Riverdale. Just your ordinary country town, right? Well, not so much as a tragedy begins a chain reaction of weird events and drama in this adaptation of America’s Favorite Teen, “Archie”. So, how does the Pilot fair? Let’s discuss. Warning: There will be spoilers.
1. Definitely Not the Archie of Old
In the lead up to this series debut, a lot of emphasis has been made about the different tone this series would go for. How it’ll be “Darker” and “Sexier” e.t.c. e.t.c. And I’ll give credit to where it’s due: It does push the Archie envelope in a great deal of ways (some of which are kinda bad, we’ll get to that) and it also wears it’s influences on its sleeves. The big one? Twin Peaks, obviously. It doesn’t even shy away from that. I’ll give credit where it’s due, the murder that begins spilling out the dark secrets of this town is a boy rather than a girl, which is good. Another girl dead to start the plot is something that is sorely Not Needed. But that last scene was pure homage to Twin Peaks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly fine with this! Just curious to what happens in May when Daddy comes home and sees it’s stylized child running around in its clothes.
2. Betty and Veronica
The best characters, without a doubt, are Betty and Veronica. The writing of them is the strongest and actresses Lili Reinhart and Camila Mendes are fantastic in their roles. They have such natural chemistry with one another and a big reason to that is the story chooses not to have them be rivals but instead find strength in one another. Sure there is some tension, but it feels a lot more realistic instead of the constant fight over Archie. That said…
3. Queerbaiting and Kevin
Hoo boy.
Listen, there is a lot of homoerotic subtext going on, both between guys and gals. Like I said above, Betty and Veronica have really good chemistry in this, yes to that degree. But the makings of the BettyxArchiexVeronica are here, both as a Love Triangle and just a straight-up OT3. This queerbaiting is not helped by one Kevin Keller. Oh Dear, Kevin Keller. It’s kind of summed up by a line from Cheryl Blossom to Kevin: “Is being the Gay Best Friend still a thing?” That kind of is his only trait in this episode and it’s not good. That needs a fixing ASAP.
But that’s not the worst sexual thing in this episode. No, that would be…
4. Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy!
Yeah, we’re going full spoilers here, but it must be talked about. It is confirmed that over the summer prior to the start of the show, Archie Andrews had sexual fling with one Miss Grundy, a teacher at Riverdale High School. This is without a doubt the worst part of this episode. It is confirmed in this episode that Archer and the gang are Sophomores (hower hilarious that may be considering none of these actors look like Sophomores), so that would mean that Archie is -averagely- fifteen or sixteen. And this is not cool. It’s not sexy. I don’t want to hear from idiots going “Woo-hoa! Archie did it with a teacher! Nice!” I’m calling it what it is: Statutory Rape.
What isn’t helped is that Archie is not the strongest in this show. K.J. Apa does a fine job but it’s the script that falters on that part. Now, I’m not sure where this plotline will go, but for me, the only acceptable conclusion is with Miss Grundy arrested. I do not accept this stuff. Ever.
And even worse: In a 30 second span we went from the Creepy Incest Subtext from Cheryl about her brother back this subplot! Give a guy a warning!
5. Enter: The Hero
There is one last character we haven’t talked about. The one that probably a lot of people were waiting for: one Forsythe Pendelton Jones III a.k.a. “Jughead Jones.” The reason for that is that he is in about five minutes of screen-time, while also serving as our noir-esque narrator. But I have to say, Cole Sprouse does a great job with the time here, capturing the essence of the character (or at least, the 2015 rebooted version of the character, which is perfectly fine by me). This is more of a promise of things to come and I am looking forward to it.
