Riverdale’s personal crises affect football, English class, and the local cruising scene
TV Reviews Riverdale
For years now, Kevin Keller has been a sensitive topic among fans of Riverdale. Before Cheryl Blossom came out and Toni Topaz came on the scene, he served as the standard-bearer for queer representation, and his treatment decided the series’ relationship to an identity that not only includes many viewers, but counts as a cause of paramount importance. That Kevin spends season after season largely sidelined in simplicity (witty, tasteful gay kid being a hide-bound if workable type) while the core cast gets motivations and complications has drawn outrage for a growing slice of the audience, and every now and then, the writing staff makes a gesture towards remedying this offense.
Kevin receives his most substantive plotline this week, one designed beyond any doubt to imbue him with the depth he’s historically lacked. Regrettably, actor Casey Cott is not quite up to the challenge. Even more regrettably, his internal struggle revolves around the idea that promiscuity originates from some hole of the soul in need of filling, a dusty notion informed by a retrograde politics. And more regrettably still, the poor guy has to be the survivor of a hate crime thrown in out of nowhere and photographed with no delicacy whatsoever just to get some face time. His crisis of conscience hits the lowest point of an episode that mostly fares better with characters torn up about what to do, though the Bulldog football team and the newly introduced “Lerman Logan” (?) have the benefit of contained development that doesn’t need to go beyond this week. It’s just a shame that the writing staff treats Kevin the same way.
He’s been going through a lot lately, what with the headlong leap into and sudden pullback from family planning. Anyone invested in Kevin’s fate will want to know why, but the explanation we get is no more involved than “mom stuff.” After his compulsive cruising puts him on the receiving end of a beatdown from a homophobe evidently blind to the steam room’s gay porno vibe, he gets to deliver an episode-commanding monologue to his father in which he explains that his mother’s treatment of him created a void that could only be patched with no-strings-attached sex. Cott puts his back into it, comporting himself as well as could be expected from such thin material. Even so, it’s hard to believe that Kevin’s presence in the show will change after this week, that his newfound complexity will bring him more meaningful action instead of checking off an obligation and setting him back aside.
On the lighter end of things, the epic highs and lows of high school football touch a new generation of youths in need of something to live for. There’s a Big Game coming up between the bad luck Bulldogs — a reference point that the episode beats us all to the punch in making itself — and their nemeses, the Hiram-funded and -coached SoDale Stallions. While I have not myself seen Friday Night Lights, my viewing companions inform me that that’s the thing this plotline has been modeled after, the preponderance of inspirational speeches from Coach Archie and visiting pal T-Dubs a nod to Kyle Chandler’s penchant for the same. The stakes rise, as Veronica puts ten grand on the line for the first Bulldog willing to take charge and Hiram poaches their star player, but that doesn’t add much gravity to the anticlimactic game sequence. When our underdogs at Riverdale High pull it out in the final moments, their triumph means little. More to the point, this sporting detour lacks the self-serious comedy we can usually rely on from the football scenes. The prison game may have been mocked (by small-minded people!), but it’s also one of the show’s most indelible moments.
Albeit separately, Betty and Jughead continue their respective investigations, getting closer and closer to the truth — which will hopefully be more juicy than what’s come so far. A short story titled “As Above, So Below” piques Jughead’s curiosity and gets him chasing after the troubled Lerman Logan, an easy fit for the theory that alien abduction accounts disguise trauma too terrible to be reckoned with directly. Betty gets hard confirmation that Polly’s really, actually dead this time. Probably. Maybe. We don’t have a body, but the blood matches. In both cases, the episode operates from a presumption of our interest in characters the show has never made into vital quantities. The flip-flopping question of whether Polly lives or dies only matters to us insofar as it affects Betty, and her rampage of revenge fizzles out just as quickly as it begins. Same goes for Jughead; until we get some quality time with the Mothman or his representatives, how our boy reacts to this investigation is all we have to savor, and his creep toward full-blown madness has been agonizingly gradual. The unavoidable Scooby-Doo mode could be leaned into with more purpose, too. For starters, where are the suspects for us to scrutinize?
The production number that breaks up the football game leads Cheryl Blossom to grouse about how they, the real entertainment, have been sidelined by a more tedious goings-on. This can be taken easily enough as a non-conscious self-assessment, as the campier fun that makes “Stupid Love” the episode highlight gets back-burnered in favor of the lugubrious. And in Kevin’s case, that might even be an improvement.
Stray observations:
- I love Logan Lerman just as, if not more than, the next guy who saw both Indignation and Shirley. But, uh, what? Is this in reference to something? Does one of the writers just have a serious crush on the Lermster, and this is their way of signaling to him? Any interviewer worth their salts will ask about this.
- Credit due to Lady Gaga: during the River Vixens’ performance of “Stupid Love,” a song I have never heard before, I caught myself thinking that it sounded just like her. She’s got a distinctive sound even when covered, which is way more than most pop stars these days can say for themselves.
- Only this week did I realize that her involvement with the FBI makes Betty an “Agent Cooper.” Is this the first time we’ve heard someone say it out loud?
- Unexpected read of the week goes to the crazy old coot who talks about the Mothman, for the gristle he massages into the phrase “caught in that stasis.”
- Not clear on why this episode appears to have been named after either 1. the middling Karyn Kusama film from 2018, or 2. Dan Bejar’s critically acclaimed side project rock band. Any thoughts?
15 Comments
Kevin’s whole internalized homophobia sl would have been good thing to explore at highschool, perhaps as he became more serious with a boyfriend… but the show never bothered or cared (with him, with Fangs/Joaquin, or his dad) so now we have this sad excuse for development 5 years too late.Reduced to a GBF, shamed by holier-than-thou straight Betty, completely off-screen romances, now hate crimed… he really is the worse gay character on tv (possibly the decade)Also, in Casey’s defense, how do you give depth to a 2D cutout stereotype made from the writers’ leftovers? You can’t.
Didn’t they go from claiming that he was constantly cruising in the woods (in order for viewers to cheer “friend” Betty as she berated him) to claiming that he was a virgin patiently waiting for his first time with Moose?The sad thing is the people who run this show probably think they’re being daring by telling some old trash that would have been done better in a Dallas episode of the week from 1979.
Yes. I wanna say within several episodes they showed him cruising the woods (the way all openly gay high school students would do—ok, he doesn’t have a ton of options, but… cruising the woods??) to acting like a virginal prude insisting on milk and cookies sleepovers. But, I mean, I guess we shouldn’t expect character consistency on this show. It does baffle me that two openly gay men are in charge of this show (but then, I guess I should have learned not to expect much given gay storylines in certain Ryan Murphy shows)
I saw some fans claiming the producers or writers had said this episode would “give the gays what they want.” Apparently this may have meant Cheryl Blossom singing Gaga (which, nothing against Gaga who does still have a big gay following, feels like something from 2009), rather than expecting to care about Kevin being gay-bashed. The older I get the more I feel like gay producers, the ones who get a lot of power anyway, are even more dismissive and hostile toward queer characters than straight producers are.
I’m not a super fan, but I like Gaga, but… C’mon, if “something for the gays” means a short cover of a year long song done by an all female cheerleading squad we have a problem…
When I say two “openly gay” exec producers I won’t fault Greg Berlanti too harshly here—IMHO he’s done *decent* over his career with gay representation and storylines and now that he’s the EP of 150 shows, I expect he has very little input. But show runner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa seems to have picked up (in spades) on his TV mentor Ryan Murphy’s worst faults (after a background in theatre and comics his TV writing chops were formed writing for Glee, including a particularly poorly handled gay bullying storyline). From characterization to inability to follow through on storylines—and his really poor attempt at gay stuff.
I do think that’s an interesting point though that a lot of these gay show runners, for whatever reason, seem particularly poor at handling gays on their shows… I mean there are obvious exceptions (Russell T Davies would be my top choice—though some may disagree with me— even if on his non-gay centric genre shows some have called him out for “killing the gays,” which, in his case, I think was just a misguided fan reaction). But not many.
I don’t think we were supposed to cheer Betty for that scene. Especially when Kevin fired back about why he was doing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc193pA-pgw&ab_channel=Tvdforever88
Just found out the Lermster is going gray early. Move over, Anderson Cooper!
Kevin finally get development … & it’s this. UGH. At least Casey Cott no longer has to pretend he’s not yoked this season.
Where is the steam room that Kevin & Fangs frequent? I thought it was in the El Royale gym, but why would they let Hollywood randos in after they turned it into the town firehouse. Why would homophobic LA randos even want to visit steam room in Discount Gotham?Hiram’s obsession with destroying teenagers is as pathetic as it is hilarious.I prefer Jughead a singleton who’s not involved with everyone else’s romantic shenanigans. They’re definitely going to ruin that by pairing him off with Tabitha Tate & Betty again.How long can Betty put off completing her Quantico training?
I’m surprised we haven’t met Daddario Alexandra yet.
They’re definitely going to ruin that by pairing him off with Tabitha Tate & Betty again.Seriously. I understand and accept the various creative licenses taken by this show and I am not a “but the comics” guy, but Jughead should not be the one who’s the male third of a straight FFM love triangle on a show based – no matter how loosely – on Archie Comics.
Not sure how I feel about this week’s Nancy Drew. I like not doing the supernatural for two weeks in a row, but the Gil character annoys me, especially knowing that he’s going to pair up with Nancy. Hopefully they can make him more tolerable.
On the plus side, Leah Lewis as Odette in George’s body is amazing and opens up new and exciting love triangle possibilities
Hiram needs to eat more Doritos. Every time we do a cutaway to him brooding in his office he should be chugging a MONSTER energy drink or eating Doritos chips.This stuff with Kevin has been…not very good. Someone below said this storyline would make a lot more sense if it was done when he was in HS and I think I agree. The writers give him so little to work with its almost jarring when they try to develop the character.Am I the only one bored by Archie and Veronica being back together? Archie should be unencumbered and just sleeping around.Betty- excuse me, Agent Cooper- should have an obligatory scene in Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe every episode ordering black coffee and a slice of cherry pie dammit!!!!!
Veronica is going to get the Bulldogs the Death Penalty by paying underage high school players 10k for scoring a touchdown.
Reggie was fun as an antagonist but I am happy that he now is maybe sort of morally ambiguous, which suits him better I think
Based on Archie’s motivational speeches this episode, he has no idea at all how to play the game of football. Which, honestly, tracks.His Bulldogs were very highly motivated as they got the crap kicked out of them though! That must have been a comfort in the ER after the game.