Riverdale - Season 1
“Riverdale demonstrates what progress in media should look like—experimental, well-intentioned, and willing to take risks.”
Title: Riverdale
Episodes Reviewed: Season 1
Creator: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa 👨🏽🇺🇸
Writers: Comic by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa 👨🏽🇺🇸, TV scripts by various including POC and women
Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸
Technical: 1/5
Riverdale features a bizarre and soapy plot with the strangeness of Twin Peaks, while updating its older roots to target a young, modern demographic. Its best attributes include the diverse cast of likable characters and lovely cinematography that juxtaposes sickly greens against dangerous shades of red and pink to give the series its dark, teen-horror vibe. But unfortunately, it drops off a cliff for me there.
Midway through the season, I was just starting to get invested in the lives of Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica (Camila Mendes), Jughead (Cole Sprouse), and others. But the simplistic dialogue and telenovela dramatics quickly began to subsume the more refreshing, pulp aspects of the show. Boorish writing, a near-pathological focus on relationships, and laughable events that lack the tongue-in-cheek quality found in earlier episodes present a tipping point for Riverdale—a fulcrum between a campy, teenage horror dramedy or an unwatchable chore that belongs on daytime television. I hate that the season ends on the latter note.
Gender: 5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
Women get plenty of screen time and are represented with brilliant diversity. We’re shown a range of age groups, socioeconomic backgrounds, personalities, strengths, and vulnerabilities. It’s a relief to watch a program that doesn’t diminish women in screen time or characterization, and I enjoy all the different dynamics on display—mothers with their daughters, burgeoning friendships, frenemies, and teammates.
True to any drama, these relationships are the heartbeat of Riverdale and the show succeeds in portraying the full scope of both positive and negative relationships that women accrue throughout their lives.
Race: 4.5/5
The series embraces racial diversity with little fanfare, though it’s portrayals aren’t particularly deep. Still, the casting for white comic book characters with actors of color is welcome, including:
Veronica Lodge is now Latina and played by Brazilian actress Mendes
Reggie Mantle is played by half-Dutch, half-Indonesian actor Ross Butler
Josie of the Pussycats is now Black and leads the all-Black Pussycats band
In addition, multiple interracial relationships are easily normalized. That said, cultural competency still needs to be developed in the writing, with Black male depictions leaving much to be desired, as writer Monique Jones touches on in her piece, “Riverdale React: So…let’s talk about Chuck Clayton.” In no 21st century universe will it be comfortable to see a Black man in manacles as a white woman steps on him, saying “good boy.” I understand the provocative angle Riverdale was going for, and it usually works, but the scene is a major overreach.
LGBTQ: 3.5/5
Kevin Keller is a confident, multi-layered character who happens to be gay. But simply having a white, cisgender queer man is no longer the groundbreaking role it used to be. This particular angle has already been explored through a plethora of roles such as Kurt from Glee, Sonny and Will in Days of Our Lives, or entire programs dedicated to this demographic such as HBO’s Looking, or the classic series Queer as Folk which aired nearly two decades ago.
Meanwhile, we already have the perfect vehicle for examining modern sexuality through Jughead, who is canonically asexual in the comics. Yet in Riverdale, we see him awkwardly smashed together with Betty in a romance that feels rushed and superfluous. Even if I was okay with the casual deletion of an asexual character, there has been no legwork whatsoever in establishing Jughead’s attraction to Betty or vice versa, adding insult to injury. The sad part is, I would actually buy a Betty/Jughead romance if given enough shared scenes, dialogue, chemistry, and time … none which were afforded this relationship.
Mediaversity Grade: B- 3.50/5
This show demonstrates what progress in media should look like—experimental, well-intentioned, and willing to take risks. Riverdale infuses the cast with racial diversity, many of them in major roles, while gay men are featured in a positive light. The show gets most of it right and should be applauded for trying, despite its missteps that can be considered problematic (changing Jughead’s sexuality to straight), generally sophomoric writing (one-dimensional portrayals of Black men), or both (Betty’s random dalliance with BDSM in Episode 3).
I sincerely hope this show can veer back towards its excellent hook of being Veronica Mars with the eeriness of Twin Peaks. I think of all the soap operas and The OCs and The Hills that have come before Riverdale, and no matter how wonderfully diverse and likable the cast is, no amount of overstuffed romances or thinly-established feuds will save it from itself.