Many a person falls victim to the bandwagon of watching a popular show. However, few of these poor souls know exactly what they are getting themselves into when they click on “Chapter One: The River’s Edge-” the first episode of Riverdale.
Riverdale is one of, if not the worst show anyone has ever had the misfortune of watching; it spirals quickly into irredeemable lunacy that continues to indulge itself until it emerges from the pits of hell somehow even more depraved and erratic than it already was.
During the quarantine, I opted to have a show play in the background while I did household tasks and schoolwork. I selected (to my detriment) a show called Riverdale, which I had heard of once or twice before, both from friends and referenced in other media. If only my sweet, naïve, un-Riverdale-marred self could have known what she had doomed us too. By episode thirty-one, I had begun to question my life decisions. By episode thirty-eight, I had lost all hope.
I distinctly remember being startled when “Chapter Thirty-One: A Night To Remember” began playing, and the characters began to sing out of tune- with autotune. It certainly caught my attention, at least. This is where I made my second mistake: I began to actively watch Riverdale, rather than just have it playing as idle background noise.
What came of this miscalculation was a state of seemingly utter and perpetual shock, confusion, and horror- though, not for the reasons you may think. The show’s pathetic attempts at scary and disturbing plotlines worked only because of how absolutely ludicrous they were— in my personal opinion, the so-called “Gargoyle King” is the goofiest lad I have ever seen.
The characters, who are relentlessly slammed with trauma that is never addressed, are constantly deluded by paranoia, a fact that worsens when these nonsensical theories manifest into the absurd reality of the show. Each plotline is worse than the last, and at least five of them have to be running at once in order to keep the viewer confused enough to keep watching. It gets to the point where a show about a group of four friends descends into a series of four to seven perspective episodes where each character is so occupied by their own harebrained schemes that they rarely interact with one another.
When I reached the end of the four seasons that had been released, I was so baffled— nay, gobsmacked— that I made my third mistake: I decided to rewatch the show in order to grasp some semblance of what was going on.
Now, season one of Riverdale is fine. It’s your run-of-the-mill, bad, needlessly edgy, teen show; but this is just to lull the viewer in to a false sense of security. I was at ease as I began my rewatch, thinking I must have, in my addled state, hallucinated the absurdity of the later seasons. But I was sorely mistaken. A single murder snowballs into three serial killers (one of whom was sold as a child bride into an incest-ridden family), a suicide cult, an underground illegal boxing ring, and lest I forget— an organ farm.
Season four offers a bit of a respite, dealing with a series of prep-school murders that is a breath of fresh air— polluted though it may be by the porcelain doll possessed by the spirit of an absorbed fetus— after the positively demented happenings of season three. I emerged from my second viewing with a fragile grasp of what had occurred, and an even more fragile psyche.
I will not speak of the last three seasons. They unsettle me to a deeper degree— perhaps the recency of my exposure to them makes it harder to discuss. Forget the questionable editing, forget the depreciating quality of costume and makeup… the plot is unhinged and needs to be reviewed by the CDC. If you somehow emerge from this with some sort of morbid curiosity; should you choose to take it upon yourself to consume this heinous media for yourself, I feel obligated to warn you of the dangers ahead. Stay safe out there— the contents of that show are more than enough to kill four fully-grown men.
