For my post this week, I have selected quite possibly the weirdest teen TV show: Riverdale. When I describe this show as weird, I mean legitimately makes me question the sanity and stability of the show writers. Riverdale premiered in 2017 on the CW and found great success in the teen drama department. Based off of the Archie Comic series created in the 1940’s, the premise of the first season followed a group of teenagers in a small town following the death of their classmate, Jason Blossom. While this may sound like an intriguing small town murder mystery, the writers of this show soon moved far away from that.
When I watched the first season of Riverdale, I really liked it. For the first 2 years, I would even watch the episodes weekly as they came out. I’d go in my basement and put it on the projector we have, usually with a snack and a fun soda. After each episode premiere, my friends and I would talk about it at lunch and give our guesses for who was the killer. Riverdale was insanely popular in its first two seasons; I don’t think there was a single middle school girl who wasn’t watching Riverdale.
As I’ve stated, I was a devout weekly Riverdale watcher for the first few seasons, and actively experienced some interesting plot developments. A pretty standard plot development in the second season was the addition of a new killer, called “the Black Hood”, who was eventually revealed to be the father of Betty, a main female character. The Black Hood was a scary villain and provided a new mystery to keep viewers hooked after the first season. Additionally, these high school students were involved in gang activity and an intense rivalry between schools that caused lots of drama and violence.
After this though, the show writers started to experiment more and more. The main character Archie gets arrested and sent to jail, where in an intense scene of earning respect with his fellow prisonmates, one of the most bizarre lines in TV history is said.
This is just touching the surface. After Archie is released from jail, he is subsequently mauled by a bear. But somehow, he makes it to his SATs in the next episode in perfect condition.
However, from my time of regularly watching, the most memorable plot point in Riverdale is the demonic, supernatural, Gargoyle King. What happened to a small town murder mystery? This monster was somehow based off of Dungeons and Dragons, and I still don’t even know if it was real or not. This same season, Betty’s mom joins a cult run by Chad Michael Murray.
Riverdale went more and more off the rails after I stopped watching. Eventually, the writers delved into giving the high school characters literal superpowers, and creating a multiverse. An actual multiverse. There was an entire plot arc of the characters entering “Rivervale,” the alternate dimension of Riverdale.
Overall, Riverdale has to be the most bizarre show I’ve watched myself, to the degree that I stopped watching because it got so strange. However, it has provided so much quality content to laugh at, and below you’ll find my favorite quote from the entire show.
