Riverdale Premiere Review: "Chapter One: The River's Edge"

The CW

Riverdale is a strange thing. Based on the Archie comics, the show follows the lives of classic characters like Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and Archie himself. If you're a fan of the original material (personally my knowledge of this universe was very limited going in), then in some ways you are still dealing with the same dynamic here: a group of teens hang out and try to figure out the next steps in their lives, while the classic love triangle between Archie, "good girl" Betty, and "wild child" Veronica rages on. That's about where the similarities end though, and that appears to be a good thing so far. Under the old fashioned facade, there are secrets that seep into the heart of this small town.

After seeing the first episode, there are two things I can say Riverdale does extremely well. Riverdale is one of the most uniquely stylized shows on TV right now. The idea of mixing the wholesome small town aesthetic of the classic Archie comics, with the gloomy shadow of a noir-ish murder mystery is risky, but the show not only makes it work, it turns its atmosphere into its greatest asset. Some shows would sink in the gloom of an aesthetic like this, but Riverdale, like the town it is named after, is kept alight by a garish neon glow. These are small town kids, and while they may be stuck in the middle of a brooding teen soap, they have genuine hopes and aspirations.

The other compliment I can pay the show is that after one episode, I want to know more about these characters. That's a great feat for the pilot of any show. If you can't make me want to learn more about at least one of your characters by the end of the pilot, then why should I watch any more of your show? Granted, not every character is quick to draw the audience in. Archie (K. J. Apa) is arguably the most bland character we meet in this first episode, and aside from some mediocre narration, Jughead (Cole Sprouse) is basically a non-factor in this episode. Supporting characters like Josie (Ashleigh Murray), of Josie and the Pussycats fame, bring a lot of attitude and some impressive musical performances to the show. Kevin Keller (Casey Cott), is Betty's openly gay best friend whose running meta commentary and frequent pop culture references are one of the show's most entertaining aspects. As of now these, and most of the other supporting characters, are all pretty flat, but most of them have enough personality to allow the show time to round them out.

The real draw here is the friendship between Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica (Camila Mendes). On the surface both characters seem to fit their stereotypical roles. Betty is the sweet and shy girl next door (she literally lives right across the street from Archie) who always follows the rules and doesn't cause waves. As the episode goes on we learn that this is not necessarily her natural personality, as much as the result of an overbearing mother who controls her every action. Betty has a pent up rage that she successfully hides, but which is bound to come out in one form or another this season. Veronica also walks into town appearing every bit the privileged wild child that her reputation suggests. She has no problem going toe-to-toe with Riverdale's resident queen bee Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) mere days after arriving in town. Like Betty, Veronica is more than she seems at first. Family tragedy has exposed her insecurities, and given her a wake-up call about how she was living her life back in New York. Veronica is trying to use her outgoing personality for good, and is fiercely loyal to her new group of friends.

What makes this friendship such a fascinating part of the show is that each girl is in some way trying to be more like the other. Betty wants desperately to be able to speak her mind like Veronica does, and Veronica is determined to become the kind of person that disproves the negative reputation her family has gained. Watching how each character evolves just over the course of the episode, was easily the best part of this pilot. Betty and Veronica are easily the most fully realized characters on the show, and all signs point to that growth continuing to develop as their friendship does.

Riverdale isn't without it's problems in this first episode. Being a teen drama, the show is always on the edge between being the joke or being in on the joke. The best example of this is Cheryl Blossom, who is a fairly effective villain in this first hour, but who starts to wear out her welcome by the end of the pilot. There is also a lot of work to do developing the adult characters on the show. Obviously in this first hour putting primary focus on the kids makes sense, but the show makes a strong enough point of introducing many of these kids parents, that the show will need to do a much better job of proving their relevance than it did in this episode. Then there's the biggest problem of them all: Archie's affair with his music teacher Ms. Grundy (Sarah Habel). Statutory rape is a very tricky road to go down. Maybe the show will eventually do right by a storyline about such an important subject, but all of the sexualizing of it in this episode didn't give me a lot of confidence. Hopefully it doesn't detract from all of the show's great elements in the long run, but as of now it is a problem the show needs to address sooner than later.

This show has a lot of promise, but it's also walking right on the edge of being a smart genre subversion and a cliche that falls into the traps of the genre itself. We've yet to really get into the murder mystery aspect of the show, as it isn't revealed until the very end of the episode that Cheryl's brother's disappearance was actually a murder and not just an accident like the town had assumed. As of now this show definitely has my attention. It's not for everyone, but I'd say this first episode is worth checking out, because it just might surprise you.

The Good Place Season One Finale Review: "Mindy St. Claire" & "Michael's Gambit"

I don't normally do spoiler alerts at the beginning of a review, because it's kind of a given. If you happen to be reading this and haven't seen the season one finale of The Good Place, I would just caution you to go watch those episodes first, because major spoilers lie ahead.

The season one finale of The Good Place was technically two episodes, and while “Mindy St. Claire” was a fine episode on its own, there are only two major takeaways from the episode that shed any significant light on the series moving forward (that is if it moves forward, which it better): Eleanor (thankfully and ironically we can drop the “fake” from now on) grew up with awful parents whom she eventually emancipated herself from, and there is a middle place in the afterlife that is basically undetectable by either the people running The Good Place, or the people running The Bad Place. The major revelations, however, came in “Michael’s Gambit”, so that’s the part I really want to discuss here.

It’s rare that a show can pull of genuine surprises these days. Sure shows like Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder pride themselves on “OMG” moments, but genuine and thoughtful plot twists are hard to pull off in the social media age. Is it out of the realm of possibility that some viewers saw this twist coming? No, but gauging the reactions I saw from people on social media, many of them being the most avid TV watchers around, I’m guessing most people didn’t see this twist coming. The Good Place, is actually The Bad Place, and it has been set up specifically to be a living hell for our four main protagonists: Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason.

Looking back at the way the series was built leading up to this point, it was such an amazingly well crafted con. Michael Schur created such an intricate world in the twelve episodes leading up to the reveal, that once the wizard was revealed behind the curtain, it all still held up. Off the top of my head I can’t think of any major continuity errors. That’s the brilliance of this show’s storytelling. I’m not even mad that this entire season has essentially been a preface to the real story that will hopefully be told in subsequent seasons. I’m just mad that I will probably have to wait until next fall to see how all of this plays out. I’m not saying it was flawless, but it was some of the smartest and most thought provoking storytelling on TV.

Thematically, the show takes on a whole new meaning after this revelation. Over the course of their time together in The Bad Place, our four main protagonists did become better people just by knowing each other. Eleanor learned to put others before herself, Tahani learned to genuinely care about the good things she did for other people, and Chidi learned to become fairly decisive when it came to protecting Eleanor. Jason seems to have learned the least, but the fact that he was able to fall in love with Janet, is proof that he could at least care about something other than himself.

The show actively rebels against the idea that people are irredeemably bad. It posits that connecting with other people and learning to love beyond just ourselves, helps us become the best version of who we can be. Michael brought these four people together knowing that they would drive each other crazy, and initially they did. Eventually however, it was learning to rely on each other as a way of coping with their struggles, that made them better people. It’s an important story for the times we are living in right now. I hope this isn’t where that story ends.


Other thoughts:

• The one aspect of the show that is still somewhat confusing is Janet. If I understood correctly, our Janet actually belongs in The Good Place, but The Bad Place actually stole or took her for authorized use in The Bad Place. Either way, it sets her up as a potential ally for our protagonists, seeing as this is not where she belongs. 

• One of the most brilliant storytelling tricks the show pulled off, was using the audience’s expectations about sitcoms against them. On any other kind of show, the absurd obstacles that kept popping up to hinder the group might have been seen as suspicious, but they are a familiar part of the sitcom formula, so in this case most people probably didn’t give the orchestrated effort to make our protagonists’ miserable, a second thought. 

• If the show moves forward, it will be interesting to see how Michael fits into everything, given that we now know he’s essentially the villain of the show. I’m sure the writers have something great planned.

The Good Place: "What's My Motivation"

Being such a serialized comedy, The Good Place, is tasked with balancing its absurd humor with further developments in the plot. Sometimes it does both at the same time very well, but other times it seems to shift focus on an episode by epsode basis. Last week's episode did very little to move the overall story of the show forward, but it did feature some comedic character building moments, such as Jason and Janet's wedding or the bonding between "Fake" Eleanor and Tahani. "What's My Motivation" was far from absent of good comedic moments (particularly Michael interrogating Janet and Jason about their marriage), but for the most part this episode was all about setting up the events to come in the last two episodes of the season.

This episode picks up where last week's episode left off, with Tahani having devised a new plan to keep "Fake" Eleanor in The Good Place. Tahani's theory is that since "Fake" Eleanor has been trying to be a better person since arriving in The Good Place, perhaps they can start adding up the value of her actions in the afterlife, to prove that she actually does belong in The Good Place. "Fake" Eleanor goes along with the plan, trying to do nice things for the citizens of The Good Place, and repair her reputation in the community. Ultimately "Fake" Eleanor realizes the plan won't work, because the motivation behind all of her actions is self preservation, and therefore nothing she does can actually be considered altruistic in nature. Eventually Eleanor does the only thing that can truly make her worthy to live in The Good Place, which is deciding to sacrifice herself and voluntarily go to The Bad Place.

In the side stories, Michael discovers that Janet and Jason are married, after the two decided to take their relationship public. This leads to some pretty funny jokes between Michael's interrogation of Jason, and Jason's inability to understand that Janet isn't a real person, and Michael isn't her dad. Included in Jason's story is also a flashback to how Jason died. This part of the series is kind of wearing out its welcome. There are plenty of episodes where the flashbacks have given meaningful insight into situations and characters, but overall, they have become the least interesting part of the show. In episodes like last week's and this week's the flashbacks actually had the effect of making the characters featured in them look unrealistically cartoonish. In Jason's case, the show can sort of get away with that, but in Chidi's case last week, the flashback presented a version of Chidi that didn't feel true to the show.

The Good Place Review: "Chidi's Choice"

Returning this week after a short winter hiatus, The Good Place wisely used "Chidi's Choice" as a chance to put the show's wildly evolving main plot on hold, in favor of very solid character building. In it's short run, The Good Place has built up a number of complicated relationships, which came to a head this week after both "Fake" Eleanor and Tahani confessed their love for Chidi, whilst he was just beginning to contemplate the idea of "Real" Eleanor being his eternal soul mate (I know what you're thinking, what show hasn't done this plotline before?).

There are a lot of ways that this could have gone wrong. Love triangles are a messy business for any show, and even the best of them have issues (If I have one complaint about my favorite show Jane the Virgin, it is the way the show handled its love triangle). Here a lot was at a stake. "Fake" Eleanor's feelings for Chidi were less than reliable, especially considering that in life she had never allowed her self to feel either the kind of love one feels for a best friend, or the kind of love one feels for a potential soul mate. Which was only further proven when she started to convince herself that Jianyu/Jason was meant to be her true soul mate. While Tahani and Chidi arguably had something closer to a romantic connection than "Fake" Eleanor and Chidi,  the show wisely understood that Tahani's feelings also couldn't be trusted because they were borne of her feelings of dissatisfaction with Jianyu/Jason (whom I will furthermore refer to as Jason, because every main character except Michael now knows his true identity) as a soulmate.

The conflict driven option would be to have these two women, whose friendship was already built on a pretty weak foundation, become rivals and fight for Chidi's affections. Instead, the show wisely used the rivalry as an opportunity to strengthen the show's only female friendship. Both women deciding to put their differences aside and learn more about each other, was one of the strongest feminist statements made on a sitcom in recent memory, and an incredibly satisfying path for the show to pursue. Unlikely friendships add so much more to a show than unnecessary rivalries, because they allow the characters' differences to create conflicts that can have rewarding resolutions, if both characters use the conflict as an opportunity to understand one another.

By the time both women were sitting at Jason and Janet's wedding, they were both having the time of their lives openly mocking and even cheering on the strange proceeding. It was some of the best comedic acting either actress has done on the show, and is already a strong front-runner for one the best scenes of the year on any show. I love that the show didn't take the time to explain the logistics of Jason and Janet's wedding, because with a show as zany as The Good Place leaving somethings things a mystery only adds to the world building.