Riverdale isn’t your standard teen drama. The show was created by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and is based on the characters from Archie comics, but aside from its aesthetic, the show has very little to do with the source material. Instead, it pulls from other elements of pop culture, usually movies and television; Riverdale has mastered the art of pastiche. Everything from The Breakfast Club to Coyote Ugly has been used, creating a strange genre blend. The show never bothers to make sense, operating with a kind of dream logic. The little town has multiple serial killers, rival gangs, and a mob boss mayor. In short, Riverdale is insane, but that’s why the fans love it so much.
Another integral aspect of Riverdale is its manic pace. The show cycles through arcs with remarkable speed, which means there’s rarely a dull moment. However, it also means that juicy plots get dropped before they can be fully developed. Quite frequently, storylines with potential fizzle out with disappointing endings, or they just disappear entirely.
The Farm
The writers started planting the seeds for this plot as early as Season 1, with Polly Cooper saying that she and Jason Blossom had planned to move to a farm. By Season 2, it becomes The Farm, and Polly goes to live there. Even though Polly denies that The Farm is a cult, the details make it sound pretty cult-y, with the Farmies trying to convince Polly to cut ties with her family. Initially, it’s a lot of Cooper family drama. However, by Season 3, The Farm becomes a major storyline.
Betty has visions of her baby niece and nephew floating over a fire in some sort of strange ritual. Then, things get really weird. A thirty-something woman masquerades as a college student to recruit teenagers. It all culminates in Chad Michael Murray showing up as the cult leader. The casting choice? Perfection. And what does Riverdale do with this? They have Alice shoot him three episodes into the fourth season, ending that storyline prematurely. It’s literally explosive (there’s a rocket and everything), but it’s also anticlimactic, squeezed into an already packed episode. Even more aggravating, all of the conflict built up in the previous season disappears. Alice spent Betty’s college fund on the cult, but it turns out that she was working for the FBI! So, it’s fine. Even worse, it’s not just Alice. Everyone just moves on like they’re not missing organs.
The Auteur
This storyline starts to get some steam over the course of Season 4. Then, like The Farm, it simply deflates like a sad balloon by the third episode of the fifth season. It begins with strange videos appearing on Riverdale residents’ doorsteps. Initially, it’s just footage of their houses. Someone wants the people of the town to know that they’re being watched. After that, the next round of videos features creepy re-enactments of various murders. Things continue to escalate with a violent rave at a strange video store, The Blue Velvet, which circulates porn and snuff films. Finally, it seems like The Auteur has moved on to real murders after David, the owner of the Blue Velvet, is found dead.
After a season of emotional torture with the potential for something more gruesome, it’s revealed that The Auteur is…Jellybean. The plot twist makes no sense. Supposedly, this entire thing is a cry for help, a way to keep her family together. Why did she send videos to the rest of the town? She could have kept the focus on the Cooper/Jones family. Even more implausibly, Jellybean gets the rest of the kids involved. Does it seem reasonable that the children of Riverdale, riddled with PTSD, go all Lord of the Flies? Sure. However, you’re also supposed to buy that a bunch of middle school kids are capable of long-term planning and sophisticated cinematography. Sorry, disbelief can no longer be suspended. Also, who were the strange adults at the rave? Are they still around, renting porn and snuff films? Massive chunks of this storyline were never explained. If it hadn’t been cut short, the Auteur and the Blue Velvet could’ve been a dark, deeply satisfying storyline.
Charles/Chic
Alice got pregnant with FP’s child when they were in high school, and she gave him up for adoption. Many years later, Chic shows up, claiming to be Charles, Alice’s child. However, it turns out that he’s impersonating Charles, who he claims to have killed. Then, he becomes a serial killer, and he ends up in prison. Later, the real Charles shows up, and he’s decidedly not dead. In fact, he’s an FBI agent who helps his mother take down The Farm.
Charles sticks around Riverdale, and he continues to do FBI stuff. It’s not clear why an FBI agent is still needed. That could be an entire storyline in and of itself: the FBI keeps sending agents to this strange town, and they realize that Riverdale is situated on a hellmouth. Alternatively, the maple trees are actually psychedelic, and the long-term exposure is making the residents go insane. That would explain so much. Anyway, around the same time that Jughead figures out The Auteur is Jellybean, it’s also revealed that Charles killed David and the irritating preppy kids. In essence, Charles is used to patch up the plot holes left over from The Auteur storyline. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have Charles be The Auteur? Also, this means that the fake Charles and the real Charles are both serial killers who are also in love. And what does Riverdale do with this duo? Nothing. They escape from prison, and it lasts for an episode. What a waste.
Betty/Archie
Let’s go back to the source material, shall we? The comics center around a love triangle: Betty/Archie/Veronica. B and V date Archie at the same time, and they’re best friends. That’s the source of the drama. In the show, they don’t go this route. There are hints of Betty/Archie starting in the first season, and they sprinkle them throughout. However, the show never follows through. Instead, it swiftly returns to the OTPs: Archie/Veronica and Betty/Jughead.
Season 5 ends with the potential for Archie/Betty. However, Veronica and the Lodges use the word endgame to describe Archie/Veronica more than once, and this show is very meta. In addition, the Archie/Betty pairing stops and starts more often than a cheap, old car. It never lasts long enough for the relationship to evolve. Here’s hoping that the next season will be different.
Betty/Veronica
The first season seemed promising for B and V. The friendship begins to develop, and it seems as if there’s the potential for something more, with the two women sharing a kiss. Could it be that the famous love triangle becomes a throuple? Or, even better, would Betty and Veronica abandon Archie for each other? It was not to be. Instead, the BFFs go on to lead very separate lives. Their bond stops long before the seven-year time jump; it’s a friendship in name only. The two barely spend any time talking about the Betty/Archie issue that pops up in Season 4. Veronica forgives Betty, and they move on. It happens in one quick scene, and it’s meant to advance the Archie/Veronica plot. Exploring the relationship between the two women isn’t the goal. Season 5 has more of the same, with the two women rarely interacting.
The problem is that the characters’ worlds don’t often intersect, even though they live in the same small town. Riverdale keeps one in the A plot while the other works the B plot. Veronica usually plays the mafia princess, and Betty solves murders like she’s in a Fincher film. However, the writers frequently mix Archie’s Varsity Blues silliness with Veronica’s crime drama, which has led to comical results. Anyone remember Archie’s time in teen prison? Betty would be a much better fit in Veronica’s genre (that’s not a double entendre, but it could be).
The Serpents, Ghoulies, and Pretty Poisons
Riverdale has three biker gangs. The Ghoulies are bad, they’ve always been bad, and they are at odds with the Serpents. They deal drugs, and they always tend to be up to something nefarious. Also, they’re willing to work for Hiram Lodge, who has been trying to destroy Riverdale since he showed up. The Serpents were bad, but they transformed into a sympathetic group over the course of several seasons. The drug they deal? Marijuana. Serpent business is never all that dark or dangerous. So, it wasn’t a surprise when the leather jacket crowd became less of a menace and more of a club of perpetual outsiders. The Poisons were never anything more than Toni’s vanity project. They disappeared, and Toni later returned to the Serpents, becoming Serpent Queen.
The only one of these gangs that Riverdale has taken the time to explore is the Serpents, and even that hasn’t been an especially deep dive. They’re criminals, yes, but they’re like a bunch of Han Solos: loveable rogues. They’re never allowed to get too dark, but it’s always implied that there’s something sketchy happening offscreen. Instead of playing with the grey area that the Serpents reside in, Riverdale just ignores all the storytelling opportunities there. What did F.P. do while he was leading them? Did the gang change once he was no longer leader, becoming more vanilla? Meanwhile, the Ghoulies have never been presented as anything other than generic bad guys, and the Pretty Poisons were yet another missed opportunity. Toni started a girl gang, and nothing ever came of it aside from the Cheryl/Toni relationship drama, which they repeated with the Vixens in Season 5.
Ethel Muggs
Initially, Ethel is used to stir up Veronica’s daddy issues. By the third season, Ethel's deep into Gryphons and Gargoyles, which puts her at odds with Betty for most of the season. This is when the character is used most effectively. Ethel is the perfect blend of victim and villain. She’s never a major player, more of an irritant than anything else. However, the conflict between her and the leads is always compelling because Ethel is sympathetic. Even when she’s at her worst, she’s being manipulated by sinister forces. It’s not her fault (mostly).
This character is criminally underrated and underused. The show really drops the ball in the fourth season when Ethel gets involved with The Blue Velvet videos. She had prior conflict with Betty and unresolved feelings for Jughead, and, suddenly, she has their sex tape. Surprisingly, nothing comes of that. In addition, Ethel is another great candidate for The Auteur. After all, she has the motivation. She’s continually a pawn or the butt of the joke, and that’s the kind of thing that twists a person. However, she never becomes anything more than a minor character, and then she disappears after a brief appearance in the fourth season.