Hi guys! Welcome to another TV Tuesday! Today I’m going to be talking all about Riverdale, season one!

Riverdale is your typical teen drama. Everything about the first episode screams cliché; from the new girl in town, Veronica, to the girl liking the boy next door, Betty and Archie.

Like every TV show I seem to watch and talk about, the reason I’m watching it is because there is so much type surrounding it. Although I hear a lot of controversy as well, apparently things are problematic, but as I’m writing this after only seeing the pilot I can’t say right now, maybe as we continue we’ll figure it out.

So the show opens on two people, Cheryl and Jason, twin siblings going out on the lake for what looks like a date. Before I go any farther I hate that we’ve started this show on all these mysteries, it just makes me mad, not intrigued but I get that’s where the creators were going.

Anyways that this ‘date’ doesn’t go so well because Jason dies… and they can’t find his body.

Cut to present day when it’s the first day of school, or the night before technically and we start to meet all our main characters. We slightly meet Veronica as she and her mother have just moved to Riverdale from New York City (or well moved back to Riverdale as her mother grew up there) and you can tell they have a lot of money and something went down with her father, but we’re not really sure what exactly, but it does involve money. We learn (in a later scene) that Veronica’s mom and Archie’s dad used to date until she chose to marry the rich guy… even though she’s gone to his dad for a job, the irony.

So I get that we’re supposed to hate Veronica, or well at first we are, as she seems to stick her nose into everything, and it feels like she’s ruining everything, but really she’s not all that bad and Betty can see this.

We meet Betty and she is the classic girl next door. She has her gay best friend Kevin, who is quite funny and I quite like his character, he adds comic relief, and she’s best friend’s with the boy next door Archie. Now all of this leads up to Archie and Betty should be a thing because all the signs point to it, but Archie isn’t really feeling it.

Okay let’s unpack Archie for a second: he’s a jock, and a musician, but his father wants him to work construction for the family business.  Well Archie really wants is to drop out of school to be a musician, but he needs help first, and the only person in Riverdale that can help him, doesn’t want to. Miss Grundy, the music teacher doesn’t want to help him because of the fling they had last summer. It’s all very complicated, but in the end she agrees to help him out… I wonder what is going to transpire here.

Back to Betty for a second because her sister is Polly, the girl who Jason dated which is a whole mess of a situation. So their mother disowned Polly after dating Jason because of the toxic relationship the two had. I’m getting a sense that their mother is the type who has to have everything for show; the perfect house, the perfect family etc. When one of them acts out well then they are cut off, like Betty is on lorazepam I guess to battle anxiety? Maybe this will become clearer, and they’ve put Polly in some sort of institution. Yikes.

I do like how fast Betty and Veronica are getting along to become friends though, I hope I don’t soon regret my words.

So come the first day of school we find out that Jason has a twin sister, Cheryl, and she is quite the queen bitch. I like that Veronica is on a mission to put her in her place because she’s been Cheryl. Also some of the writing is so witty, I am quite enjoying it.

We go through the motions of the first day, then the school dance happens that same night, then the after party and all the characters are just mingling. The first episode felt really, really long. So when Betty asks Archie to the dance he says no at first, but it’s Veronica that pushes him and convinces him, so they go and when Betty asks him to be a couple he freaks. Then at Cheryl’s after party she manipulates them all to play seven minutes in heaven where she gets Veronica and Archie in the closet. That’s when Betty leaves, and the two in the closet actually do kiss, I didn’t think they would. So the two go out looking for her, but Veronica knows better and leaves it to Archie to find her, they are best friends after all.

This is when we get the real intro to Jughead. He’s been around the whole episode, narrating everything which has me questioning, how does he know everything already?!?! We find out that he and Archie used to be best friends, but now they’re not. That is what makes me intrigued, I now want to watch more of the show to find out about that because that is what I’m interested in. Jughead is a freakin mystery.

The end of the pilot leads back to the scene of the crime as Kevin takes out a closeted gay guy, Moose, and what do they find? Jason’s body with a bullet it in! The only people who know about this bullet are those two and Miss Grundy and Archie as they heard it while making out, but they can’t let anyone know what they heard for fear of people finding out why they were together, hot damn!

Now the town is all in a frenzy because Jason’s death is no longer an accident but a murder. Obviously everyone is looking at Cheryl as they were together the day it happened, but Cheryl is in denial of it, but for how long.

Betty is mad at everyone and her mother wants her to avoid everyone in her life because they make her upset. So Betty goes behind her mother’s back to talk to them again, although it doesn’t go so well because she ends up talking to Cheryl instead to get back at Veronica. This just leads to Cheryl accusing Polly of murdering Jason, and damn Betty threatens Cheryl, I didn’t think Betty had a bad bone in her. Safe to say that friendship was short lived… but I’m glad to see her and Veronica have made up.

Archie is still struggling real hard about telling the truth. He struggles so hard he’s talking to Jughead about it; he tells Jughead the whole thing after Jughead witnesses he and Miss Grundy in the music room. Of course he sees this because Jughead sees everything. The way he talks in this strange prose is so ominous. He also talks like he’s not really there, as if he’s just a ghost or something. But after his talk with Archie, the two are friends again, but I want to know why they stopped being friends in the first place.

Well Archie doesn’t get around to telling his part in the story because just as he gets to the principal’s office they are rushing off to a classroom, one where Cheryl is. That’s when she tells the whole class that she’s guilty and they arrest and taker her away. But we also get Jughead’s lovely commentary saying that the autopsy report came back with more than just that. How does Jughead just know everything?

Oh my, this show, it’s only been three episodes and it’s killing me. So Cheryl says she’s not guilty of killing her brother but she admits to hearing the gunshot. This just changes everything. So apparently they went into the woods so that Jason could start a new life away from the town because he’s so tired of Riverdale… I wonder what the reason is behind that. Then Archie comes forward about the gunshot, leaving Miss Grundy out of it… I wonder how long he’ll keep her out of it.

Oh my god, is Betty Polly?!?! When Veronica gets slut shamed by one of the biggest jocks, the girls who have been a victim all get together to take him down. We also find out that Jason was just like this guy, only seeing woman as objects… clearly Cheryl didn’t know about it. Betty sets him up and Veronica shows up, with Betty in a wig (pretending to be Polly?) while torturing him she calls him Jason, and tells him thanks for ruining my life… as if she’s Polly. I have so many questions.

What we also do learn is Betty’s mom is a reporter and a nasty one at that, which fits right in with her personality. She exposes all these horrible things about Jason, just for the publicity. Ugh. This kinda makes sense why Betty is on the school newspaper, and why she recruits Jughead.

Jughead is now on the school paper and he’s playing detective. He finds Dilton Doiley an adventure scout was there that morning, but Dilton doesn’t want it known that he was there so he tells them he saw Miss Grundy’s car… oof Archie is going dowwwwnnnn!

For a 42 minute show they sure back a hellava lot in one episode. Betty, oh stupid Betty, writes everything she knows down in a diary… even when she finds out about Archie and Miss Grundy (who are back together I guess you could say), and my first thought to this was someone is going to find this. Why am I not surprised it’s her mother? She has an all-out war against Archie for some reason, and that’s when the whole truth comes out and Miss. Grundy is run out of town, or should we say Jennifer Gibson?

I knew there was something off about Miss Grundy, so when Betty breaks into her car and finds a gun and another drivers licsene with Jennifer Gibson on it, things sound fishy. She tells Archie this sob story about her abusive ex-husband, but I don’t buy it. Even the look on her face when Archie bought it was relief… SHE IS SO LYING! She’s been run out of town but I have a feeling she’ll be back. We also learn that she also taught Jason, so this should be interesting.

I like that we’re getting more backstory into Jughead’s life. He works at the drive-in but it’s being bulldozed down because it was bought by an anonymous buyer. Well when Veronica’s mom is sneaking around at odd hours to see this Serpent gang, something is really fishy. Well we learn that the anonymous buyer is Veronica’s dad (from jail) and her mom is just doing all the dirty work; Veronica thinks it’s wrong; Jughead will miss the place he grew up… and as we find out he was living there… but that’s not even the real shocker… his dad is the leader in the Serpent gang. WHAT?!?! He’s kicking out his own son. Oh man.

I also want to say two things about Kevin 1) I love how accepting his dad is about him being gay 2) he’s found himself in a sticky situation with one of the Serpents gang members.

Kevin’s dad also happens to be the sheriff in town; he has a murder board for Jason, and that has been taken… by the killer?

Jason’s wake happens and we see how Cheryl’s parents are… no wonder Jason wanted out. Ugh. We get this creepy scene with Jason’s grandmother, who calls Betty Polly and tells her that they were engaged. Like Betty doesn’t act surprised when this old lady says that, just takes it as fact, then afterwards she freaks out. She confronts her father who tells her that he knew about the engagement and that it’s because of an old war that the two couldn’t be together. Apparently their great-grandfather, killed Betty’s dad’s grandfather over maple syrup… seems kinda irrelevant. Anyways he tells Betty that Polly is okay now, but she’s never coming back… I still don’t believe there are two people here. We later find out it was Betty’s father who took Kevin’s dad’s murder wall, hmmm.

I like how Betty and Jughead are getting closer. Then Veronica and Cheryl are also getting closer, which I’m not sure what to expect.

Then we have Veronica’s mom, Hermione, getting mixed up with the Serpent gang, and Archie’s dad coming to their rescue… I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be a thing.

Archie is getting more involved with his music. He’s now working with Melody from Josie and the Pussy Cats but that leads to a big cat fight. Josie says it’s the band or Archie, and she chooses Archie. So Veronica joins the Cats, interesting. Well Melody goes back to the Cats once she realizes Josie has been a bitch because her father is in town. Are everyone’s parents in this town complete douches? Ugh. Her father doesn’t think she’s good enough, but wants her to be this big Diana Ross.

SO THERE ARE TWO GIRLS! Okay so Betty isn’t Polly and Betty and Jughead go off to visit Polly. We find out that 1) she’s pregnant with Jason’s baby (which explains a bit more of their parent’s hate) 2) she doesn’t know that Jason is dead. Of course Betty’s mother intervenes and it becomes a whole big thing, but we’re getting pieces of the puzzle. Apparently Polly and Jason were going to run away together, but her parents stopped Polly, and someone clearly got to Jason.

So now Jughead and Betty set out to find the car (which gets torched because someone was watching them!) but before this the two kiss, and I think I swooned a little because I like Jughead a hellva lot more than Archie. They are trying to rescue Polly, but she’s already gone.

Well we do find Polly, and now the whole town knows of her condition. Cheryl and her parents want to help Polly, but do they really? At least Cheryl was nice enough to warn them that they aren’t being truthful. This leads to Polly staying with her Veronica and her mom.

Even though Veronica and her mom aren’t really on good terms because her mom used her name to move money that betrays her dad, and she doesn’t want her dad to think she’s betrayed him, like her mother seems to be doing.

We finally get to really meet Jughead’s father, and he’s a complete drunk. He and Archie’s dad, Fred, go way back, but when Jughead’s father started selling money and going behind Fred’s back he had to let him go, and that just let him spiral, and of course it’s really left Jughead a mess. We learn that Jughead has a sister named Jellybean which I found really weird.

They believe it was Jughead who burnt down Jason and Polly’s getaway car, but I’m starting to believe it was really his father as we learn that he has Jason’s letterman jacket… that has his first name and not his last name on it, which is weird but I’ll go with it.

Holy, talk about drama. So Betty’s mom finds out where Polly is, but Veronica and her mom want to throw her a baby shower. At first no one thinks it’s a good idea, but in the end they go ahead with it. Well I’m happy that their mother attends and that she starts to act more supportive, although we find out that their father wanted Polly to get an abortion… and their mother had no idea, this is going to change things.

W-O-W so their father tells their mother he won’t have his daughter in his house with a baby that has Blossom blood. Then their mother tells him to get out, and that she doesn’t care how it looks. This is the first time I am so happy to hear something come out of her mouth!

Well the Blossoms attend and of course the mothers get into it because of this day old hate. Ugh. In the end Polly decides to go to the Blossoms to live. Oooo that must hurt

Then we’ve got Fred drama up the wazoo. He loses the guys on his construction team because the Blossoms have offered them more. Archie decides to help out his dad, but they get attacked and if they continued working they would keep coming back. Archie thinks it was the Serpents, but Jughead doesn’t want to get involved, but they find out his dad is a Serpent anyways. We still don’t find out who it was, someone to do with Hermione I think. But Jughead’s dad is now working for Fred again. Ugh this is all so warped.

AH WHAT?!? Jughead’s dad has set up the whole relationship between Kevin and the Serpent kid. AHHHH NOOOO!

Cats out of the bag, now everyone knows that Veronica’s dad owns the drive in property and everyone is pissed because he just keeps ruining lives by taking down everything. This whole plotline is so tiresome.

Oooh we find out that the Blossoms are the ones who put Hiram Lodge in jail, and that is what has started this whole land war.

We find Polly is pregnant with twins, and the whole reason she’s moving into the Blossoms is to spy on them because she thinks they had something to do with Jason’s murder.

I also don’t like how close Cheryl and Archie are getting, sad thing is he’s only realizing his mistake a little too late.

Oh boy. So it’s an everyone tells all episode where secrets go flying. Betty wants to throw Jughead this grand birthday party, even though it’s not Jughead’s style. She does it anyways and it’s only supposed to be close friends, but guess who shows up… Cheryl with the whole school. That’s how things get out of hand real fast. It almost looks like Jughead and Betty will break up, but it’s his dad that sets Jughead straight, telling him he needs her in his life and that he has a good thing going. Right after this we learn that Alice, Betty’s mom used to be a Serpent; how interesting.

Archie’s dad just up and leaves to sign divorce papers, like that
plot was so out of left field, but then BAM out of left field once more his dad shows up with his mom, say what?!

Veronica is dealing with her father. Her father is threatening her to testify to set him free, she doesn’t want to, but her mom’s life is in jeopardy as her father says she’s not that innocent. In the end she testifies.

Hmmmmm, I’m starting to think that Betty’s father or possibly Jughead’s father hired Veronica’s father to kill Jason because as Veronica pointed out her father hired Jughead’s father to trash the drive-in, and to do other jobs… Just a thought.

I feel so bad for Jughead; he’s had a hard life. Veronica and Archie go looking for proof that Veronica’s dad hired Jughead’s dad to kill Jason. They don’t find anything, but someone does tip him off and his dad gets arrested for the murder of Jason. But what we find out is the lock box with the gun inside that the police found wasn’t there when Archie and Veronica went looking, meaning Jughead’s dad is being set up! Oooo. And the plot thickens.

Wow what a jam packed episode. So first off we find out that the only reason Betty’s father was so against Jason and Polly dating is because they were related… ew. Apparently their father’s great-grandfather was originally a Blossom but some argument broke out between them so they severed ties and one changed their last name to Cooper. Then on the other side, I feel like the Blossoms knew that it was incest because Mrs. Blossom goes it makes them a pure Blossom, ew.

Then we find out that Jughead’s father, FP, confessed to the whole thing and no one can figure out why… until! Our go-getter gang can’t stop searching for answers and they find Jason’s letterman jacket tossed, and in the pocket they find a flash drive that shows Mr. Blossom, shooting Jason… his own son! The only reason FP confesses to everything is because Mr. Blossom threatened FP that Jughead’s life would end the same way Jason’s ended. It’s been a helluva ride.

So am I the only one who didn’t know that when Mrs. Blossom showed Cheryl all the maple syrup it was really drugs? I had no idea, that’s why I was confused when she said it was their secret. So we learn that Mr. Blossom was really dealing drugs and Jason found out after he made a deal with the Serpents, and that’s why his father killed him. Oof.

Wow what an ending to the season. Of course someone had to get shot because what would season two be about?

Jughead, man I feel bad for him because his own mom doesn’t want him, his dad is in jail protecting him, and the Serpents (which the Serpents then go to Jughead and make him one of them… which I think Betty thinks is a bad idea). Now Jughead has to move in with a foster family and switch schools.

Cheryl is just dealing with everything because once everyone finds out that it was her father, well he takes the cowards way out and hangs himself. Now she wants to die as well. So she texts Veronica that she’s going to be with Jason, and so the gang rush out to the frozen lake, but she falls through.

It’s Archie who punches through the ice to save her… which brings me to Archie and Veronica. So Veronica makes a comment that Jughead and Betty are soulmates and Archie gives them this longing look. So he’s supposed to be with Veronica and he says that he wants to be her soulmate and whatnot, but I think he’s really into Cheryl, the way this guy broke his hand for her trying to save her and Jughead just watched it all happen, you can’t tell me there aren’t feelings between Cheryl and Archie.

Veronica’s mom is pissing me off. She wants to use Veronica’s relationship with Archie to get what she wants. She wants Fred to sign this contract which will mean Veronica’s parents would then own Fred’s business and he doesn’t want to… does anyone blame him?

OMG I JUST PUT IT TOGETHER! So the last minutes of the show Archie and his dad go to have breakfast together… can I just say that I love how his mom just lo-key went back to Chicago… and during breakfast this guy in a mask (probably a Serpent hired by Veronica’s dad, or possibly mom, now that I’m thinking about it, it was her mom) comes to the diner with a gun… in the end he shoots Fred. I think the intention was to kill Fred because he wouldn’t give up his company. WOW. Just wow.

This show man. Until next season…