It’s 2020, and as promised during our Riverdale Season 4 First Impressions post last year, we’re back, and we have opinions! As we luxuriate in these precious episodeless weeks between the first half of this trash fire of a season and the second half, we’re here to talk about what’s gone down so far, what is yet to go down, and whether or not it should be legal for this television show to exist at all.

Kelli: Hi Mary! Happy New Year! The last time we spoke, Edgar Evernever had just been killed right in the middle of trying to launch his rocket into space. Somehow, those were simpler times.

Mary: Hellooooo, Kelli! Yes, sometimes I’ll just turn to whoever else is in the room and say, remember when Edgar built a spaceship?

Kelli: Reading through our last post, I see we were pretty spot-on with some of our predictions for the season: namely Jughead’s Stonewall Prep plot. In fact, episode 9 ended with Jughead being officially inducted into a secret society. Of course, because it’s Riverdale it isn’t quite so simple as just that. What do you think about the way things have played out re: Stonewall so far?

Mary: Sadly, my prediction of aliens has not come to fruition, but that’s okay. I think secret societies are having a bit of a moment right now, which sounds weird to say. I just can’t think it’s a coincidence that Riverdale unveils its big secret society plot right around the same time as Leigh Bardugo achieves massive success with Ninth House (which we’re talking about on an upcoming podcast episode, and I’m HYPED). What makes the plot more interesting to me is that the whole mystery of the school is wrapped up in a Hardy Boys-like novel series, written by a series of ghostwriters. Jughead suspects his grandfather wrote the first Baxter Brothers novel—and he’s right—but someone else is claiming that title. Jughead immediately goes on a crusade to uncover the truth, blah blah blah.

What’s exciting about all this to me is that it continues Riverdale’s tradition of pulling on classic teen series, like Nancy Drew and now the Hardy Boys, in order to create new stories to entertain young viewers. These same types of stories were HUGE when they first came out—first in the 30s and 40s, then again in the 50s and 60s—and beyond. This is something these syndicated types of stories have been doing over and over: repackaging and presenting themselves to a new audience. It’s just cool to see it happening yet again, in a different format here. I’m really enjoying the boarding school drama, too. I always am a sucker for that. 

Kelli: Can we please talk about how insane Mr. Chipping’s suicide was?

Mary: It was bananas, and it’s ludicrous to me that anyone would think that it was just...a thing that happened. You’re telling me these students, which come from a town rife with serial killers and murder, were just like, yeah, huh, maybe he just killed himself? It makes no sense, but then again, we aren’t here for sense, I guess. 

Kelli: Also, he straight up dove out of the building through a CLOSED window, breaking the glass as though he was in some kind of action movie. I was rendered speechless.

As usual, I have a lot of plausibility issues here, but one that really bugs me is the fact that Dupont (and Mr. Chipping, for that matter) are handing down the Baxter Brothers to a high school senior. Didn’t Jughead say the franchise is worth millions of dollars? I just… maybe Riverdale should have been set in a college town and revolved around 18 year-old students instead of at a high school. That would fix at least twelve of the problems this show has right now. Then again, Archie did say he’s 18 now. When did that happen? Remember birthdays? Riverdale doesn’t.

Mary: The only I can think of is that Archie had a birthday during the time jump after Fred’s death, or that maybe he just didn’t feel like celebrating amongst so much grief.

Kelli: Also Jughead’s birthday when he freaked out about Betty throwing him a birthday party because he doesn't DO birthday parties because he's a WEIRDO who doesn't FIT IN and doesn't WANT to FIT IN.

Mary: While it’s highly unlikely that someone would give free reign of an old, profitable book series, sometimes stuff like this happens. They haven’t fully explained how this is going to work, but typically with syndicated publishers (like those that handled The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew), different people might write each novel, but the rights themselves (along with the rights to the characters) belonged to the publishing company that handled the books. So the authors didn’t have rights over anything, they’d just step in to write a book or two then move on. It’s possible you’d let a high schooler write a book—I guess Eragon got published somehow?—but I don’t believe for a second they’re giving all the rights to Jughead. 

Also, I wonder if they’ll ever go to college. It’s really weird that a group of high school seniors are barely even considering it. 

Kelli: Speaking of Not Going To College, Archie’s storyline has only descended further into community-center-fueled madness. As usual, Archie has made himself into a martyr and decided that it is his responsibility to protect all of Riverdale by doing vigilante crimes at night.

Mary: Unsurprisingly, I hate the community center plot. It’s boring and predictable and only serves as a vehicle for Archie to put his body on the line for other people. It hasn’t shown any amount of emotional depth or grown his character at all. 

Kelli: Dodger is ostensibly supposed to be the Big Bad of Archie’s storyline, but I actually just typed “Badger” instead of Dodger, so obviously he has yet to make much of an impression. I guess his family are really the ones we’re supposed to fear, as highlighted in the Thanksgiving episode when Archie is nearly shot by one of Dodger’s relatives (but is saved in the nick of time by the ghost of Fred Andrews, returned in the form of a turkey exploding in a deep fryer. I'm sure Luke Perry would be so proud).

Mary: He’s just a dude! A dude badly named after Charles Dickens stuff! I’m also not super convinced by Dodger’s family as villains. They just seem like Serpent rip offs? Tough people who probably grew up in poverty.

That’s a good segue for me to talk about one of my pet peeves with Riverdale. It really makes poor people seem like villains sometimes. While the show is all about the hard working folks on one hand (with FP and Jughead being the most notable), it also seems to cast poor people as villains. For example, the Serpents (along with Jughead’s mom in later seasons) are clearly economically disadvantaged. They mostly live in trailer parks and seem to lack regular, secure jobs. Why do they have to be bad? I guess we have a more nuanced understanding of the Serpents now (now that Archie, the privileged golden boy has been welcomed into their ranks), but once upon a time they inhabited the same role as Dodger and his family. 

Kelli: I would agree with this assessment. At the very least, though, Riverdale also has a lot of excessively wealthy villains (see: Hiram, the Blossoms, etc).

All of the couples are still together, though there has been little to no development in any of their relationships. In fact, as usual, the four leads are spending less and less screen time together as they branch off on their own storylines. Again, as usual, I only start caring as soon as I see Betty or Jughead (or Cheryl, though this season not so much). If Archie’s being boring, at least he is showing a little bit of character development with the possibility that he’s going to reckon with his savior complex. Veronica, on the other hand, is trapped in the same endless cycle of competition with Hiram. Oh, yeah, Hiram’s out of jail already, because he… just is? Unclear.

Mary: I’m kind of waiting for someone to get pregnant, honestly. That would shake things up and be very soap opera-y. 

Hiram is also mayor of the town now? I’m not sure why the town would elect him mayor when he’s a literal criminal. Did they even have an election? 

Kelli: I guess it's a dictatorship now. We’ve also been introduced to Veronica’s half sister, Hermosa, with little to no fanfare. I’d like to note that Hermosa is played by Mishel Prada, one of the lead actresses on the critically-acclaimed show Vida. So, like… what are you doing on Riverdale, girl? 

Mary: The thing I can’t wrap my head around, no matter how hard I try, is that hermosa just means sister in Spanish. So Hiram named this chick “sister” before she even had a sister? That makes zero sense, but seems just like something Riverdale writers would do. 

Kelli: OR, does this imply the presence of another ever OLDER sister??? Plot twist: Hiram is a serial impregnator.

Kelli: As far as I’m concerned, Veronica needs to move out and cut communication off with her father completely, but if she did that she’d have no more storyline, so here we are. She is not pregnant (a prediction we toyed with in our last post), but is also not going to Harvard, because her dad helped her get in and she wants to be self-made. Now she’s probably going to end up at Columbia. However, Riverdale was just renewed for a fifth season, and I wonder if season five is actually going to send any of them off to school. I wouldn’t be surprised if Veronica was in the city for college and back in Riverdale every weekend to visit Archie, which is not realistic at all, but by Riverdale’s standards is basically nonfiction.

Mary: I’d like to see someone go to college, and Veronica seems most likely. Do you think Betty is just going to go straight into the FBI? That’s not how anything works, but it seems likely at this point.

Kelli: Literally anything is possible.

Mary: I don’t fully understand why Veronica doesn’t want to go to Harvard. I mean, sure Hiram maybe helped her get in, but like...it’s Harvard? Does she think he’s capable of taking it away from her? I mean, now that I say that...probably.

Kelli: Other things we were correct about: Betty is in a junior FBI club, and Charles is NOT WHO HE SEEMS!

Mary: Oh man, who even is Charles? This season doesn’t seem too concerned with telling us, but I do want to know. My current theory is that he’s some kind of serial killer and he’s going to be like, COME KILL WITH ME, BETTY WE BOTH HAVE THIS SERIAL KILLER GENE. 

Also I’m continually in shock whenever Betty or Jughead refer to Charles as their half brother. I then remember that FP and Alice are dating, just as their children are dating, and their love child is now a regular on the show. 

Kelli: Horrific. But I'm also not sure if this Charles is the REAL Charles either, because as we've seen, he is in a loving relationship with OG Charles (Chic).

Mary: Additionally, to switch gears for a minute, I’m in shock over Cheryl’s plotline this season, which includes her killing her uncle, threatening to kill her aunt and cousin, parading Jason’s corpse around, and believing a doll is possessed by the ghost of a Blossom child eaten inside the womb. What. Even. Yet it all seems appropriately dramatic for Cheryl.

Kelli: Yeah, I'm at a loss on this one. I did love that she took a quick medical test to see if she absorbed her sibling in the womb. The therapist brought it up so casually, like, “what, you’ve never heard of this?”

I also find it a little annoying that Toni doesn't get to have any kind of storyline of her own and instead is just propped in the background of Cheryl’s scenes looking sympathetic. Anyway, Cheryl discovered that Penelope was hiding in the walls The Boy style and moving Julian’s doll around, and now Cheryl has trapped her in the bunker as punishment. Fine by me. Isn't Penelope supposed to be in prison anyway?

Mary: What are our predictions for the second half? 

I’m not convinced that they’re actually going to kill off Jughead, though it would make perfect sense that Cole Sprouse wanted off the show to do other things. I think that the gang is going to help Jughead fake his own death in order to save him from the secret society that just won’t quit.

I also want to throw in my prediction of Charles being a serial killer! It’s just too perfect to not happen. 

Kelli: I think you're onto something with Jughead faking his death. Plus, it would still be an out for Cole Sprouse if Jughead needed to go into “hiding” or something. If that’s the case, I wonder how the show is going to reveal this information. Because we’ve been flashing back and forward, there will come a point when we have to catch up to what actually happens. I don’t know if the show will let the audience in on the faking-of-the-death as it goes down, or if there’s gonna be some big gotcha moment at the end to reveal that the whole thing was an elaborate charade. I’m sure whichever it is, it’ll be EXTREMELY well-done.

I agree about Charles. They tried to throw us off the scent by having Betty already question his identity, but we’re not fools. We’ve been hurt before, Riverdale.

Additionally, I’d like to throw a guess out there and say that Principal Honey is the one who’s been recording these mysterious video tapes from outside people’s homes, only because he must be here for a reason and so far all he’s done is put some desperately-needed rules in place at Riverdale High. That’s right, I said it. #JusticeForHoney #HeHasAPoint

What are your predictions for the rest of the season? Leave them in the comments and we’ll see you at the end of this wild ride for our post-finale thoughts!