In the ‘Riverdale’ debut recap, Archie and his friends have a whole new kind of high school drama to deal with when a classmate is murdered…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The CW’s latest deep dive into the teen drama waters takes us to ‘Riverdale’ — the fictional city where Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica have been setting up shop since the comic strip first debuted all the way back in 1941.
Now most reviewers of the new show have been stating the obvious — that ‘Riverdale’ isn’t like the Archie comics you remember growing up, but realistically how many people between the ages of 18 and 45 even read those stories anyways?
Actually, the best memory of Archie that I have comes from the 1997 film “Chasing Amy” where director and writer Kevin Smith has Jason Lee and Dwight Ewell arguing over whether or not the lead characters were just a clean, wholesome slice of Americana or they were secretly lovers.
Outside of that iteration, Archie, Jughead, Veronica and Betty were just part of pop culture history that had been largely forgotten about over the past 25 years.
That is until uber producer Greg Berlanti — the same mind behind the DC Universe on the CW with ‘Arrow’, ‘The Flash’, etc — decided to take a shot at a much different version of the Archie characters in the new series ‘Riverdale’.
Of course, ‘Riverdale’ is filled with the same familiar names from comic lore — Archie, Jughead, Veronica, Betty, Moose and even Mr. Weatherby — but this is a much different story than anything your parents would have read in the Sunday newspaper from the 1970’s or 1980’s.
This version mixes equal parts of ‘Heathers’, ‘The O.C.’ and ‘Gossip Girl’ with a dash of ‘Twin Peaks’ and the end result — at least through one episode — is a series that will likely become your next guilty pleasure on television.
With that said, let’s recap the debut episode of ‘Riverdale’ titled ‘Chapter One: The River’s Edge’…
School’s In Session
As ‘Riverdale’ begins, a narrator — later revealed as Jughead, who is currently writing a book on the summer happenings in his hometown — explains the biggest story to hit this little village in years. Twin siblings Jason and Cheryl Blossom go for a boat ride on the Sweetwater River early in the morning on July 4 but tragically only one of them returns to shore. When Cheryl is discovered she tells police that her brother reached into the river to grab a glove she dropped into the water and the boat tipped over.
Jason never resurfaced.
Efforts to find his body failed and the town has been mourning ever since because Jason was the All-American teen dream, captain of the football team and high school heartthrob.
Meanwhile a new school year is starting, which means girl next door Betty and gay pal Kevin are scheming to find a way for her to finally score a date with Archie Andrews, who transformed from a larva into a six-pack wearing, brooding butterfly.
Sadly, Betty is currently saddled up next to Ser Jorah Mormont from ‘Game of Thrones’ as co-captains of the Friend Zone.
As for Archie, he’s been silently suffering through his life as a jock while secretly writing music in his spare time. Jason’s sudden death left Archie rattled yet focused to pursue something he truly loves rather than forcing himself to love football until both his knees are shot and he’s reminiscing with high school buddies 20 years from now about the night he scored four touchdowns in one game.
Unfortunately, Archie’s dad — played by ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ alum Luke Perry — knows that his son’s best chance for a college ride comes through football. Add to that, Fred Andrews hopes his son will one day take over the family construction business, which seems about as far away from a life on the stage as Archie could ever imagine.
Archie’s sudden spurt of creativity also comes with a secret that he’s been keeping about a summer tryst with too-hot-for-teacher Miss Geraldine Grundy. It also turns out that their sexual romp on a hot day after she gave him a ride home from work one day resulted in a summer long affair. During a morning rendezvous on July 4, Archie and Miss Grundy heard a loud pop — obviously a gunshot — and it was later that same day when Jason Blossom went missing.
Of course, Archie still has the feels for Miss Grundy but she’s more concerned about getting tossed in jail for her summer field trip. Archie also wants her help to advance his music career, but she shuns his advances because she think she’s just trying to continue what they started into the school year. Archie might want another run at Miss Grundy but for now he’s just serious about pursuing his musical acumen.
Miss Grundy eventually concedes to Archie’s wishes while they both agree to keep the secret about the noise they heard on the day of Jason’s death because how could the student and teach explain being together near the Sweetwater River at 6 a.m. on July 4?
The musical lessons in the morning and football practices at night solve Archie’s conundrum about extracurricular activities, but it doesn’t settle things at home where his dad Fred isn’t upset about his son not getting into the family business, he’s just disappointed that he lied to him.
And as we all know nothing stings more than the parents dropping the old “I’m not mad, just disappointed” line on you.
Not a Heather
As Betty is pining away for Archie and trying to muster the gumption to ask him to the semi-formal, smoldering new girl Veronica shows up in town with her mother, who was a former resident of Riverdale.
It seems Veronica’s father got caught up in embezzling and fraud charges, which led to a split with her parents and ultimately ended with Hermione Lodge and her daughter relocating to Riverdale. Hermoine has a history with Archie’s father — a relationship that ended when she chose the rich boy instead of the boy next door — but now she’s looking for a job to help make ends meet. Sadly, the Lodge name attracts a lot of negative attention these days and even Fred isn’t willing to give his old friend Hermione a second chance.
And of course, Veronica and Archie instantly have eyes for each other when she arrives in town, but their attraction doesn’t come without a cost. Veronica befriends Betty after receiving a school tour from her and she realizes that her new best friend has a serious, unrequited crush on Archie Andrews.
So rather than ruin this new friendship on the first day of school, Veronica instead helps Betty come out of her shell by trying out for the cheerleading squad run by ultra bitch, Cheryl Blossom. It seems Betty tried out for the team once before, but Cheryl decided to compare her to season 5 Betty Draper from “Mad Men” rather than give her a shot.
This time around, Cheryl attempts to torture poor Betty by taunting her about a relationship Jason had with her sister Polly that ended with her in a group home after her heart was shattered. While Betty can’t do anything more than dig her own fingernails into her hand, Veronica reacts and calls out Cheryl for her “Mean Girls” routine and the argument ends with both of them gaining entry to the “River Vixens”.
All Through the Night
Betty’s attempt to ask Archie to the semi-formal ends with him having two dates when she fumbles around her invitation and ultimately asks Veronica to join them at the dance. The real action begins at the after party hosted at Cheryl’s house when she decides to become an agent of chaos and inject a little drama in the love triangle developing between newly hot Archie, sexy new girl Veronica and homely best friend Betty.
Thanks to the timeless game of spin the bottle and five minutes in heaven, Archie and Veronica end up locked in a closet before they end up locking lips. The guilty kiss comes to an end and when they exit the room, Archie and Veronica discover that Betty has already left the party much to Cheryl’s enjoyment.
Archie decides to give chase before running to the local diner where he finds his former friend Jughead furiously typing away on his computer. It seems Archie and Jughead had some kind of falling out — undoubtedly a story that will be told throughout the season — before he runs back to find Betty at her house. There she confesses her love for him and he returns her affections by saying he thinks of her as a really good friend.
Betty is crushed and Archie just lost another best friend.
And finally, Kevin wanders into the woods with king jock Moose, who can’t quite jump out of the closet, but he’s happy to have a roll in the grass when they happen upon a dead body. It’s Jason Blossom except he didn’t drown — he was shot right through the center of his forehead.
Let the ‘Riverdale’ mystery of who killed Jason Blossom officially begin.
Check out a preview of the next episode of ‘Riverdale’ airing at 9pm ET on Thursday on the CW.
https://youtu.be/A9xcPvv1Fh8
