The forces of good retake the town as Riverdale ties up a lackluster season
Are we ready for Old-Timey Mustachioed Jughead? (We are not ready.)
TV Reviews Riverdale
Like Archie and the gang, our coverage returns to Riverdale after a long absence to find the town mostly the same, but worse. The back half of the show’s fifth season has shuffled through a handful of largely tedious mini-plots—Polly’s death and its aftermath, Veronica’s assorted non-starter business ventures, Cheryl Blossom’s screwloose ministry the most amusing among them—only to arrive at a narrative juncture not so unfamiliar for the cast of characters.
Archie’s still floating in and out of leadership positions in his campaign to reform the town, Jughead’s still bouncing from one creatively-inclined job to the other, and Betty’s still doing FBI things (now under the auspices of the actual FBI). Aside from Cheryl Blossom’s ever-progressing spiral into hysteria, everything’s right where we left it. It doesn’t feel right that we could all convene here after radio silence for seven episodes and get the impression that we haven’t missed anything.
But the stasis, disjointedness, and general lack of unhinged pizzazz that plagued this season’s early episodes have persisted and festered. The many plot developments dumped out all over this episode like the contents of a messy purse succeed only in giving the characters things to do, perhaps because such a large number of scenes find Archie coming up with things for characters to do.
He’s somehow the brains of the operation in the proposed revival of Riverdale under a mayor-free new form of government, by the people and for the people, legwork that has the tiresome obligatory vibe of a role-playing game’s side quests. He’s establishing yet another in a long series of fresh status quos that always turn out to be less radical than their momentous announcement would suggest. In his opening narration, Jughead muses that everyone’s surviving and no one’s thriving, a description of listless continuation that could apply to this series just as easily.
Cheryl Blossom spends much of the episode sequestered in her own little subterranean world, albeit a more colorful one than the dully functionary above-ground land where her peers are milling about. She’s down in the family palladium mines trying to excavate what she’s realized could be an extremely valuable birthright, when wouldn’t you know it, she happens upon a cache of human skeletal remains.
The chamber she’s broken into opens up a portal to the past—figuratively, to be clear, a distinction worth making with this show—and into a flashback, as her ancestor Abigail gets burned at the stake a few hundred years ago. Here’s the good stuff, starting with the old-timey Archie, mustachioed Jughead, and fancied-up Betty doubling in the roles of their forebears. It’s a promising direction for the next season to move in, the present having grown drab and repetitive.
Case in point: Archie’s latest revamp of the local government, which ultimately boils down to a council of four that he’s nonetheless chosen from a completely arbitrary station of authority. Tabitha, Toni Topaz, the newly sane Alice, and good ol’ uncle Frank will probably do a fine job managing the affairs of the still-solvent Riverdale, but the doubt remains that they’ll be any sturdier a defense against the neverending threats from Hiram.
And as the explosive final moments confirm, they will not. This illogic extends to Jughead and his involvement in the area’s newspaper scene, which begins with him firebombing the offices of propaganda rag The Lodge-Ledger and ends with him founding rival outfit The Riverdale Choice. Never mind that it’s bad journalistic practice to commit arson on any publication’s headquarters as a rule of thumb; it’s rich of him to claim that he’s going to “report truthfully, without bias” when an extremely partisan act began this paper’s existence.
Veronica is still at it in her life’s two great passions: making money and besting her darling daddy. She makes a bid to do both this week, balancing half-baked plans for a brand-spanking-new casino in a resurgent Riverdale with a final coup de grace for Hiram. Her umpteenth attempt to create a chic hotspot in their small town, the various bars and nightclubs and secret cabarets having petered out, doesn’t appear to differ from the many other business plans she’s tried before. Even her link-up with Reggie has a staleness to it, low on the passion that used to make her dalliances with loverboy Archie pop.
The big hook for next season rests on the ages-old curse invoked by Cheryl Blossom in an unwitting roleplay of Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, now rumbling from its dormancy to afflict Jughead, Betty, and Archie. Hopefully, a dose of the supernatural will perk things up, because the melodramatics and soap-opera turns don’t have the heightened tone that can make those devices work in context. With season six already in the works, the “five-episode event” premiere beginning in a little more than a month for whatever reason, they’ll get all the time to course-correct that they need. But if they were going to, wouldn’t they have done so by now? It’s the grim question a flagging TV viewer asks themselves right before they decide to detach from a show for good.
Stray observations:
- Jughead’s offhanded line about the importance of the press’ unique freedoms in the face of reality-warping dictators feels like a pointed remark coming from Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, whose 77-year-old father Francisco currently sits as a political prisoner in Nicaragua’s infamous Nuevo Chipote facility for speaking out against President Daniel Ortega’s regime. It’s the sort of grave injustice that Jughead would protest, if it existed in the universe of Riverdale. Which, who knows, maybe it will! It’s only a matter of time until the writers work their way to self-insert fan-fiction.
- The former Salem Witch Museum tour guide in me wants to point out that suspected witches were never burned in the United States, only hanged or, in one instance, pressed to death. But the current-day normal, easygoing person in me wants to let this go and have a good time.
- No standout lines in this episode, as sorry a bellwether of how far standards have fallen as you’re likely to find. Kevin offhandedly muttering “I’ve never seen tires changed so fast” wasn’t half bad. Here’s hoping he can make it on Broadway. Tough business.
- Nice touch that in Retirement Mode, Pop Tate has a fuzzy beard and rocks a Hawaiian shirt. He’s earned some time to himself, which makes his offer to come help fix everything even lamer than an overly convenient deus ex machina—it’s a raw deal for one of the most cherished, taken-for-granted characters.
27 Comments
Go all in for the magic and horror next season. It kind of worked for Sabrina, I guess? But more importantly, Nancy Drew returns on Friday. And magic and horror have absolutely worked for Nancy Drew, which is one of the best shows on television and is the platonic ideal of what Riverdale should aspire to. If you’re reading this, watch Nancy Drew; you’ll not be disappointed!
Unlike this gaslighting show, Nancy Druid delivers the ghost goods!
Kiernan Shipka just posted a photo of her on Riverdale’s set as Sabrina, so at least they’re going to do something true to promise. But it’ll never be as good as Nancy Druid, true.
This season was not good, but the prospect of Cheryl and Sabrina teaming up, hopefully with sexy results, could be series-saving
Funny, she doesn’t look Nancy Drewish.
I’ve kind of enjoyed Archie’s flashback to the strange War he fought in, which apparently used WWI tactics and WWII level technology.
That was a weird positive.
Well, positives were hard to come by.
But fighting against WARLORDS.
It’s kind of telling that I fell behind on the show immediately when these recaps stopped. Riverdale is only good as a community experience, without the comment section to laugh at it together, there’s a lot less incentive to wade through the horseshit.
I’ve found this season atrocious . Absolutely atrocious. Outside of the Mothman wrap up episode everything has been bad. I’m going to watch this last episode this afternoon but I’m fully prepared to be disappointed again. And I’m not wasting my time on the new season.
If Sabrina is in season 6 I will check it out. Maybe there will be some crossover with Nancy Drew as well since that’s a magical world too.Making a pitch now for some season 3 Nancy Drew coverage here on the AVCLUB
Don’t get my hopes up. I can’t even get Season Premiere coverage.
I would have to imagine that season six or seven will be the last. You can kind of tell that the cast is bored with the show.
That is my take on things as well. The music stuff is blah, the cast seems bored, the show utterly failed to ever really do up the Archie-Ronnie-Betty triangle, the whole palladium thing with Hiram is just weird and weak, etc etc etc. Supposedly the cast was excited about being able to play characters their own age but it all just has been blah.
The season’s momentum was completely derailed by the hiatus. It didn’t help that I binged Banshee during its break.
“Return Of The Pussycats” is a legitimutantly great episode. I worry that if this backdoor pilot for a Josie & The Pussycats spinoff is successful, they’ll find ways to muck it up beyond not setting it in space.
Betty officially becomes an FBI agent despite being told she’d officially washed out a few episodes ago?
Tabitha can’t afford to repair Pop’s fire damage even though Alexandra Cabot is turning it into a national franchise?
While pondering whether they have enough to convict, assorted characters
decide they should just murder Hiram & be done with it. Reggie
produces a damning video of Lodge doing murder, at which point … the
entire cast exiles him from Riverdale? Why don’t they keep him in jail & use the video to bolster their
case since they sent it to the FBI anyway? An exile isn’t even legally
binding! How did they all forget how obsessively vengeful he is?
https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2021/10/07/binging-banshee-ruined-riverdale/Madelaine
Petsch sounds like she’s doing something extra dramatic with Abigail
Blossom’s voice in the flashback, so it’s a bummer it’s obfuscated by
Cheryl’s regular voice.
For the love of Madam Satan, please go all in on the crazy magic!
Unfortunately with this show’s track record, the Sabrina variant that
appears will most likely be a muggle.
The Josie episode was good, but they had about four different musical episodes this season and even leaving it on in the background and not paying attention it was too much.
I believe it is going to be the Sabrina from the Netflix show.
CAOS spoilersBoth died, so they’ll probably need a new one.
Apparently she was always meant to come back somehow. The show just got canceled.
Someone please help me understand how this works. So Cheryl reads Abigail’s diary entry from the day she got burned at the stake and cursed the townsfolk… but who wrote all that down? Cause Abigail was either dead after the fact and could not have written her own version of events, or she wasn’t dead and made stuff up in her diary.
Ghost diary.
I know it’s Riverdale and everything is incredibly heightened, but even by Riverdale standards, Cheryl went completely off the rails.
Remember when some segment of fandom/criticism wanted the show to get back to telling grounded stories about high school after we had already borne witness to the glory that was cloaked Cheryl firing flaming arrows at gargoyles in the woods? Well, we just got a season where the major arc was municipal zoning.Screw grounded Riverdale. Bring on the bonkers next season!
You know, it was only a matter of time before Cheryl Blossom unleashed (literal) hell on Riverdale. Actually, in retrospect, it’s surprising it took this long.
The former Salem Witch Museum tour guide in me wants to point out that suspected witches were never burned in the United States, only hanged or, in one instance, pressed to death.Burying the lede here, Charles!
I dropped off this show after the season 5 hiatus, and only just caught up on it. I actually thought the back half of the season had way more verve and spunk than the first, but maybe I’m just jonesing for that classic Riverdale nonsense in this post-lapsarian world. Or maybe it benefited from the rapid binging watch on Netflix.
Anyway, lots of highlights in this atrociously insane finale. Jughead trying to solve the town’s firebombing problem by (checks notes) firebombing another business! Hiram literally doing a Snidely Whiplash with some sticks of TNT! After Veronica told him “No daddy, it wasn’t Archie who betrayed you, it was me”, Hiram is still like “nah, I’d rather just blow up Archie.” Fangs and Toni taking a brief break from school counseling and raising a baby to pull out some guys teeth with really excessive violence! Toni patting her own back so hard for placing a vulnerable teen (and kidnapping victim!) in a home that has hosted at least two cults! And, of course, Cheryl going full witch.Bonkers to the last, Riverdale. Now I’m actually excited to go ahead and watch season 6.