Riverdale Season 7 — its final season — has completely shaken things up. After Bailey’s Comet was directed toward the town, an extinction-level event occurred that forced Tabitha (Erinn Westbrook) to use her angelic abilities to send everyone back in time to the 1950s. As she searches for a way to survive the comet and disentangle the timelines, our characters have stepped into their new lives with no memory of what came before. Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica (Camila Mendes), Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch), Toni (Vanessa Morgan), Kevin (Casey Cott), and Jughead (Cole Sprouse) are now teenagers once more, fighting against the repressive standards of the era in their own ways, while exploring romantic relationships, old and new, with a fair amount of twists. But, while the ‘50s gimmick was enjoyable at first and felt like a nice little nod to the comics, we’re now halfway through the final season and the show has become the one thing nobody could accuse of it being before: Boring.

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‘Riverdale’ Season 7 Has Changed Many of Our Beloved Characters

Lili Reinhart, KJ Apa, and Camila Mendes as Betty, Archie, and Veronica sitting in a diner booth with linked arms in Riverdale Season 7
Image via The CW

However, the biggest issue with this trip to the ‘50s is that these aren’t the characters we grew to adore over the last six seasons. Technically, they are, but without their memories and with different backstories, they are completely different people. So, while it was teased earlier that the characters would still have the emotional memory of their time in the present day, and that certainly seemed to be the case at first, it no longer feels that way. Archie and Betty’s relationship is a prime example of this, as the final season has done these two incredibly dirty. Their relationship feels nowhere on par with where they were before Bailey’s Comet struck Riverdale. They were incredibly in love, both ready to be married and live happily ever after. In the ‘50s, though the strong attraction remains, more often than not it fails to capture the depth of this romance. Archie has the attention span of a squirrel, blowing nearly every chance to sweep Betty off of her feet. Meanwhile, Betty is being driven entirely by her libido in these episodes, ready to swap Archie out for another willing man far too conveniently.

Cheryl and Toni feel like the only characters running on their emotional memory, able to fully embrace their feelings for one another that had to be shelved as adults with Toni and Fangs (Drew Ray Tanner) having a baby and getting married. Aside from these two, the relationships between the characters just don’t hold any weight because these aren’t our characters, nor do their relationships resemble what we left behind (and wanted to see much, much more of). Take Jughead and Tabitha, for example. While it’s great to see these two characters together, it’s hard to care about this version of them because this Tabitha literally isn’t our Tabitha. This Tabitha is likely the result of the timelines becoming twisted when they were sent back to the past. Angel Tabitha, the one Jughead truly loves, has been gone since she wiped his memories in the premiere, sorting out the timelines and trying to find a way to bring everyone back to their lives in the present day. As such, it’s hard to get invested in any of the relationships as we’re currently seeing them.

This Isn’t How ‘Riverdale’ Should Go Out

Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica (Camila Mendes) sitting and looking at each other in Season 7 Episode 6 of Riverdale
Image via The CW

Honestly, though there are a couple of enjoyable storylines — like Cheryl and Toni’s rejuvenated romance — the majority of the season is just lacking. The charm of the twisted small town that sucked people into the first few seasons has ceased to exist. Considering we’re in the final season, it’s sad that those in charge used this opportunity to basically change everything about the show instead of focusing on honoring the characters and the story. We should be watching the characters settle into their lives, planning their futures together. Betty and Archie’s wedding, for instance, is something that many would love to see, though it’s doubtful we’ll see it, or it won’t get the focus it deserves. Jughead and Tabitha’s romance has been one of the best aspects of the show since her arrival in Riverdale Season 5, yet we aren’t even getting to see the Tabitha we know and love in the final season. Likewise, Veronica’s quest for Archie’s heart doesn’t hold much weight here either when ‘50s Archie won’t even give her the time of day, which is a bit baffling considering we learned that there was about an equal chance of Archie ending up with Betty or Veronica in the futures that Tabitha saw at the end of the sixth season.

Additionally, we should be watching these characters finally clean Riverdale up and make it the town with pep they’ve always known it to be at heart. They’ve saved the town, at a cost, from so many bad people over the years — Percival Pickens (Chris O’Shea) provided the perfect final enemy holding them back from making Riverdale a decent place to live. As it stands, it seems that there’s going to be some magical solution to making Riverdale decent again that is tied to the ‘50s, which is a ridiculous cop-out. There were plenty of stories left to tell in the present day, including watching the characters step into roles to improve the town. Plus, there was much more of the present-day relationships to explore, romantic and otherwise. So, the fact that — based on behind-the-scenes photos — we will remain in the ‘50s for the majority of the back half of the final season is a major disappointment. The ‘50s gimmick should have lasted, at most, five episodes, like the Rivervale twist did last season. To spend this entire final season with alternate versions of our characters and stories that, ultimately, don’t matter much feels like an enormous waste of potential. It’s doing a disservice to just about every aspect of the show — story, characters, and relationships. And, it’s just a sad way for the show to go out. This doesn’t feel like a way to honor everything that has come before; it’s, frankly, a waste of time.

Riverdale continues Wednesdays on The CW.