I consumed my fair share of “highbrow” media over Quarantine Summer: I finally watched “Fleabag.” I got deeply into the twisted capitalist world of HBO’s “Succession.” I read a lot of modern literary fiction and finally took advantage of that Smith College New York Times subscription.
But my one true quarantine love, the one piece of media that made good on the promise of important art and transported me out of these Unprecedented Times, was “Riverdale,” the CW’s violent, glossy, completely off-the-wall adaptation of the Archie Comics.
I’d been meaning to watch “Riverdale” for years to answer one question: is it… good? Some people talk about “Riverdale” like it’s the worst show ever made; some people talk about it like it’s a high-camp masterpiece. My guess was that maybe it was a “so bad it’s good” kind of thing.
But honestly, like most TV shows, “Riverdale” is good at some things and bad at others, and the things it’s good at make it good, and the things it’s bad at make it bad. The quality clouding up everyone’s sensors, that makes it so divisive, is that “Riverdale” is also just incandescently weird.
There is simply nothing else on television like “Riverdale.” Season one makes a valiant effort at presenting like your average, slightly-dark teen drama, but by the season finale, all bets are off. “Riverdale” is not interested in delivering morals, not interested in utilizing the tropes of high school media or in exploring the unique details of teenagers’ lives. It presents, instead, a universe with very little division between the world of teens and the world of adults. It’s “Scooby Doo”-like, the way these meddling kids always get in the way, the way they have no trouble storming into the mayor’s office with threats and blackmail.
The setting of high school offers “Riverdale,” if anything, a thin aesthetic veneer over what is, at its heart, a noir. Characters speak with a clumsy mix of teenage internet slang and dated cultural references. (I, for one, will never get over Veronica’s opening line to Archie and Betty: “Are you familiar with the works of Truman Capote?”) “Riverdale” is an exploration of the seedy underbelly of a doomed town, where its characters skip homework and cut cheerleading practice to lead gangs, act as hardboiled detectives and in Veronica’s case, operate an illicit speakeasy where another teen has an apparently 24/7 residence singing jazz.
The major flaw of “Riverdale” is that its characters are poorly written. Their characterizations are shallow, their relationships are uninteresting and inconsistent, their actors lack chemistry. They often feel like nothing more than chess pieces being shifted on a board.
This is because “Riverdale” is a show about plot. And while it would be stronger with better characters, it is hard to care when the plot is so much fun.
“Riverdale” has a higher plot-twist-to-minute ratio than any other television program ever made. There is nothing it will not throw at the wall. Murder, gang war, D&D-based cults, prison breaks, a drug called jingle-jangle, bear attacks, conversion therapy, secret fight clubs, even a pre-COVID episode where “Riverdale” is forcibly quarantined due to a mysterious plague.
Let me insert a warning here: watching “Riverdale” will make you insufferable to your loved ones. It is impossible to resist the urge to summarize and comment on an episode-by-episode basis. “Good morning,” I would say to my parents, as they emerged from their room to make coffee in the morning. “Let me tell you what you missed on ‘Riverdale.’”
The key ingredient to “Riverdale,” the thing that made it utterly consume my brain when I had access to so much better media, is its rock-solid commitment to the bit. “Riverdale” takes itself deathly seriously. It never stops pretending that what’s happening on screen makes sense, has stakes. As a result, it is extremely dedicated to maintaining continuity. Four seasons in, the show is over 50 hours of dense plot. But it remembers every single thing that has ever happened.
I spent the month of August mainlining it, so I also remember everything that has ever happened on “Riverdale.” I am a keeper of “Riverdale” lore. I care so much. The writers of “Riverdale” see this commitment and reward it with what I am going on the record to say is genuinely spectacular world-building. Twist after twist, episode after episode, everything layers on itself to create a detailed, expansive view of the town of Riverdale
To be clear: “Riverdale” is a rarefied taste. You should only watch if its particular brand of crazy sounds fun to you. But if it does, then I cannot imagine better escapist programming than this, the show that lets you jump from our world, where everything is terrible and nothing makes sense, to Archie’s, where everything is also terrible, but the things that make no sense on the surface are underpinned by a convoluted, chess-like logic.
“Riverdale” is available to stream on Netflix.
