Beloved comic series gets edgy, neo-noir makeover
Archie Andrews, the freckle-faced redheaded titular hero of the Archie comics and the protagonist of the recently released Netflix series Riverdale, is the archetype of the good ol’ all-American teen.
Even if you have never picked up an Archie comic while standing in the checkout line for groceries, Archie has risen to a similar level of ubiquitous popularity as Superman or Mickey Mouse.
Riverdale uses this comfortable familiarity as a launching point for a radically different take on Archie and the rest of the Riverdale gang. In an entertainment landscape dominated by comic book adaptations on both the big and small screens, one of the initial challenges for Riverdale was for the series to stand out from the rest of the pack while still remaining recognizable to its comic book source material. Centred around the murder of high school socialite and football star Jason Blossom, this reimagining of small-town Americana is not as happy-go-lucky and wholesome as its comic counterpart.
Unlike many shows on Netflix, Riverdale is released episodically, allowing for the audience to stew on each new twist, development, and layer added to the ongoing mystery. Each episode ends with a cliff-hanger that leaves viewers waiting to find out what happens next.
Riverdale is, on multiple levels, an incredibly unsettling show. The main cast are close enough to Archie and his gang to be identifiable, but each character is substantially divergent from how they are traditionally presented in the comic.
Archie is still a well-meaning all-American teen, but his poor decision-making skills are a liability to himself and those around him in this more dangerous version of Riverdale. The love triangle between Archie, Betty, and Veronica, hasn’t quite developed yet, with the showrunners deciding to pursue a decidedly more disturbing love interest for Archie. Jughead is no longer a laidback hamburger-scarfing pal of Archie’s, but an aspiring writer who is out to find the truth about what exactly happened to Jason Blossom.
These changes could have made the characters unrecognizable from their traditional interpretations, but the writers have used these discrepancies to their advantage to make the cast an uncanny distortion of the Riverdale crew.
The town of Riverdale, in the comics, has always existed outside of the regular flow of time. Social media mixes with jalopies, and relics from the ’50s exist alongside innovations from the new millennium. This is a trend that continues with Riverdale, which is bathed in both lens flare and neon lighting.
Archie wears his signature letterman jacket and Jughead sports an updated take on his signature whoopee cap. These design choices allow Riverdale to avoid a common trap for teen dramas, where they try to be too relatable to their current audience and end up feeling dated shortly after the series ends. Riverdale also often calls out the tropes and conventions of teen dramas and riffs on the absurdity of some of the conventions that have been around for so long that audiences barely register them.
Your visit to Riverdale may vary on whether this blatant acknowledgement helps Riverdale sidestep these tropes, or whether it just calls more attention to the problems found in the series.
Watching Riverdale is akin to making your way through a fever dream—plenty of things look familiar, but nothing seems quite right. The series does take plenty of liberties with its source material, and these changes could be off-putting for some, but the ongoing mystery of Riverdale makes it another must-watch television series.
Photo courtesy of Netflix.