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2018, Review, Riverdale CW, television

Review of RIVERDALE Ch.23, “The Blackboard Jungle”

What’s with the backpack situation in Riverdale?

Grade: A

Riverdale is back! And all the dominos set up in the former half of the season are getting knocked down in the latter.

With the Black Hood unmasked (theoretically, I don’t believe it) we can move onto the mysteries of Lodge Industries. I personally would love a refresher on what they’ve done, but from what I can glean: Hiram Lodge, during and after being released from prison, has been using the Southside Serpents to depreciate land value in Riverdale and then swooping in to buy the land for development and gentrification. There also seems to be a drug element that wasn’t resolved before the mid-season finale, so I have to assume that that’s emanating from Casa Lodge.

But with the Black Hood nightmare over, the citizens of Riverdale are finding other ways to occupy their time. Utilizing Archie’s sleuthing, the FBI has sent a former Riverdale resident to recruit him into taking Hiram Lodge down. Despite the fact that Archie did nothing to solve the murder of Jason Blossom or the mystery of the Black Hood and that Betty did everything, the FBI is interested in him, mainly for his connection to Veronica and his own father’s involvement in Lodge Industries.

As an aside, the scene between FBI Guy and Archie could play equally as well as the introduction to a multi-episode gay porn arc. Agent Adams (gay) wants a few simple things from Archie: investigate the Nick St. Clair (Sinclair?) accident, and a deeper understanding of Lodge Industries.

Due to some nefarious dealings between Mayor McCoy and the Lodges (damn, they’re really earning their paycheck this season) Southside High has closed and its students are being move to Riverdale High. Normally, in comparison to teen murders and serial killers, normal storylines like school district consolidations would be a total bummer. But I’m just so glad that these kids are in class – I was worried about their college prospects. Now I’m just worried about the disturbing lack of backpacks amongst the Southside students.

And so while Veronica (who knew from her parents that Southside was closing), Archie and Betty are welcoming towards the merger – even as it muddies the water of a Bughead break-up (was it a break-up?) – others are not as enthused. Cheryl Blossom, backed by Reggie (hot) and a coterie of cheerleaders (a swarm of cheerleaders? A gaggle? A culture?), is using dog-whistle language to lament the loss of Riverdale’s above-average GPA. This seems oddly out of character for Cheryl (she’s a bitch, not a racist) so here’s my theory.

First, Cheryl is deeply insecure, and hates any change. Second, she’s also self-conscious of her own family’s changing socioeconomic status.

But at the core is the squaring off between Toni Topaz and Cheryl. Before the season started, the powers-that-be suggested that Cheryl would be getting an unexpected love interest. Basically, that’s code for “queer.” Now that we’ve seen Cheryl’s weird love for Josie, the stage has been set for a same-sex Cheryl romance. I’m here for it – Cheryl’s never read as particularly “straight” to me, and her kissing Archie at the end of season one felt much more like a desire for closeness than sexual tension.

So while Cheryl amps up the anti-Southside sentiment (leading to stricter censorship of Southside regalia, Jughead’s suspension and a burgeoning possibility of romance between Kevin Keller and Southside’s Fogarty – could we be getting two queer romances for the low, low price of $9.99 a month?) Betty’s B-plot involves the Mysteriously Pregnant Polly who is no longer Pregnant. Post-natal Polly has given birth to twins (“Juniper and Dagwood”) without telling the rest of her family. To make it up to her mother (?), Betty decides to locate Alice’s long-lost son.

They discover he’s living two towns over and his name is Charles. Against Hal’s express wishes, Alice and Betty visit him in his hollow-cheeked glory. Charles “Chic” Smith is doing some shady work making people’s “fantasies” come true and is appropriately resentful towards his birth family. After a tense first meeting, Betty goes back to the apartment complex only to find her brother being stabbed by a strange, hulking man. God, what isn’t gay porn in this show?

Inevitable creepiness (including some Chic standing over Betty while she’s sleeping – light fare) ensues, and that’s the that on that. Until next episode (!!!).

Archie uses Cheryl as a red herring in order to get close to Nick. I’m really hating how people keep using Cheryl (and her assault) as means to an end. In an attempt to get her mother to stop hustling (literally being a “courtesan”) Cheryl will do anything to get that money, even reliving painful memories and gifting Archie the blazer of her dead, hot brother.

Under the guise of getting Nick to replicate that hush money, Archie somehow scrounges up the money to fly to New York to intimidate Nick. His goal is to get Nick to admit that the Lodges broke his legs for attempting to rape Veronica.

Side note: there are a lot of layers to this, but let it not be forgotten that the Lodges were fine with Nick when they thought he just attempted to rape Cheryl, but broke his legs when they found out what he had done to their daughter. Rape culture, y’all.

Nick taunts Archie; Archie breaks Nick’s nose; and despite getting the hush money, the trip is painted as rather fruitless. Agent Adams admonishes Archie for getting “sloppy” and Archie does not get Veronica to admit that she told her parents about Nick’s assault on her. And when she turns the tables – sensing that he’s lying to her – Archie uses the fact that Cheryl (technically) blackmailed him into helping her under the threat of releasing the secret of Archie kissing Betty. Given the town they live in (with rapists, drug dealers, and serial killers) and the fact that all parties were single, Veronica has an annoyingly overblown reaction. “You kissed?” she asked, in the same diner where, weeks earlier, Archie’s father had been shot point-blank and left for dead.

In the last, lingering moments of an incredible episode, Archie gives a voice to something that we’ve (me’ve) all been thinking. “In your expert opinion, Agent Adams,” he says, his caveman-hot brows drawn close and his voice gravelly, “do you think we got the right Black Hood? Because I’m not so sure.”

Season 2B (is that what we’re calling it) is off to an epic start. I cannot wait to see what else is in store. I really enjoy that the mystery of the Black Hood lingers, but I’m excited to dig deep into the Lodge drama.

Until next time, think about the fact that no Southside Serpents had backpacks and the only one was a Coachella-appropriate red number from Cheryl that would only fit a popper and some Kleenex.

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Review, television

REVIEW of RIVERDALE EP. 1, “The River’s Edge”

Grade: A-/B+

I’ve never really been a fan of the Archie comics. I mean, I’ve been aware of them in the way that you’re aware of everything tangentially that existed in your life. But I was always more of a Calvin and Hobbes kid. I was made aware of the newest adaption from the podcast Who? Weekly. But I think the premise—comic remade into sexy murder-y thriller—would’ve been enough to eventually put it on my radar.

The cinematography is clean, lush and hazy. It’s filmed in Vancouver, so it has that “better than any forest, any town, any place you’ve ever been” combination of familiarity and dissidence.

Let’s start with the light stuff. This is the CW, so we’re expecting certain tropes. And we’re gifted them. There’s the Gay Best Friend who’s proves that somehow gay people are just cloning each other because I swear if I’ve seen one attractive gay with a severely-gelled hairstyle I’ve seen a thousand.

“Is being a cheerleader still a thing?” asks Kevin Keller (the gay).

“Is being the gay best friend still a thing?” responds Cheryl Blossom (the ginger).

And there’s the “sexy” lesbian kiss between Veronica and Betty to give their cheerleading audition some “sizzle.” But rather than bask in the awkward and trite sexuality, they call to the moment.

“Check your sell-by date ladies, faux-lesbian kissing hasn’t been taboo since 1994.” YES CHERYL YES.

I think what I like most is that they’re—at this point—subverting expectations. I can handle the hypersexualized clichés but as long as we’re recognizing them for what they are. And I can handle classic tropes as long as we classifying them in their proper sphere: fucking science fiction. Because no sophomore in high school looks like Archie Andrews. And that’s fine, but we need to remember our place.

Side bar: It’s nice to see depictions of hot redheads on screen. We are a group that are largely unrepresented.

Also I’m tired of jocks wanting to play music and their dads being against it. this is 2017—Donald Trump is president—you don’t need any qualifications to do anything anymore. And of course, because Riverdale is trying to show us it’s woke, Veronica points out much the same thing. “Guys, can’t we just liberate ourselves from the tired dichotomy of “jock” “artist?” Can’t we, in this post-James Franco world, just be all things at once?”

I never watched Pretty Little Liars but I assume it’s a similar thing, how can students and teachers who are fucking yell about their illicit affairs in public places and nobody say, “Whowhatnow?” It seems physically impossible that no one immediately discovers their affair because they’re literally screaming about it.

Aside from Reggie and Josie and the Pussycats,* Riverdale seems entirely full of people so white they’re nearly translucent. You can almost hear the thoughts echoing in Josie’s head as she looks out onto the crowd of students dancing to the song she’s singing (that’s a cover of the song that the Blossom twins were conceived to), “Why am I here with these idiots?” Like I get this is the CW, but if you’re gonna be woke about the Gay Best Friend, you’ve gotta be woke about everything else too.

Now on to the eeriness. The pop culture references are a little uneasy, at odds with Veronica’s sweater set and the malt shop. But maybe that’s the point? The bizarreness of this place existing both in the ‘50s and in 2017—making references to Blue Jasmine, Mad Men, and Ansel Elgort—mimics the bizarreness of Riverdale. You don’t expect people who live like this to know references like that. It begs more questions: do they use Spotify? Why were the Blossom twins in a Thunderbird? WHY is Veronica wearing a sweater-set and pearls? You’re put off-kilter by the “hereness” and “otherness” of the town. Things are off-kilter here.

The classic cinematography showcases beautifully the ice-white face of Cheryl Blossom against the blackness of her smudged mascara and her red hair. The sharply angled eyebrows of Veronica Lodge. The red lipstick from Veronica’s kiss running across Betty’s lips like a nosebleed and the red gashes on her palms from her tightly clenched fists. There’s a gruesomeness in Riverdale.

But the scenes and the music are tinny and Instagrammy—we’re experiencing through a filter. It’s like we’re someone watching the world unfold in front of them, someone beyond the average viewer. It’s a sentiment made stronger by the fact that we’re brought into the world of Riverdale by the voice of Jughead.

And it’s echoed by the song (“The Passenger” by Hunter as a Horse) rising above Jason Blossom’s waterlogged corpse as it’s carried to the ambulance in a stark yellow body bag.

“Someone is watching…someone is watching.”

But who?

QUESTIONS FOR NEXT EPISODE:

  • Who shot Jason Blossom?
  • Did someone drag Jason Blossom’s body from the depths of the river?
  • Where did Ms. Grundy get her heart-shaped sunglasses?
  • What is “pouring concrete?”
  • Is Jughead our Dan Humphrey?
  • Does anyone remember The Secret Circle, which was also on the CW? If so, let’s talk.
  • Who is getting arrested for the murder of Jason Blossom halfway through fifth period on Tuesday?

*Edit: it has come to my attention that KJ Apa, the actor who portrays Archie Andrews, is part-Samoan.

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Source: CW//How extra

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