got tagged by @raptorlily (thank you!!!) and y’all i’m so sorry because this is gonna be another one of my eight year long essays
but i don’t always talk about riverdale, even though i’ve got thoughts coming out my ears---and so it builds up and then, well, this happens
rules: answer the questions and tag seven people!
a character/characters you hope gets more screen time:
the facts were these: kevin keller
but---really, i want a lot more kevin. that kid is so funny and so dry but also like i want him to see him be more than a comedic relief! like he’s pretty blindly moralistic and judgmental in a way that’s gonna have him coming down on a different side than betty or jughead, and i see him butting heads with his best friends and i am super excited to see how that plays out.
i also am excited to see more of reggie! i’ve said before that reggie just felt like a character that showed up to be an antagonist whenever cheryl was in a good mood and that bugged me. i realize now that some of that was the filming schedule for the previous actor but like---still, c’mon, there has to be more nuance to this guy.
also also, probably an unpopular opinion but: archie, in some ways. i felt like the show really dropped the ball on archie. there was so much potential. like i was really excited for his narrative to explore the downfall of golden boys (especially as someone being thrust into the mantle of jason blossom), social expectation and grooming in small town hierarchies.
not to mention completely flat-out ignoring the fact that this kid was raped by a repeat sexual predator who was established as having cut him off from his relationships, fucking with his head, manipulating his self worth, etc like??? i’m still waiting for that to come up bitch
instead archie has just felt so lackluster and goofy high school musical, which sucks, because there was just a lot of potential there. anyway we’ll see where it goes from hereon out
character you’ll miss: i mean i wish we’d seen more of joaquin, who ostensibily did nothing but stare into a corner and think about how utterly fucked he was and then make out with kevin a bit
but building off my earlier point about grundy, she should be on trial and i wish she wasn’t just welp, viva las vegas! and out the door without any consequences
though i wouldn’t really classify this as “missing her” lmao
one death you would like to see: i hate deaths on tv, generally. most of the time it’s just a cheap attempt to shake up the other characters for 3 episodes (i’m definitely not talking about robin from ouat what do you mean)
but a death can also be a good catalyst for radical character development, so it all depends on how it would go down
then again i mean i hate hal cooper and how he pulled his whole family into his shakespearean melodrama and the resulting gaslight bullshit he pulled so like i wouldn’t sweat over his death
one death you would hate to see: i’d write a very angry but also very polite MLA format letter to the writers if betty cooper died
a storyline you like: i loooove when riverdale dips its toe into classism. i’ve said this so many times so i apologize, but the show really reaches an important level when it touches upon privilege and class.
i’ve seen this floated around as a “civil war” in the press junkets and i think that’s a good way to generate buzz but also heavily simplifies what i hope to see; which is the desire that the show continues to present things as gray zones.
for example, i’ve seen a lot of romanticization for the serpents and that’s really interesting. we’re definitely made to empathize with them and that’s important but also gang inductions and gang life is driven by class warfare; people are left disenfranchised by their local infrastructure and have to turn to each other for help, but it also is usually a deeply destructive cycle.
the parents get wrapped up in gang life, the children are neglected, the rest of the gang swoops in and takes care of them, then inducts them, and so on. it’s a really complicated narrative that has a lot of real world grittiness and i hope to see it handled right!
similarly, i think that an honest dive into the drug epidemic sweeping across america, particularly rural/small towns/suburbs would be really fitting on riverdale. i mean they already showed a very graphic overdose death and the show ended with a reveal that a character was moving major quantities of hard drugs, so....i know it’s a teen show on the cw that i’ve convinced myself is being written by the showrunners of true detective.....but, i mean, you never know
a storyline you don’t: i mean can i just take a moment to be upset that veronica took cheryl to her house to warm in front of the fire, fresh off a suicide attempt, and then left the damn girl alone to go to a dance?????????? that really upset me and if you thought i wasn’t still thinking about it we haven’t met properly
i also deeply disliked the show’s portrayal of chuck clayton. i get that they needed a villain but like did it have to be the sweet, artistic black character who was created at a time of limited positive representation? anyway, here’s an article that speaks to it better than i could: [x]
a pairing you hope to see more of: i mean mostly just bughead lbr
but i’m also very excited for cheryl’s upcoming relationship, who i expect will be with the new character toni! i also feel like i haven’t been sold on varchie beyond a basic appreciation for some cute moments so i’m looking forward to seeing them more
something you would like to happen: a solid discussion about mental health issues and how they manifest. i want to see a deeper exploration into the kind of trauma jughead has gone through (i loved when he talked about why he didn’t like his birthday), for example. i also see cheryl as a bipolar character (an illness very close to my family and which i see a lot in her) and i’d like to see that hopefully touched upon.
mostly though, i want a more nuanced approach to betty’s obvious mental health issues. i’ve seen a lot of people chalking it up to sort an “evil alter ego” type thing, as if she’s jean gray or something, but in reality, dissociative personality disorders are rare and very complex. and not really something i trust in the hands of the cw, nor something i see in betty.
i see her as having pretty intense anxiety disorders and as someone with those, i would love to see that treated not as a stigma, but as something that one lives with and accepts and works through.
on that line, i also want to see more of betty’s somewhat black and white perspective on justice competing with jughead’s moral apathy/grayness and how that creates a tension that will ultimately lead to a better understanding of one another and life.
also: i know, i know, jesus christ sarah please relax
listen to be honest tagging people fills me with a weird type of social anxiety that i’ve otherwise mostly moved past so i like can’t tag people without it stressing me out! but if you want to do this, i will cover for you, i have tagged you