Television 

Five Thoughts on Riverdale‘s “American Psychos”

By | June 13th, 2022
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome back all you Riverdale fans! What is with The CW’s schedule right now? We took a random break last week and are skipping next week too. At least it kinda makes sense, what with it being Juneteeth & Father’s day, but still. Stick to a damn schedule so I don’t have to be reviewing in the middle of August. Let me have my summer Sunday’s back Riverdale!

And as always, spoilers ahead.

1. Cereal Con, Now with More SNAP, CRACKLE, and POP

I expected more out of the serial killer convention, to be honest. I mean, this is Riverdale for crying out loud. It should be over-the-top and ridiculous and look at least a little livelier than 50 people in a big-open room. Why didn’t the camera-work get really weird? Why didn’t we get more Dr. Curdle Jr.? Why were most of the scenes Kevin singing a couple rather lackluster musical numbers in a suit when I was promised 80s glam instead of a constant montage of the con SET to his lovely singing? I’ll get to the musical bits on their own but as for the rest, yeah, disappointing to say the least.

I dunno. It just felt really low energy and that’s OK but I don’t think that’s quite what the show wanted to go for. Veronica’s opening speech had “first time con presenter” energy, despite her prolific hosting skills, and most of the focus was on the worst red herring in the world: Black Hood obsession guy. Worst part is, he only showed up twice, meaning he’s bound to either have been TBK in the finale of the episode as a fake out, which is possible since we didn’t see beneath his mask after he was shot and “killed,” or is going to come back in some ridiculous way after being hurt by Betty & Archie emotionally.

I’m not ready for bad cosplay Chic 2.0 and neither should you.

2. Union Bust a Move

Percival’s ongoing attempts to stop the people of Riverdale from advocating for themselves and their families via a union takes on a new look this week as he decides to talk to them and hear them out and voluntarily recognize their union.

Pffffft. Sorry, I had a hard time keeping a straight face throughout that. As if Percival would ever do anything that didn’t benefit him at the expense of others. Nah, he just waltzes into Pops and commands them to get back to work with his magic tongue and it actually works! For a bit. See, Tabitha has the brilliant, and I mean that without any sarcasm, to use music to help break Percival’s hold over the reluctant crew.

Because they were already doing it under duress and suddenly rather than being pushed in a direction they were already moving in or inclined to move in slowly, the hold on their minds wasn’t difficult to dislodge with a nice song on an acoustic guitar sung in solidarity. This was one of the moments I thought worked great, musically, and I wish there were more smaller numbers throughout the episode with this kind of energy and approach.

I did find it kinda hilarious, though, that the opening union meeting was sponsored by Cheezy Cronch PopcornTM, The Only Snack Food With More Air in It Than the Bag.

Yep! That happened. And you know me. Anytime there’s a way too obvious snack food promotion, I have to highlight it. No one has sold it quite as well as Mark Conseulos did in “Back to School” but it still gets a big laugh out of me. And an entire section of a thought.

3. Just Desserts

GET! DUNKED! CHERYL!

Can I leave it at that? Please? You want to know why I’m celebrating the extreme dunkitude that Cheryl experiences? Fine.

My gripes with Cheryl & Kevin’s characterizations and usage are long documented here, so long I don’t even really have a good review to link to as an example. With Kevin, I can at least pretend most of his actions here are influenced by Percival rewiring his brain to think the best way to be a father is to stick it to Toni & Fangs instead of, you know, being a decent person and figuring his own shit out. With Cheryl, this is just who she is: a jealous bitch who lives for drama.

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She has Heather now! They’re not officially together because why would anything be easy in this show but her reaction to hearing Toni & Fangs getting married is so out of line and from left field but also still totally within her ultra-dramatic wheelhouse that I cannot help but be exasperated. Basically, Cheryl uses ultra-dark magic to drive a wedge between Toni & Fangs. She doesn’t care what the wedge is. Predictably, it is a monkey’s paw and I have zero sympathy for her for not even considering the possibility that it could be the death of Baby Anthony that drives the wedge.

Don’t worry! Baby Anthony is fine. He just had colic and Heather cures it but that’s where it was heading and Cheryl really should’ve seen that coming. She’s not stupid! So why was seeing her ex, WHOM SHE DROVE AWAY both initially and then for seven fucking years as a Gothic Hermit I might add, getting married such a trigger for her? The show offers some BS explanation about it having to do with her sorting out her feelings for Heather or something but I think it was just a way to waste time and have Cheryl do one more freakout on Toni.

What a waste of a good Cheryl.

4. A Drake By Another Other Name Would Be Just as Awkward

Another character who feels a bit…underutilized is Drake. You know what I mean? She’s a character I really love. We don’t really have the “cool bad boy/girl” archetype anymore and she fits that bill with just a bit of Riverdale nonsense thrown in perfectly. As such, her confession to Betty at Slaughter Con felt wildly out of character. Not because of her attraction to Betty – that was seeded on her first appearance – nor because she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who wouldn’t be so forward. No, it’s because it felt super fucking manipulative!

Unless Drake turns out to be ANOTHER FUCKING SERIAL KILLER, either the real TBK or someone else, that manipulativeness seems like it was the hands of the writers looking for drama rather than the character reaching a point where she either thought she had an in or couldn’t wait any longer. Why would she confess in the middle of what is ostensibly a personal and painful sting operation!? Come on Drake, you’re better than that. Wait till after or after a fight Betty has with Archie. Archie being concerned about Betty being bait is a pretty reasonable concern!

It sat weird with me too how Veronica treated Drake afterwards too. Like it was repurposing an old homophobic version of this plot but with the veneer of inclusion. I can’t quite pinpoint why though and it could just be the mismatch between her seeking Drake out to yell at her and the actual actions Drake took. It’s not like Drake pushed Betty to cheat on Arch. OK, maybe she did a little but Betty was the one who ended up bringing it there in her convo with Veronica.

Still, it did lead to a few great developments. Betty is bi, she reaffirmed her and Archie’s relationship despite their big differences, Veronica had a really mature moment or two with Betty about darkness being bullshit and another tool of manipulation by these toxic people in her life, and she got to confront TBK finally. Is he truly dead? Look. Until we see the unmasked body, my answer is no and even then it could be a fake out. It seems too easy.

5. Musical a No No

*sigh* I wanted to like this episode more than I did. The last musical episode was great and stylish and this one felt like a throwback to the “Carrie” musical episode in that it was mismatched and kind meh. The singing was all nice but the numbers were too few and far between, were quite short, and the staging for most of them was…fine. I think it’s also because “American Psycho: The Musical” is pretty obscure and only here because Roberta Aguirre-Sacasa wrote the book for it. The book for the play, not the OG book the movie was based on.

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I just found the whole thing poorly integrated and kinda dull, which sucks! Imagine if this had featured Kevin as a reluctant Bateman figure, unsure what was real and what was not, thanks to Percival’s manipulations. Really lean into the melding of the two tones. Let the episode look like the promo image I used at the top. I miss the hyper-reality created by weird neons from earlier seasons. Or even having Betty sing the songs! I’d prefer the former since it would keep Casey Cott in the role, looking sweet in the suit and allowing him to sing and take center stage for once, but narratively it would work a little better for Betty.

That said, the final song Betty sings which was intercut with her chase with TBK was by far and away the best scene of the episode. That’s the kind of thing I wanted more of. Artful, stylish, and with Lili Reinhart getting to show off her singing chops.

That about does it for now! What did you think of this “musical” episode? Was it still too music light? Was it better than I said? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you all in two week for an episode that really should have been called Detzach, Adash, Bachab. Until then, keep singing about your weird love of fake-out murders Riverdale.

Best Line of the Night:

Veronica: “Betty Cooper, are you hot for agent Drake?”


//TAGS | Riverdale

Elias Rosner

Elias is a lover of stories who, when he isn't writing reviews for Mulitversity, is hiding in the stacks of his library. Co-host of Make Mine Multiversity, a Marvel podcast, after winning the no-prize from the former hosts, co-editor of The Webcomics Weekly, and writer of the Worthy column, he can be found on Twitter (for mostly comics stuff) here and has finally updated his profile photo again.

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