‘Riverdale’: A Dark and Campy Archie
For decades, Archie Andrews, Betty and Veronica, and Jughead Jones were brightly colored characters in comic books who played jokes on each other, dated, and shared ice cream sundaes at Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe. Now, Archie and company go dark on the CW’s reimagining of that sunny mythology in Riverdale, premiering Thursday.
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In this version, Archie (K.J. Apa) isn’t a genial, redheaded, bow-tied kid — he’s a ripped brooder who strums a guitar and writes songs to release his teen angst. Betty (Lili Reinhart) is still the blonde who’s in love with him, but she’s no longer defined by pure Archie-love, and her mom, played by Twin Peaks’ Mädchen Amick, is a reporter with a nose for gossipy scoops. Yes, Betty’s competition for the redhead remains Veronica (Camilla Mendes), but this Ronnie isn’t the airy rich girl of the comics: In the premiere, her dad is carted off to jail for financial fraud. And then there are the twin troublemakers, brother-and-sister Cheryl and Jason Blossom (Madelaine Petsch and Trevor Stines), two ultrabrats, one of whom winds up dead, setting up a mystery that propels the opening episodes.
The source of this new Archie mood is writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who in recent years has been applying soot to the clean Archie mythos with new comics such as Afterlife With Archie, featuring a zombie invasion of Riverdale. Along with drawing Archie and his pals ’n’ gals in a more realistic style (courtesy of artist Francesco Francavilla), Aguirre-Sacasa was practically storyboarding the possibility of a fresh live-action Archie for producer Greg Berlanti. In turn, Berlanti is now able to merge everything he’s done, from Everwood to Arrow, into this new show.
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Riverdale is stuffed with Archie comics Easter eggs. The series starts with one: The sign at the entrance to the town reads “Riverdale: The Town With Pep!” — a reference to Pep Comics, in which Archie Andrews made his first appearance in 1941. Josie and the Pussycats are a trio of black musicians who turn the genuine 1968 Archies hit song “Sugar, Sugar” into a hip-hop-inflected toe-tapper.
The show’s increased emphasis on teen sexuality shouldn’t come as a complete surprise to the knowledgeable adult. There was always an erotic undercurrent to Archie comics — Dan DeCarlo, arguably the greatest Archie artist, drew Betty and Veronica as grinning objects of desire, and if you think I’m exaggerating, take a peek at the so-called “good-girl art” DeCarlo drew, collected in books such as Innocence & Seduction: The Art of Dan DeCarlo.
So there’s a rich subtext for anyone who knows anything about Archie comics, but you can come to it without prior knowledge and enjoy the show as it is — a clever melding of Twin Peaks, River’s Edge, Pretty Little Liars, and all sorts of teen TV (the latter is represented in the flesh by Beverly Hills, 90210’s Luke Perry portraying Archie’s dad). The acting is uneven — so far, I’m most admiring the way Petsch’s Cheryl handles some of the most rapid dialogue loaded with pop-culture citations, and Cole Sprouse’s Jughead, who narrates the show and is tapping out a novel with precocious aplomb.
It will be easy for Riverdale to lapse into campiness — it’s already on its way, with references to Archie as a “ginger stallion,” the murder as “Riverdale’s own In Cold Blood,” and Veronica’s self-conscious war cry, “I don’t follow rules, I make them, and when necessary, I break them!” But for now, Riverdale is an intriguing experiment in comic artiness that just might work.
Riverdale airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on The CW.
