Riverdale is all about Jughead and nobody else exists. Especially Archie. Wait, who’s Archie? Never mind, nobody cares.
I’ve never read the Archie comics. I did watch the cartoon as a kid, but I remember so little I might as well have never seen it. I knew exactly four things of the Archie world prior to Riverdale: The names Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead, and what they looked like.
When I first heard about Riverdale I was excited. Then I saw the promotional posters and I lost interest. I knew the Archie-verse as bright, colorful, and comedic. What the posters showed me was a glossy soap opera (see MacKenzie Falls from Sonny with a Chance). There’s nothing wrong with an iteration like this, it just isn’t for me. After that, I stopped paying Riverdale any mind.
Now that it’s been on for a few weeks, I’m seeing it all over my social media. Apparently it’s caught on with my online peers and left me in the glimmering dust, but I’ve tried to keep up with all the posts to pretend I know what I’m talking about.
I want to fit in with minimal effort, but only you, my faithful, honest, and kind Riverdale fans, can tell me if I’m at all close to the truth. Here’s what I know about Riverdale from what I’ve picked up on Tumblr.
Characters
Despite Archie being the lead in the original, he isn’t in Riverdale. That’s probably why they had to change the name of the show. If they’d called it Archie, people would be seriously misled. That’d be like calling a show How I Met Your Mother, but spending nine seasons talking about how in love you are with your kids’ ‘aunt.’ Hate posts would pop up in droves.
The protagonist Jughead is played by one of the Sprouse twins from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. I don’t know which one. Dylan, Cole, Zack, Cody… It’s a total mystery. Judging by the fact that Tumblr is obsessed with him though, I’d guess it was the twin who used us for a social experiment. Or maybe he’s using us for another social experiment, and it’s actually both brothers.
Jughead also looks a little different from his original depiction. Gone is the crown, instead garbing himself in the trendy beanie. Apparently this makes him 10 times hotter, because I have no other explanation as to why people who watched Sprouse as a child are thirsting for him now. He looks the same guys.* You all want to adopt him too, so I’m unclear if “son” is the new “daddy” and this is just some kink, or if Jughead has a troubled life and you want to give him a better one.
Archie has a lot of dogs and….that’s probably the best that can be said about him. Nobody likes Archie. He’s alone and no one cares. No one in the show cares. No one watching the show cares. In fact, Archie can choke. Dick.
I have no idea why nobody likes Archie. Maybe because he’s ginger. To be honest though, I thought the Tumblr community were above ginger jokes, but alas, Archie made them sink to new lows. He’s just that bad.
Honestly though, Archie is probably hated because he’s unoriginal. He’s trying to be the new Drake or Troy Bolton. But let me tell you, nobody, nobody can try and use a teen show to jumpstart their music career unless their name is Drake. Nobody. And nobody can know the struggle of choosing a sport or music better than Troy Bolton. Nobody.
Betty is a cheerleading bookworm (yay for breaking TV tropes!) who’s gay. No wait, she’s bi. Betty is in love with Veronica. No wait, she’s in love with Jughead. She’s in love with books! Betty is book-sexual, that’s my final verdict. There is only one consistency in her life, and that is literature. Betty is also the new girl in town and finds her new life very stressful. That’s probably why she buries her face in books; fictional drama is better than real life drama.
Veronica looks a lot like Phoebe Tonkin sometimes. Every time I scroll past gifs of her, I have to pause and wonder why I’d never seen that episode of The Originals. Veronica has a hot dad, and it makes her embarrassed. She doesn’t want anything to do with him, probably because he likes the attention from her peers too much.
There’s also a redheaded girl who people are calling Blossom. I’m assuming they’re making a connection to the Powerpuff Girls, in which case it’s safe to assume Veronica is Buttercup, and Betty is Bubbles. Archie is obviously Mojojo (see above).
Blossom also pretends to have a crush on Veronica’s dad, just so she can try and get closer to her. Basically, all the girls are in love with each other, but won’t admit it. She’s also shipped with her twin sister, but I suspect this is another Wincest situation and they’re not actually together. If they are, I would like to know now
Relationships
It seems to me that this show is mostly relationship driven, and those relationships are all over the place. Jughead is aro/ace. But Jughead also likes Betty. Obviously this doesn’t make sense, and that’s why people on the Internet are mad about it. Betty turned Jughead heterosexual, and it just doesn’t work like that.
Betty, however, is in a relationship with Veronica. At least, she was with Veronica, and maple syrup was involved as an aphrodisiac. Judging by how quickly the Betty/Veronica posts disappeared from my dash though, I’m going to assume they just hooked up once or twice and it wasn’t a real thing. As for Veronica, other than the Betty tryst, Veronica is a single lady.
Archie is forever alone because nobody except his five dogs like him.
Plot
Does Riverdale even have a plot? It just seems like one big orgy. I know someone died. After that, facts are foggy, so bear with me.
Specifically, Blossom’s grandfather was murdered because of maple syrup. He owned the trees used to tap the syrup and someone else evidently wanted them, or at least, didn’t want him to have them. One of the five listed above was somehow involved in this murder, but nobody cares. They have more important things to do, like study and dance seductively.
*I’m being informed that if I actually watched the show I would understand because “he’s totally my type.”