On the show thus far and the potential of season five’s time jump
Riverdale often gets unfairly lumped in with, or identified as the original sin of contemporary gritty teen franchises. What continually sets it apart is its go for broke attitude, where other shows are drab, Riverdale is startlingly bold — to varying degrees of success.
The first season effortlessly leans into the gimmick of “What if the Riverdale teens fucked?”, the second follows through with the added provocation, “What if the Riverdale teens fucked and did crimes?” — but it isn’t until the third, it reaches the apex of its potential. The complete lack of regard for continuity and formal breaks characteristic to the second season, set the precedent for the next. They can also be attributed to the existential question: are the writers taking the piss or are they onto something? The experimentation or failures of season two elucidate how Riverdale always seems to be wrestling between these two poles and some answers may lay in its third season.
Season three of Riverdale feels as if it’s fighting to be multiple shows at once and it’s worth noting so many of the most notorious moments — the mass seizure, fourth grade dropouts and the bear attack, can be located here. It morphs from gritty homoerotic prison fight club to thinly veiled Dungeons and Dragons drug epidemic to charting the rising presence of a cult, while also deterring to other baffling plot points. At first, the motives of the writers appear less clear than ever, but the sheer absurdity not only results in a marathon of a season but a shockingly cohesive ending, worthy of begrudging respect or if you are less jaded, outright admiration. The spirit of the show can be encapsulated best in the storyline where, after fleeing persecution and surviving a bear attack — Archie returns home and is forced to sit the SATS. Riverdale’s template of laying visible then amplifying the typical theatrics of teen dramas, abruptly contrasting it with the mundane, is where the brilliance of the show and answers to that existential question reside.
The fourth season feels as if the writers are trying to reproduce the phantasmagoria of season three, leaning into self-referentiality in a way that feels trite. Riverdale ends up becoming formulaic — quite the formula still, but less compelling. This becomes apparent by the mid-season and the whimper it goes out on, sans a strong episode which serves as a balm, giving us good old-fashioned teen drama. (The first three episodes of season five function as the remainder of the fourth) These episodes always work powerfully as a grounding device, in a show that so comfortably sits in the absurd.
One of the defining elements of Riverdale is its blatant cinephilia, which season four plays heavy into. The psychic damage from rehashing it would be too great, but it involves a central antagonist, repeatedly invoked as an auteur and an unabashed David Lynch stand in. The crimes of the auteur are replicated from Caché; one of the show’s co-creators is on the record as citing Haneke. How writers took a story of post-colonial trauma and produced what they did is something they will have to atone for, (Especially considering the show is already rife with intergenerational trauma), but this is only one instance of this season’s unrealized potential. The more laden they become with cinematic references, the more the show begins to feel weighed down, leading to reveals that feel lacklustre and disrespectful to viewer intelligence because yes, Riverdale fans have feelings too.
A more insidious problem which should draw as much ire as its supposed poor storytelling, is how Riverdale has run all of its blacks out of town or otherwise sidelines them in the plot. The Pussycats have all been disappeared or driven off to other franchises, they frankly should have helmed. Additionally, the Indigenous characters introduced in a forward-thinking Gregg Araki penned (!) episode and their storyline, are all but abandoned, until hastily re-integrated in season four. These points all come to a head in Toni, the remaining prominent Black character who also happens to be of Indigenous lineage. The dormant storyline is hastily brought back to give Toni, an underserved character — who barely seems to exist outside of her relationship — more weight. Grounding instances of trauma on that scale in the personal, is another of Riverdale’s under looked violations; it’s not to say they should be at the forefront of pushing these conversations or that those maneuvers aren’t possible, but the lack of care writers treat them with speaks volumes.
After the first three episodes of season five, Riverdale adopts popular teen show device — the time jump, going seven years into the future. In the first of these episodes, lies redemption. It opens with a truly ambitious sequence (Featuring clips maligned in the trailer by the unenlightened) that is unabashedly cinematic (Come on aspect ratio!). The episode divides its time between the central protagonists, employing relevant cinematic homages for each. Archie’s section is indebted to psychological war dramas — ever subtle, he is shown reading a brother in combat “Farewell to Arms”. Betty gets a Silence of the Lambs self-insert, an obvious but compelling route. Most delightfully, in addition to a steamy corporate drama — Veronica gets an Uncut Gems moment, playing a hybrid Howie/Julia. Jughead receives something that is obviously indebted to the grit of Hollywood Renaissance Scorsese, but it feels blasphemous to compare the two. His scenes can be more aptly described as a film bro wet dream and to that affect, it works beautifully. Cheryl explicitly cites Winchester and is indebted to Gothicism; from that is borne a surprisingly gorgeous, albeit topical, Portrait of a Lady on Fire rework.
These points are worth naming because it seems the show has come to realize how cinematic references can be vehicles to help the characters become more fully realized. Where the series once felt as if it was struggling to be multiple at once, identifying what tones work best for a respective character, however discordant — gives the episode a resplendent cohesion, which feels like a new era. They transcend homage, absorbing the work into the lens of pop culture Riverdale is refracted through.
Riverdale in itself is a character, that exists alongside those who remained in the town, and are living in a Western, noir hybrid. Toni has literally been invited to the table — the coveted Pop’s booth with our central four, stepping into her rightful place. Already, she feels like a more realized character, which hopefully signals to honouring the heart and voice of reason she has brought to the show. Even the scenes with Cheryl, her love interest — are rife with more intimacy than ever thanks to her being granted that formerly elusive autonomy. What rings true for all of the characters is that with distance, has come growth — the trajectory of which one can only hope, is steadily maintained.
In the first of the time jump episodes — Veronica mentions that the year is 2021, implying the previous events of the series took place in 2014, another head scratching detail we are now primed to overlook. Returning to how Riverdale disregards linear time signals to two things: we should be afraid of a potential La Jetée imitation on the horizon and the lack of the show’s regard for much of anything, most prominently its haters, are where its chameleonic affect stem from. Its willingness to take a film about the Algerian War and subsequently Riverdalefy it, is perplexing, but it is that audacity which so many are compelled to. This show treats things revered in popular discourses merely as tools to achieve its own ends and that is what has allowed it to become something wholly unique. So, will you blaspheme with Riverdale and chance experiencing the epic high and lows of Riverdale or miss out?
