Regarding Riverdale: The Characters

My name is Lucy and I’m addicted to American dramas.

I live for scandal, especially when it’s fictional. I love sassy characters that rapidly invent comebacks I couldn’t dream up if I spent weeks working on them. I adore ridiculous, over-the-top stunts like the plane crash on Desperate Housewives or the million car accidents in One Tree Hill. I think it’s great how you can be laughing your head off at an episode one minute and then you’ll be slammed with a close-to-home storyline like Adrianna’s drug overdose in 90210, or Adrianna’s teen pregnancy in 90210, or Adrianna being cheated on in 90210, or Adrianna being reunited with her child in 90210 after giving her up for adoption...Wow, Adrianna was a busy girl.

My latest drama fix is the CW/Netflix teen smash hit, Riverdale, based on the beloved Archie comics. It was pitched to me as ‘if you loved One Tree Hill, you’ll love Riverdale’. At first I loved it. Season One had sufficient tension with the ‘who killed Jason Blossom?’ storyline, comedy moments, an aesthetically pleasing cast and the occasional shock twist that I genuinely didn’t see coming.

Now, well into Season Two, the show has become an over-the-top farce that I only watch to laugh at its ridiculous direction. But I’ll save my complaining about the storylines for another post. For now, I’m here to complain about how the characters have gone massively downhill.

We’ll start with Betty Cooper, who was the cute girl next door – literally, she lives next door to our ‘hero’ Archie – which whilst saccharine, was at least believable. She ran a newspaper. She liked puzzle solving, pink lip gloss, and high ponytails. But now she has this creepy ‘dark side’ and wears a black wig and is a webcam girl. Yes, that’s as disgusting as it sounds. Doubly gross is it’s her long-lost brother who got her into this. Yes, she found out her estranged brother was having cybersex with random men, and instead of doing the rational thing like telling her mum or asking him to stop, she asked him to show her how he did it. Just EW. I don’t know what direction they’re planning on taking Betty in but this whole 'Dark' thing is honestly quite hard to watch now. She also does a strip tease to Gary Jules’ Mad World in Season 2, Episode 8, and it might be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.

Betty’s love interest is Jughead Jones, an aspiring writer who serves as the show’s narrator. A once misunderstood but lovable weirdo, he is now an unbearable little know-it-all who spouts ‘deep and meaningful’ phrases and thinks he is the political saviour his town needs. Granted, he’s from the South Side, which is ‘the wrong side of the tracks’ currently being Monopolised by Hiram Lodge, but his ‘let’s fight the man’ attitude is so tiresome. “We’re being profiled, being told what to wear. What’s next? Brain implants controlling what we think?” he says, whilst wearing a jacket with a SNAKE that serves as a GANG SYMBOL on the back. It's not like he's being profiled for wearing, say, a religious item of clothing. Gangs are bad, Jughead. Plus, he cut off a woman's tattoo. Suspicious people tend to get profiled, Jug. I find myself sighing every time he speaks now. In the latest episode, he went on a hunger strike to protest South Side High closing, chained himself to the old South Side High building, and then in a move he describes as ‘unlikely’, he’s decided to run for Student Body President. The political activist running for a position of power is meant to be considered 'unlikely'? Ok, Riverdale writers. Whatever you say.

Speaking of someone else whose dialogue makes me shrivel, let’s look at Veronica Lodge. She was introduced to the show as a former mean girl who wants to be a better person now. The writers try way too hard to make her a good, politically correct icon. I direct you to her saying “I beg your misogynistic pardon” in Season 2, Episode 6, regarding a Serpent thug referring to her as Archie’s ‘bitch’. I’m all for shutting down sexism, but that’s the least natural sentence I’ve ever heard. People don’t talk like that, and I can’t believe someone actually wrote that. Surely the realistic response would have been to tell the guy to get lost? Or maybe even "I'm no one's bitch" and then slapped him; that would have been better. Now, Veronica isn’t the only character guilty of speaking like someone who learned the English language through reading Charles Dickens quotes with a smattering of Buzzfeed articles, but her lines are easily the most grating. See also:

"That certainty, that entitlement you wear on your head like a crown? It won’t last."

"I don’t follow rules, I make them. And when necessary, I break them."

"But like most millennial straight guys, he needs to be told what he wants."

Just take your unfairly perfect eyebrows and go away, Veronica.

And what would an Archie comics spin-off be without Archie Andrews, everyone’s second favourite ginger? I don’t think his personality is interesting at all. There, I said it. He’s clearly the eye candy of the show, a very handsome young man, and they make him sporty and musical, too, because that’s what teenage (and older) girls fawn over. But other than that, I can’t really tell you that much about him. He dates Veronica and rather embarrassingly sucks up to her dad. Let's just move on.

The last of the main characters is everyone’s favourite, Cheryl Blossom. She’s the Queen Bee, a star, the other characters are just her little workers. No, but seriously, she presents as the stereotypical TV mean girl; gorgeous, outspoken, rude, and seriously nasty sometimes. But that’s just the surface. She actually has a heart, and a coming-out struggle, which would admittedly be less of a struggle if her mother wasn’t so crazy. I don’t necessarily like her, but she’s interesting to watch, and I do feel sorry for her at the moment. She’s Riverdale’s real redemption character, and I like that, even if she’s a little annoying sometimes, like when she got a bit stalky-stalky with Josie - a storyline that hasn't been visited again - or when she had that stupid dance-off with Veronica.

Other high school kids include Kevin, a low-budget version of Damien from Mean Girls, Josie and the Pussycats, who basically show up to sing every few episodes, Toni Topaz, a Serpent girl who only seems to have been introduced initially to turn Jughead away from Betty (now she’s Cheryl’s love interest), and Reggie, who’s very meh. He’s rude and a football player, that’s it. Not worth my time.

You can’t look at the Riverdale characters ignoring the kids’ families. Alice Cooper is one of the few characters that’s grown on me rather than put me off. I love how she’s a busybody journalist who has dirt on everybody. And, to be fair, if I lived somewhere where murders take place a lot, I’d get a bit overprotective of my family, too. Granted, I wish she wasn’t so overprotective of Betty’s long-lost brother, the creepy Chic, but after Chic ratted Betty out for wearing a black wig in the bedroom with Jughead to their mother, he’s my new favourite character, even if the sight of him holding a cute baby made me anxious. Hart Denton is a great actor, in my opinion, and I hope Chic sticks around for a lot longer.

Archie’s dad, Fred, is wonderful. More so than Cheryl’s mum, Penelope, who is both a prostitute and plotting to get rid of her own daughter in order to inherit a lot of money. Her latest plan has been sending Cheryl to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy group home, either for conversion therapy – which would be new levels of controversial – or a lobotomy. I don’t know which yet. Either way, Penelope Blossom is mean and evil and upsetting a lot of fans, but entertaining me. Maybe that says a lot about my personality.

Lastly, I’ll look at Veronica’s parents. In case the jail sentence for fraud isn’t enough of a tip-off, Hiram Lodge is a shady bloke, and it’s been revealed he’s a mobster. Classy, but unsurprising. Hiram Lodge is basically the Pascal Sauvage of Riverdale, planning on buying enough of the town to be able to build a prison there. That’s his master plan. A prison. His wife, Hermione, is equally plotting, and is currently running for Mayor so she can approve the building of this prison. They’re annoying, yes, and I get the message Riverdale is toting here – we shouldn’t let the rich buy us off – but honestly, I’m kind of rooting for them, like people root for the Lannisters in Game of Thrones. Seeing ‘the town with pep’ become ‘the town with perpetrators’ would make for interesting viewing. And every show needs its antagonists.

  

You may be wondering why I’m continuing watching this show. Because it’s entertaining, that’s why. It’s become so bad it’s actually quite good, and I’m admittedly desperate to know what’ll happen next. Yes, I definitely need a hobby.

All images belong to the CW.