This video is about a town.
A small town.
And the people who live in that town.
From a distance it presents itself like so many other small towns all over the world.
Safe.
Decent.
Innocent.
Get closer though, and you start seeing the shadows underneath.
Welcome to the Riverdale Murder Board.
My ongoing attempt to catalog, analyze, and hypothesize about the mystery and unfolding
events in CW's new hit show, Riverdale.
As of the making of this video, we are eight episodes into Riverdale's thirteen-episode
first-season.
Additionally, there has been a canonical prequel comic written by the show's creator, Roberto
Aguirre-Sacasa, who also will be penning the impending and ongoing Riverdale comic series.
Pre-orders reveal that it will cover the unseen stories from between the episodes, and help
bridge the gap as the TV series gears up for its recently greenlit second season.
For those who may be wondering, yes.
The show is good.
In fact, Riverdale's one of the best shows on network TV right now for three very specific
reasons: Firstly, it understands what it wants to be, and copies from all the right places
in all the right ways.
For example, when I first heard about Riverdale and it's darker undercurrents and central
mystery, I assumed it would be built from the Buffy The Vampire Slayer mold, which is
to say - a mature take on the Scooby Doo format.
A tight core ensemble of players all using their various strengths together to crack
the case and solve the mystery.
However, Riverdale dumps the tired Scooby format and instead leans closer to the format
of Twin Peaks - but unlike copycats like American Gothic, Carnivale, or the more current disaster
of Wayward Pines which all focused too earnestly on paranormal weirdness for the sake of paranormal
weirdness or on a singular plot contrivance, Riverdale borrows from Lynch's format in
the right way.
Namely, subversion.
At its core, Twin Peaks is a subversion of a police procedural.
It uses the familiar tropes of that genre as shorthand for the audience to help them
enter the strange world Lynch presented.
In 1991, it was far easier to hook an audience with a good murder mystery in a familiar format,
rather than explaining right out of the gate that Twin Peaks is really about demonic possession,
backwards-talking prophetic dreams, alien abduction, and the literal fight between good
and evil.
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa clearly knows this, and rather than simply subverting the core
Archie comics characters for the sake of doing something different, he uses the teen drama
as his format for subversion.
There's a very specific reason he chose to have the first episode center on the first
day back to school from Summer Vacation, and hinge part of the plot on a formal school
dance and a profession of unrequited love.
All of these plot points are overused archetypes of the teen drama genre that any normal CW
show would stretch out over an entire season or build up to for a season finale, but Riverdale
chews through these tired plots in a single episode, telegraphing to the audience that
they can't trust the tired tropes of the genre or even the characters themselves to
behave in expected ways.
And that's not the only subversion.
The inclusion of teen idols from generations past, like Luke Perry, is a purposeful juxtaposition
against the modern progressive sensibilities of Riverdale.
Faux lesbian kisses won't cut the mustard and get called out as such.
Gay characters aren't stigmatized, and also accept the spectrum of bisexuality.
And most interesting of all, Riverdale is presented as nigh matriarcal.
For example, the mayor of the town is a woman, and all of the women in town are shown to
be stronger and more resilient than the men.
Hermione Lodge took over her husband's business when he went to jail.
The feud between the Blossoms and the Coopers seems spearheaded by Penelope and Alice to
the near laughable exclusion of their husbands.
And Fred Andrews and Forsythe Jones have nearly fallen to pieces after their marriages collapse
and their wives move out.
You could even argue that Betty, Veronica, and even Cheryl are stronger, smarter, more
independent, and less emotionally arrested than the male leads like Archie and Jughead.
A breath of fresh air in this genre - and in TV storytelling as well.
Secondly, the show knows who its main character is.
Riverdale had a huge hurdle to clear, and that was the decades worth of history Archie
and the extended cast have had within its generations spanning comic and cartoon series.
Thanks to pop culture permutation, everyone has at least a basic grasp of who Archie,
Betty, and Veronica are, and worse yet, since the characters have evolved every ten years
or so to stay modern, every generation of Archie fan has a contrasting idea of what
Archie is and isn't.
So rather than making Archie the main character and forcing the show into a constant will
they won't they with Betty and Veronica, the show basically dusts that off its shoulders
and moves on by the second episode.
The ensemble cast of teens and adults share the focus of the show fairly evenly.
School life is downplayed and refocused on extracurricular activities and events outside
of the school.
Granted, the story is told to us through the framing device of Jughead's narration, there
still isn't a traditional lead character in this show.
That's because Riverdale itself is the main character of Riverdale.
A once seemingly idyllic slice of Americana, whose thin veneer peels away after a tragic
event, revealing the rotten core beneath.
Riverdale, much like the sign that greets visitors at the edge of sweetwater river is
cracked, faded, and on the verge of collapse.
This show is more than the simple investigation of a singular murder, it's the exploration
of how deep the roots of corruption, secrets, and deceit have wormed their way into the
wholesome bedrock of Riverdale.
And speaking of that exploration, the third reason why this show is so good is the structuring
of its mystery.
The Laura Palmer-like murder at the center of the series first season is simply the doorway
into the secrets and lies everyone in Riverdale holds.
Red herrings abound, and many of the cast have a convincing motive.
And as we take baby steps closer to the truth, the mystery unravels and reveals a deeper
story.
For those of you who have never seen Riverdale before, the story centers around the mysterious
death of Jason Blossom, the fraternal twin of Cheryl Blossom, and heir to the Blossom
business and fortune.
The story, as relayed by Cheryl, was that she and Jason took a boat out on Sweetwater
River early in the morning on July 4th.
But after Cheryl dropped her glove in the water, Jason fell in accidentally trying to
retrieve it, potentially drowned, and was swept away by the current.
However, the threads of Cheryl's story don't quite add up, because Archie and his music
teacher, Geraldine Grundy were secretly at the riverfront on the morning of the fourth,
and both heard a gunshot before fleeing the scene.
Painting Cheryl's innocent tragic story in a far more sinister light.
Like I said at the top of this video, we are now eight episodes into Riverdale.
As I progress, I'll be examining clues and motives, sharing my personal theories, and
recapping current episodes.
To recap everything that's happened so far would take too long and spoil too much, so
consider this video episode zero.
If you have not watched Riverdale, now is your chance to catch up.
From here on out I will not be giving spoiler warnings.
And there is a LOT to spoil.
Right now, the best ways to catch up on Riverdale are on the CW Seed app and the CW app, where
you can watch episodes for free, but with ads.
Eight days after the season ends you'll be able to watch it all on Netflix, but that
won't be until late May.
So I'd suggest picking it up on iTunes for 30 bucks, which is much cheaper than buying
the episodes individually.
Next time, I'll be investigating Chapter 8, The Outsiders.
Until then, share, like, subscribe, and make out with the hottest person near you.
Because you never know who's going to end up on the Riverdale Murder Board.
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