I have been waiting a while for this to come on Netflix, and finally this week it did! I have lots of thoughts on this show, kind of mixed but mostly good...
So a little background: this show is kind of a dark crime drama take on the old Archie comics. I don't know why anyone thought this would be a good idea. I think the show would have been better off if they just completely did away with the Archie comics connection and just made it its own thing, but whatever, what's done is done.
As an offshoot of that - and I know right now this review sounds really negative so far even though I said I like the show, I promise it gets better - the name Jughead KILLS ME. I mean I die a little bit of embarrassment every time someone says Jughead, which is a total bummer because I actually really like the character. It's just - WHY? If my name were Jughead Jones, I would either insist people call me JJ, or just Jones, or even change my name completely. They try to cute it up a bit; characters often call him Juggie or Jug, but it doesn't really work for me. And he has a sister named Jellybean that, thank God, we never have to meet - this season, anyway. EDIT: I just discovered that Jughead IS a nickname and not his birth name. I don't know if that makes it better or worse.
Now the good! The show is pretty entertaining. The basic premise is this: some high school kid gets murdered and it's kind of a whodunit to figure out... well, whodunit. Cole Sprouse plays Jughead (typing it is a little better than hearing it spoke aloud, but not by much) who is writing an In Cold Blood style true crime book about it (which, good call, true crime is really in right now) but in order to finish the book, obviously, he has to solve the murder. I am making it sound like he's the main character, and I kind of feel like he should be (#teamjughead) but he isn't. Archie is actually the main character, but he often feels like he's on a totally different show. Most of the town is focused on this murder mystery, but for like the first ten episodes Archie is trying to be the best football player slash angsty musician he can be, so there's a lot of music writing and time management angst. It's... okay. And Archie is easy on the eyes, which is nice (though I'm partial to Jughead, myself). The murder stuff is just way more interesting than Archie's woes about being really good at everything. No spoiler, but I think, with the way the season ended, Archie is going to have more interesting stuff to work with in season 2.
Also featured in the show are Betty and Veronica, and they are pretty good - I was not a Veronica fan in the first few episodes but she grew on me. I spent about the first six episodes thinking Betty looks a lot like someone else but I couldn't figure it out, then it hit me that she kind of looks like one of my cousins if she were blonde. Then that's all I could see, which was weird. But the actress playing Betty does a good job. Josie and the Pussycats are also in this, and at first I was COMPLETELY against the stupid cat ears, but then Josie goes off on some monologue about how the ears are part of their brand they are building and okay, I buy it. Also there is a monster named Cheryl - twin sister of the deceased. She is kind of everyone's frenemy, but she is also insane and a wild card. She's fun to watch, at least.
An interesting thing about the show is ALL the parents are from other things, but they all look kind of old now and it makes me feel old. Archie's dad is Luke Perry. His mom is also famous (I don't think it's a spoiler but I don't know your life and I try to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible so I won't spill, just in case). Betty's mom is played by the chick from Sleepwalkers, who I have negative feelings about for no particular reason but she does a good job of being completely batshit in this. Betty's dad is that guy who I have seen in a million things but can't think of the name of (you'll know him when you see him). Jughead's dad is Skeet Ulrich, who looks terrible but, in his defense, he is supposed to because his character is a total mess. Anyway, I am interested to see if they pull some stunt casting for the parents we haven't seen yet that will, presumably, show up in season 2, like Veronica's dad who is talked about ALL the time but hasn't been seen yet. I would vote for Ray Liotta but I think he's busy on Shades of Blue, so I guess I'll vote for... Eric Roberts? Or one of the forgotten Baldwins?! What about David Arquette?! Okay, I'll stop now.
This show does one thing I LOVE that needs a special shout-out. You know how in TV shows people will do this thing where they find out a secret and then, instead of immediately telling people, they hold onto it until it comes out at an inopportune moment? Riverdale almost never does this! Veronica finds out her mom is up to some shady stuff, so the next scene is her asking her mom about it. There are a couple of times people keep secrets, but it's for reasonable things (like one character doesn't tell his friends about some shady shit his dad has been up to because he is ashamed - I get this) instead of just keeping the secret for no real reason other than for that secret to come up later and bite everyone in the butt. Anyway I really liked this. Thank you, Riverdale. I hope they keep this up in season 2!
I think the resolution to the whole murder sitch (which, yes, they resolve in the first season) fell a little flat for me - I understood it, and it made sense I guess, but it was a little bit of a letdown. I will say this though: in the third episode I was ABSOLUTELY SURE I had figured the whole thing out, and I was kind of bummed that it was so predictable, but I ended up being totally wrong. I think my ending would have had higher stakes and would have been more interesting, but looking back it probably wouldn't have been super realistic and also would have meant that episodes 4-11 were just wheel spinning and red herrings. I'm kind of glad I was wrong. There really weren't many red herrings in Riverdale - most of the clues figured out along the way were actual clues that were important factors in figuring out what happened.
So, bottom line: I think if you like shows like Pretty Little Liars (and if you can get past the name Jughead - it's a hard pill to swallow) you'll like this. It's not prestige television, but it's fun, and the acting is pretty decent, and some interesting stuff happens. It's Colleen approved.
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