Riverdale

If you’ve ever watched Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina on Netflix then it’s probable that, like me, you’ve been followed around by Riverdale when browsing for the next boxset to jump into.  There it is, in the Popular On Netflix list, in the Trending Now list, or in the Because You Watched Sabrina list.  It even came up in my Because You Watched Making A Murderer list.  Just give in to it.  I did.  There’s no point delaying the inevitable: we’re all weak.  While Sabrina’s characters, residing in nearby Greendale, refer liberally to Riverdale (joining both shows’ origins in their Archie Comics roots), it wasn’t until I journeyed there myself that I uncovered something truly entertaining.  Episode one makes every effort to hook you in with such force that you wonder how subsequent instalments will ever maintain the level: there’s mystery, there’s style and atmosphere, there are throwaway lines so witty that you can practically feel the writers air-punching as they thought of them.  Warning: some of the dialogue sparkle does die away as the drama progresses, but it’s taken over by the endless mystery and ever more stylised atmosphere of Riverdale town, until the place and its inhabitants take on an alternative universe quality, offering just the escapism you might need from your pointless life.

The trick is to immerse yourself in Riverdale and accept it for the nonsense that it is.  The first barrier is the hair dye.  Lead character, Archie, is supposed to be ginger, but apparently they couldn’t find enough male actors with red hair.  KJ Apa, naturally dark-haired, was hired for other reasons, it seems, as the poor lad’s clothes are constantly getting torn off to prove to everyone he has done all his sit ups (and to distract you from his dodgy barnet).  If this makes you wonder how much steaminess the show purveys, then I can tell you that there is romping aplenty.  All the Riverdale High Schoolers are pretty active in this department, as are some of the parents.  It’s not really a family show, but the line is drawn at the female nipple, with below the waist out of bounds.  Sex and relationships are a big part of the plots, but it seems there’s no need to be explicit.  For one thing, it would look out of place next to Riverdale’s drug culture.  This idyllic forest town eschews your standard class As and Bs for its own brands of narcotics.  Try sounding dangerous when you’re talking about jingle jangle, which basically looks like pixie sticks.  Or if you want the harder stuff, there are fizzle rocks.  We’re shown stabbings and shootings over and over, and a growing body count is paraded in front of our eyeballs, but illicit substances take on a Wonka-esque whimsy that’s just part of the Riverdale experience.

But the weird names don’t stop there.  Archie’s best friend is referred to as Jughead by the rest of the cast, all while they manage to keep straight faces.  His sister is called Jellybean.  Their dad is FP.  There’s Midge and Moose.  You just get used to it, but I have to mention that Jughead’s hat is perhaps the most displeasing thing in the whole show.  I can only tolerate its tattiness and contrived kookiness because it seems to be in homage to the original Archie Comics characters, with Wikipedia reliably informing me that they first appeared in 1941.  Americana nostalgia frames a lot of the action: the teens consume thousands of calories of milkshakes in Pop’s Chocklit Shoppe (the ur-diner of diners, but with a weird name), Riverdale High is all letterman jackets and cheerleaders, gang members are identified by their leather jackets.

The gangs!  Alongside the jingle jangle, Riverdale gang culture has also been through the PG process.  The South Side Serpents (the South Side is the bad part of town: there is litter and graffiti there) drink in a dive bar and ride motorbikes, but they also do some sterling work in the community and just want to live their trailer park lives while clad in leather no matter the weather.  That said, they’ll pack some punches whenever the Ghoulies come to town to push fizzle rocks, resulting in dialogue that feels more CBeebies than The Wire.  I’ve decided they’re the male equivalents of tarts with hearts.  One is even called Sweet Pea (see earlier snarky comment about Riverdale nomenclature).

What actually happens, then?  Each series revolves around a mystery, from Jason Blossom’s death, to the Black Hood, who lingers unwelcome into season three’s Gryphons and Gargoyles boardgame-based shenanigans (no idea why it’s not spelled griffins, but think Cones of Dunshire from the amazing Parks & Recreation, only with more death and fewer cones).  Archie and Jughead form a central quartet with Betty Cooper (ornamental collars) and Veronica Lodge (pearls), supported by a handful of other teens who tend to get the better lines whilst coming and going.  The mysteries actually feel less interesting than the day-to-day relationships between the cast, but they contrive hard to drive tension between the kids and their parents.  In a stroke of self-referencing, the parents, who are of course as photogenic as their beautiful offspring, are played by high school movie royalty.  Step into shot Luke Perry, Skeey Ulrich and Molly Ringwald.  This reference loop almost inverts itself in a throwback episode when the young actors play their parents’ characters in a The Breakfast Club-inspired exposition of the Gryphons and Gargoyles’ origins.  It doesn’t matter, as the parents’ behaviour is often much more puerile than any of their children’s, partly because the writers aren’t shy of wild u-turns to drive the plot forward.

So, take a trip with me to Riverdale.  It’s not like the real world.  I’m literally going to coin an adjective here: Riverdalian.  It’s Riverdalian not to swear or say the real names of drugs or to be called Fangs.  It’s Riverdalian almost never to be seen in class at school because you’re too busy solving mysteries.  It’s Riverdalian that the episode where the students put on a musical (of Carrie) is a musical episode itself.  It’s Riverdalian to be melodramatic, far-fetched, heavily stylised and aesthetically cast.  But then it’s also Riverdalian to indulge in this guilty pleasure and not to be sorry about it.