead or barchie or vughead or hashtagging darkbetty. And they bogged down otherwise compelling plots with all that ship nonsense. See also: Cheryl showing up in some earlier episodes for basically the exact length of time as the average gif, and then the writers only giving her something to do when they realized that people wanted her with Toni. Hence why they have never done anything substantive with that ship since its inception: they figured out it was what people wanted but still have no idea how to write it compellingly.
Oh yeah the second season crippled Riverdale so bad it’ll never be anything other than fandom fodder/shameful guilty pleasure. I’m guessing S2 generated a huge social media presence and the show leaned into it at the expense of everything else… hence our currant season.Now they’ve hitched their wagon to the fandom, the fans basically run the show now. Deviate from their deluded vision and they’ll crucify you… give into it and they’ll want even more (Bughead/Choni wedding anyone?)
Which is interesting since they are trying to create a spin-off to Riverdale that is pretty much Glee 2.0. I have no idea how that’s going to work out, but I’m ready to see dozens of cringe videos on Youtube.
I loved all the investigations/ conflicts ending in mutual standoffs w/ both people (Hermione/ Jughead, Hiram/ Archie, Penelope/ Betty) basically blackmailing each other. It was senseless yet right.Are Archie and Josie going to be a thing now? If so I don’t know whether to be more impressed that she has dated Reggie, Sweet Pea, and him, or that he has dated 2/3 of the Pussycats
WHERE IS MELODY AND VALERIE ARE THEY LIKE, DEAD?!?!??!
I miss Val and I would like to know what is up with Melody too
In my own head cannon, they moved to Chicago, like archie should have, and they live very fulfilling and prosperous lives. They still do music and they’re like a cooler, poppier, blacker more mainstream version of Tegan and Sara.
The hoary netherworld.
They got smart and hopped a bus out of town.
They formed a trio with the bear. They’re called the “We Hate Archie-s”.
They’re black and on a CW show…. so probably.
I’m going to assume they left town and never looked back. Wouldn’t blame them if they did.
Since everything is ridiculous – and the joke is that the show takes itself too seriously – someone please tell me why Kelly Ripa couldn’t be the true show MVP and just kill Jughead? I mean, he was a strange person snooping around her room uninvited – no way would she be convicted.
Are you kidding? She couldn’t risk harming that egg. It’s filled with caramel for gosh sakes!
Once again, Veronica bumbled about and fucked things up while trying to play grown up. I think we’re out of the character assassination phase of her character and into just character.
Yes… For someone who embraces mobster princess attitude so much she sure hates crime! Makes me a bit uncomfortable. Did she collect protection money? I need a table of what crimes she likes and what not
I mean, yeah, the homage worked in probably all the ways the writers wanted it to… I think. Like it would be some remarkable fuck up if they intended for this to all play straight and not have the unapologetic on-the-nose-ness (good way of describing it, by the way) be the joke of the episode. Then again between a rape-romance in season one and whatever huge chunks of season two were, the writers might be overdue for managing to piss out a gold nugget. As someone who liked the first season for the homages to different movies and genres that a lot of the episodes did, I liked the homage of the episode just fine. But, do they get that just dressing everything up in a fun noir homage doesn’t fix the gaping character flaws in at least half of the core four as well as a bunch of the side characters, right?. The Betty-Jughead investigations worked just fine because whatever you think of Jughead’s voice overs, he and Betty mostly work when paired together; and I liked the stuff with Hermione and Penelope all duking it out with the kids. Also, FPs stuff with Hermione was pretty decent, and I liked how the noir aspects of the episode gave them an excuse to reveal a whole punch of twists that otherwise might have come out way too slow. But half the episode was still dominated by Veronica and Archie who are just inherently unlikable in everything they do at this point; between Veronica flip-flopping basically every second on if she’s with her parents and against them and just Archie’s entire plot, half the episode was weighed down by a lead anchor. Also, we can all agree that Fred is a horrible father now, right? Like maybe when your kid loses it on his first day at work when someone tries to tell him to stop hitting rocks with a hammer it might be time to make him go to therapy? The cold shower scene was the most I’ve ever liked Josie.
I think you got to the heart of things with pointing out that Fred’s being pretty damn ineffectual for being the most caring, normal parent in this town. The problem is, everything else is so turtles-all-the-way-down crazy he can’t actually do anything, or have any power, because that would necessitate him pointing out how fucking bonkers everything is.
Given how bad every single adult in Riverdale is at their jobs/families/lives, I imagine Riverdale’s only therapist would probably make Archie into a serial killer.
Which would be awesome.
So, in closing, I agree with you.
Or be Hannibal Lector who already got referenced today (I kind of not enjoyed Betty’s Dad, I still think he is stupidest)
The actual quote is “The report of my death was an exaggeration”. So Veronica did paraphrase, or express the meaning of (the writer or speaker or something written or spoken) using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity.
Kudos to director Gregory Smith plus writers Devon Turner & Will Ewing to making this episode as noir as possible. If only they could all be!How does Smithers have personal WWI anecdotes?It was so easy for Reggie to single-handedly raid a prison drug lab they didn’t bother showing it!I’m very disappointed the Blossoms were incorrectly said “hung” rather than “hanged.”I’m so mad the grizzly didn’t kill Archie.
Smithers is trying to pass himself off as Woodhouse from Archer. Confusing that with Archie is an easy mistake to make.
This episode was so noir I could barely see it on my TV. On the other hand the lighting, or lack of it, made the actors’ eyes glitter. I don’t know if that was intentional.
The show is deliberately but subtly anachronistic. We’re supposed to think it’s basically “now,” since everyone has cell phones and internet access, but land lines are still very much in evidence. The hospital is very old-fashioned looking, down to the staff’s clothing, the courtroom is old-fashioned, and there are other little anachronisms. Smithers being a WWI vet fits in with that.
This episode’s Archie plot:
Archie as Dumb Drunk Guy With Rage Issues: Booo
Josie getting him to go back to being Archie: Yay
Josie saying he should get back into music: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
How was Archie even getting drunk any way? I thought Veronica’s place only provided non-alcoholic beverages.
They started serving alcohol a few episodes ago, either after or during the gambling episode.
No, they went to secretly selling booze a while ago. That was in the van Reggie was driving through the woods when the Gargoyles stopped him and stomped him that one time.
(No great testament to F.P.’s skills as an officer of the law that he couldn’t even detect a mouldering body when he was sitting right on top of it. Something about the sheriff’s hat makes the person wearing it oblivious.)Especially since FP has dumped more bodies than any other three characters in this town put together. If anybody knows eau de Corpse in an unventilated space, it’s him.
This was one surprise — I honestly figured that FP knew about Tallboy even BEFORE he became Sheriff. So it felt a little weird that that was all a REVEAL.
Why is there a section called “Spoiler time!” at the end of a review that discusses the things that happened in the episode (aka spoilers)?
I have an actual answer for that! When the show sends us the episodes for review, they include a list of plot points they’d rather we didn’t reveal in our coverage. So that’s what Spoiler Time is for, even though I suppose the rest of the article “spoils” the basic premise of the episode.
That has to be in regards to pre-air coverage though, right? The vast majority of people understand that a post-air recap/review of a show is going to discuss the major story points that occurred in the episode.
What in holy hell did I just watch? That was the most hilarious send-up of a show since Rowan Atkinson’s version of Doctor Who. Guess everybody was just a leeeeeeetle stressed after the SATs so, you know, blow off a little steam, shoot somebody!
So glad Josie is escaping this shitshow to do Katy Keene. I wish Veronica could do the same but she’s too valuable as the rag the writers use to polish Bughead’s halo.
Next episode is called “Bizarrodale,” but that just describes the series as a whole.
A corrupt mayor, in murderous cahoots with a corrupt sheriff, and in
double-cahoots with the still-living, also corrupt former sheriff?
Well, was-still-living, anyway.
It’s cute that Jughead thinks Riverdale was ever an innocent place.Is it “playing detective” when you’ve solved more crimes than the actual police?You’d think Fred would know that it takes more than being good with your hands to be involved in vocational work.I think the Blossom women using the word “bosom” might actually be one of the most unsettling thing about them. There’s just something weird about the way they say it.Hey look, Smithers is back. I’m sure he’s thrilled that Ronnie’s pretty much following in daddy’s footsteps. Oh and he was in the army so he’s pretty much Ronnie’s Alfred. Also did he quit his job as a bus driver?Was there some kind of time warp throughout this episode? I get the noir theme they were going for and this show has had a weird anachronism stew thing going on but this felt like they literally went back in time. It really made Reggie’s mentioning of Bad Boys 2 all the more strange.In fairness, Josie you didn’t talk much with Archie the first year. In fact, you don’t talk much on this show period.So the quarantine was just so Hiram could cover up the Fizzle Rocks lab?Say didn’t Josie get a deal to jump start her music career last season? What happened to that?What exactly was Jughead typing up in this episode? He isn’t a reporter any more as far as I can tell and he was supposed to be keeping what really happened a secret.And yet I still really liked this episode.
This was one of the episodes where it was most noticeable and jarring that the show is intentionally unmoored in time as well as geography, not set in a specific historical era or location or place, but certainly not in the present, or in the real world
Your comment sums up most of the appeal of old Archie comics. The dark veneer throws people but Riverdale, for better or worse, is faithful to it’s source material.
I never wanted this for you. I work my whole life – I don’t apologize – to take care of my family, and I refused to be a fool, dancing on the string held by all those bigshots. I don’t apologize – that’s my life – but I thought that, that when it was your time, that you would be the one to hold the string. Senator Lodge; Governor Lodge. Well, it wasn’t enough time, Veronica. It wasn’t enough time.
Sorry is this a reference to something? I don’t understand it.
Sorry. Attempted to force a Godfather 1 reference in here about Veronica getting deeper in her father’s business.
Don’t apologize, that was *chef’s kiss*
“The Godfather.”
Some pezzonovante.We’ll get there, Daddykins.
“Archie is a pimp. He never could have outfought Minetta. But I didn’t know until this day that it was FP all along.”
Jughead’s typing his novel/report, like the hard-boiled detective narrator persona he’s assuming. Jughead typing so fast and fluently on a manual typewriter is pretty jarring, too. Not an easy thing to do for someone used to a computer keyboard and easy corrections.
I admit, even with the Bon Nuit already having versions of showtunes before (at least stuff from Cabaret—there might have been something else), and the fact that the song was sung by Madonna in the film noir-ish Dick Tracy, winning the Oscar, I *never* expected to hear a Stephen Sondheim song performed on this show…
Damn, Kelly Ripa looks good holding a PPK. Finger off the trigger, Kelly! Gun safety 101.
The first thing I thought of when Betty and Jughead found themselves in Penelope’a dominatrix club was Betty’s blacked wig persona and wondering how long before she shows up there all corseted up.
I think a future ArchieJosie hookup is going to make Veronica go ballistic even though she’s the one who pretty much ended the relationship. And why is a high school student bartender serving shots to a high school student. Aren’t anybody’s parents concerned about their children hanging out in a speakeasy. I know…. It’s Riverdale.
Toni was serving shots back at the White Wyrm before it was cool. I thought it was bullshit back then too.
But Toni was in a Gang, serving drinks in a Gang bar! Veronica always claimed she wanted to obey the law but this seemed to change this episode
Oh, yeah, but that drove me NUTS back in season two when the Dreadful H’s so desperately wanted to bulldoze the whole south side and for some reason kept looking for legal ways: I was all “A MINOR serving drinks in a bar should be a helluva good legal start!” But nobody apparently cares about massive underage substance abuse then or now unless it’s Fizzle Rocks.
they are a bit back-and-forth with drugs. in one episode all the teens were using something and it was a good time with no repercussions at all. except for betty who doesnt like Fun, only being a detective
It’s part of the noir thing. Just go with it.
Hahahahahah I KNOW. Betty’s reactions, especially to the “safe space/safe word” joke was all “NICE. NEW FAVORITE PLACE.” In fact, I’m pretty sure when it turned out to be Penelope’s thing, Betty got disappointed in a Grandpa Simpson Bordello Turn-Around.
My headcanon is that it was still mocktails Reggie was serving, but Archie was just drunk on the Placebo Effect.
And wasn’t it said that Veronica’s place doesn’t serve alcohol? When did that change?
Lili Reinhart said she wouldn’t do dark Betty anymore.
– Veronica’s pitch-perfect blank stare in response to Reggie’s musing that their plan resembles the plot of Bad Boys II reminds us whose cultural vocabulary forms the dialect around these parts. This is a “No Michael Bays Allowed” clubhouse.Can anyone explain what this means to me
That the character sin the show are steeped in knowledge of classic and modern noir, and “cool” modern pop culture, but not LCD shit like Michael Bay movies.
Ever since the breakfast club episode I think KJ Apa is channelling Dylan McKay. I wish Fred had found a copy of Lord Byron’s works with Archive’s hooch. Because why not at this point?
One of the things that is deeply annoying for me in this season is that Veronica’s attitude about her parents and their criminal empire doesn’t just change episode to episode, it sometimes changes even scene from scene. What makes it even more frustrating is that it is such a driving motivation for a lot of the events, yet I cannot comprehend it half of the time.
ARRRGH I KNOW. It’s like, girl, pick a lane and stay in it! Even if you’re all I’m cool with all the gangster stuff except drugs or whatever. But she never commits!
Ok, so I thought about this, don’t judge me. But Veronica isn’t actually super smart in the way that betty is. This is referenced in the “Carrie” episode and I think she mentions that she’s barely passing her classes. Veronica gets by largely on the fact that she’s charming, she’s beautiful, she’s rich, and she’s Hiram’s daughter. So with that, the show should reaffrim V’s distian for her father, and the way he tries to control her, and why she is trying to find independence from him. And then have her be solvent, with the speakeasy for a while. Then they should have, Ethel get better and then take/fuck up all of veronica’s shit. And then you can have a meditation on beauty privilege and how patriarchy and gate keeping pits women against each other, but also how when you are marginalized how it forces you to grind harder. That could potentially be interesting.
Veronica isn’t dumb, but she’s less smart than she thinks she is—or more precisely, than than she thinks she has to be to survive her awful parents. Unlike Betty, who grew up comfortable but not rich, her money (or rather, the lifestyle that her parents’ ill-gotten lucre afforded her) both gave her a sophisticated outlook at an early age and cushioned her against the ruder shocks of fortune. She’s been playing catch-up since the pilot when she and her mom moved into the apartment with their last baubles and trinkets, and the insanity that is Riverdale in general and Hiram/Hermione in particular is hardly encouraging her to take things at her own pace. She keeps getting thrown into bizarro situations and doing things that seem short term clever but long term detrimental because she can’t think ahead the way her parents have been doing for decades.
Ethel might be conventionally less pretty, but she’s white and Veronica’s not. Privilege and marginalization work more than one way.
veronica is white latinx that’s still white.
What makes you call her ‘white latinx?’ She has the kind of looks that would at least make people consider she’s not. In group pictures with the other core four actors the difference is obvious. And actresses who make it in Hollywood typically don’t look like her. I don’t know, individual interpretation varies, but I’m not white, and I’ve never seen her that way. I also hear the same thing from a lot of other nonwhite Veronica fans. It’s also kind of weird you’re taking this stance against her as opposed to Betty or Cheryl, who’ve had more recent conflicts with Ethel and also have more looks privilege than Veronica since they’re clearly white and more conventionally attractive. It would fit Ethel’s motives better too, since the resentment she expressed toward them was about their popularity, while her dislike of Veronica was because of her scheming with her parents.
My reply got lost, so short answer, she’s not. She doesn’t look it, and the actress doesn’t identify as such.
Yeah, seriously. Hiram’s been absolutely awful to her and her friends (since he’s a grown man who cares SO much about teens), to the point of repeatedly trying to KILL HER BOYFRIEND and SHAKING HER DOWN and as soon as he’s in the hospital she’s all “well, I better help him out!! I miss my Daddykins!”
Anyone remember when Kelly Ripa played a goth on All My Children?
Yes! That era of AMC was important to my childhood. Kelly Ripa was in her goth phase around the same time they had that bonkers Evil Twin story line where Janet threw her sister Natalie down a well.
I’m getting “no one is innocent in crime town” tattooed on my chest. Jughead is a truly masterful wordsmith.
Too much crime! Yes. Very good words
laughed so hard at the phrase “crime town”
I really enjoyed the first season of Riverdale. Loved it, even, and I was never a fan of Archie Comics. It feels—to me, at least—that the charm of that first season (or even the first half of the second season), has completely evaporated. I don’t know why, but I cannot get through a whole episode anymore, at least not without stopping and cleansing my palate with something else.I’m really trying to stay plugged in, this season, but it has become difficult. Your commentary about Archie’s evolution as a character is spot on, and I think maybe that’s part of what is wearing on me.I will say this, though—this is the first show since Sleepy Hollow that has really embraced the “oh, you think THAT’S batshit, wait ‘till you see this!” mentality and turned it up to 11. When it’s done right, it is immensely enjoyable, but I’m not sure they’re always “doing it right” anymore.
“No one’s innocent in Crimetown” is the worst thing Jughead has ever said.That’s all.
I am not one of those people to normally chime in with grammatical or other complaints but the following:“Both programs demonstrated an in-and-out understanding of what defines a certain […] Dan Harmon’s cult-adored sitcom regularly savaged such genres as the zombie flick or the Western with deconstructive wit, picking apart the clichés in covert essayloads of auto-critique. Riverdale takes the opposite tack and plays everything so unabashedly straight that the on-the-nose-ness itself becomes the joke.”Is missing a not insignificant part of an already long sentence. Or perhaps it was meant to be two sentences.
“reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated” If the original line is “reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated” then it’s a paraphrase.