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Five Thoughts on Riverdale‘s “Welcome to Rivervale”

By | November 17th, 2021
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome back all you Riverdale fans! Lying awake at night these past six weeks, I’ve wondered what new spore of madness the creators have conjured up for our beloved town of absurdities. I needed to know what this “5 episode event” that was firmly rooted in horror could be. Would there be ghosts, ghouls and goblins? (Probably not.) Would two beloved cast members be killed off? (Ehhhhhhh, jury’s out on this one) Would Cheryl finally become a consistent character (AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA…no.) I only had speculation.

I now know and what I know, spoilers ahead, is it’s a friendly suburban community where the syrup is hot, the abs are beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep.

Welcome to River Vale.

1. I’m a Narrator. Hear My Voice?

Jughead’s place as narrator for Riverdale is literalized this week and I LOVE it. I was getting some strong Unsolved Mysteries vibes from how he took us around town, going from couple to couple, but I must admit I don’t actually know which horror host he’s emulating, if any. It’s not quite Rod Sterling from The Twilight Zone but it’s definitely not anything like the Cryptkeeper or others of his ilk, nor is it a good match for The Voice of Night Vale from, well, “Welcome to Night Vale.”

Regardless, having Jughead on-screen, talking directly to the camera as a wildly different kind of character, was the perfect way to set-up the weirdness of this event. It put me into the mood, got me to buy into the conceit of now being in RiverVALE instead of RiverDALE where things are the same but also just slightly different – like Pop’s being unburnt or Cheryl having a full school already set up mere days after seceding – and got me really excited to see things go south really fast for the crew.

Fun fact: there is a town called River Vale in NJ and I am going to get so confused now.

Yes, it seems that this and the next four episodes are going to each explore a different “what if” scenario, homaging different classic horror films and tropes while acting as ways to punish the main cast in horrific morality plays. I’m rolling my eyes at the WHY of it all but only because I think Cheryl’s vendetta is stupid and entirely unreasonable. Maybe that’s the point? Cause we’re definitely supposed to be afraid for Archie and not see his inevitable fate as justified. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

2. They’re Dead or They Aren’t. We Never Use That Word Here. No, That’d Be Too Quixotic.

You and I both knew there was no way that ending was going to be followed up on in this episode. It’s not in Riverdale’s nature to cleanly follow up on their season ending cliffhangers. Hell, we may never get a real answer as to what was with that bomb, though I suspect for once we’ll actually get some sort of follow-up. This event is clearly playing with our senses and while it’s possible the final reveal of what’s going on WON’T be magical in nature, I hope I’m wrong.

If they are looking for a way around the bomb, they could explain it away as a bad dream but that’d be bad. My guess is they’ll have Archie leap out the window with Betty. As for what’s with the town? THAT could be bad dreams caused by palladium poisoning or by Cheryl releasing a hallucinogenic gas into the town as revenge.

Or she could have cursed the town and she’s using that to torture everyone. I haven’t decided yet.

3. Wait, Rose… Nana… .Rose… Wait a minute.

Speaking of curses and Cheryl, I nearly lost my shit with her character this week. Watching her smug her way across town was not fun Cheryl nonsense because, like, the show seems to go out of its way to only show her doing the most petty things and then blowing them out of proportion. Like, Cheryl has never been one to take a chill pill but she could certainly use the help of some traditional herbs and stop taking everything as a slight or a challenge.

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Then I remembered that this is Rivervale and her actions make a lot more sense in context. Do I still think her threatening Archie over not being given maple trees is silly when she could, you know, buy some herself? Yes. Do I find her being the leader of a cult that worships a past she literally found out about one day ago baffling even for Cheryl? Yes. Do I really care all that much at this point? Not really. At least, not here.

Oh, and in this world Nana Blossom is almost certainly a serial killer so that’s fun.

4. KILLING ME WON’T BRING BACK THE GODDAMN HORNY!

If last season wasn’t Riverdale living up to its two main-stays, bonkers plot developments and unabashed horniness, then “Welcome to Rivervale” makes up for it in spades. Here are just a few things that happened in this episode, not in order:

Veronica and Reggie fuck on a bed of money.
Betty seductively feeds Archie pie and then they fuck next to said pie.
Dr. Kurdel offers to cure Toni & Fangs’ kid’s colic by putting a toad in its mouth.
The Riverdale eye-catch has changed to Rivervale and it screams.
Cheryl begins worshiping THE OLD WAYS and ritually sacrifices a deer with G&G runes.
There’s no mention of the strange weather at the end of last season.

I couldn't NOT show this one. I was cackling.

Archie and Reggie have a shirtless log sawing competition.
Jughead LOSES an eating competition to Archie.
Toni & Fangs decide that leaving their baby on a stump in the woods is a more reasonable option for curing their kid’s colic.
Mysterious bug bites haunt Jughead & Tabitha in their new location after Jug kills a spider.
The eating competition had them consume OVER 100 PLATE SIZED PANCAKES????
The Riverdale sign changes at the start and end to be episode related spooky puns.
Betty REALLY wants a baby but all the young women are mysteriously infertile.
Alice really wants to bone Uncle Frank but they have a meaningful conversation about his reluctance to really try again after losing his wife and child.

…OK that last one was very tame but you see what I mean. Normally I’d get into the whys and hows and inconsistencies but I’ve accepted that these episodes are going to be off on purpose, though it def took me until the mid-point of the episode to realize how off they’d end up being. And just how off ARE they? Well…

5. OH, NO, NOT THE TREES! NOT THE TREES! AAAAAHHHHH!

I left out the most ridiculous plot development and that’s how Cheryl manages to bribe or brainwash everyone in town into supporting her human sacrifice of Archie to feed the maple trees blood and bring them back to life. In exchange, she’s going to help make them potions and whatnot to cure all that ails them. It’s ridiculous on the face of it because it doesn’t really conform to the logic of the characters normally. It requires some really forced leaps of logic and suspension of disbelief to accept that even slightly different versions of these characters would be totally fine with tearing out the still beating heart of Archie Andrews – in a very tame and unbelievably clean manner, I might add – at the behest of Cheryl “My Whole Family Has Tortured this Town for Generations” Blossom.

Now, I did wonder about the underlying assumptions this episode plays on. Fears of paganism, the terror of female autonomy, and the archetype of the Witch in the Woods vs the Righteous Christian Man are all present and unchallenged. We’re positioned to be on the side of Archie, and as you could tell by thought three, not for no reason. However, as most horror is meant to channel a societal or personal fear of the creator, it is important to note which fears are legitimized through this and which are not. Archie’s comeuppance is meant not as an empowering moment for the town but a cautionary one for the Archies. I’m sure someone more versed in horror could do a better analysis so I’ll leave it there.

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However, considering the context of this episode being an homage to the novel “Ritual”, the “off-ness” of the world, and the aforementioned unchallenged fears, can be accounted for and accepted. I still think it’s an odd fit to map these characters and this situation onto the events of the novel but knowing that’s what they did makes the ending make sense. Hilariously incongruous like the entirety of the 2006 movie adaptation but understandable.

That about does it for now! What did you all think of Riverdale’s return? Are you as enthused as I am for the rest? Because I am 150% ready and have no idea what to expect. Let me know in the comments! Until then…do you smell burning flesh?

Best Line of the Night:

1. Nana Rose: “Ahhh, the Old Ways.”

2. Veronica: “I’ve always wanted to make it on a bed of money.”


//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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