Riverdale season 6 review: Jumping the shark with a Midsommar remake

Riverdale is again, and blessedly, it’s also again on its bullshit — particularly, being the wildest present on TV with pizzazz and the utmost sincerity.

Season 5 was among the many sleepier of the present’s installments. Archie tried to revitalize the city after Hiram Lodge actively sabotaged it for his personal achieve. Betty chased a serial killer who kidnapped women (akin to her sister) off the freeway and acquired held at gunpoint by her half-brother (additionally a serial killer). Veronica, now often known as the “She-Wolf of Wall Road,” tried to distance herself from an abusive Gordon Gekko-type husband. Jughead did shrooms to assist him write his subsequent novel. Cheryl helped begin a cult worshipping her useless brother (which incorporates Cheryl’s experiencing stigmata that “imitate the holy wounds of Jason”). Normal stuff.

Even in comparison with different Riverdale outings, season 5 was all around the map. The season was tasked with wrapping up what was imagined to have been season 4’s plot, earlier than leaping the world seven years into the long run, then layering in new characters, mysteries, and Jughead voice-overs. Due to that, season 5’s storylines typically hit pure stalling factors. The plotlines felt artificially drawn out — like a cliffhanger the place Jughead could be kidnapped leads right into a Hiram Lodge Goodfellas flashback episode, earlier than revealing that Jug was high quality in any case. And as soon as the conclusions got here, they didn’t hit the identical thrilling peaks that Riverdale was as soon as able to. (Chad Michael Murray rocket, always remember.)

However with only one episode beneath its belt, Riverdale season 6 guarantees to be one thing wilder. The writers exchange Jughead’s common voice-over with him doing hammy Twilight Zone-style introductions (full with winky check-ins, delivered straight to the digicam). In contrast to Rod Serling, he’s the present’s framer and narrator, but in addition apparently nonetheless the identical character. He rapidly introduces the viewers to the brand new city of Riverdale — sorry, that’s Rivervale, the place all the things is similar plotwise, besides that the timeline has moved ahead a couple of months, and all the things is a bit nearer to idyllic. Pop’s by no means burned down. Archie and Betty practically being blown up by a bomb within the season 5 finale is hand-waved away as a dream Archie had of an alternate actuality the place he lives in a city known as Riverdale. (It doesn’t matter what the city is named, Riverdale loves an homage.)

Just like the fifth season, Rivervale is fielding a ton of constant plotlines. It inherited no fewer than 5 new romantic pairings. None of these {couples} have been collectively when the final season began, and every of them are marking their very own weird milestone. Betty and Archie are formally cohabitating, having simply gotten again collectively within the season 5 finale, and at the moment are planning on after they can begin a household. Tabitha and Jughead simply moved in collectively after relationship for a couple of months, and he was absent for a lot of that point. Alice and Frank can’t determine learn how to take their relationship to the following degree. Toni and Fangs are simply attempting to get their colicky child to sleep by means of the evening, whereas Reggie and Veronica battle to make their enterprise empire work alongside their relationship.

Photograph: Kailey Schwerman/The CW

It’s all simple stuff till Cheryl’s foray into witchcraft is introduced in as the answer, as she makes use of her newly found magical methods to drag folks into some nefarious internet she’s weaving. The problems climax in a midnight ceremony the place the entire city rallies behind Cheryl to sacrifice Archie, together with Betty, who apparently used him to conceive a toddler earlier within the evening. “A son, I do know it, I can really feel it in my bones,” she tearfully beams at him earlier than he will get tied to a put up, stabbed, and Cheryl holds up his nonetheless beating coronary heart to a dancing crowd. Rivervale believes killing Archie will remedy all of the city’s issues, from the fertility points to the bugs in Tabitha and Jug’s condo to the sick child. It’s exhausting to know precisely what this Rivervale alternate actuality is supposed to be: a fictional world Archie’s dwelling in after a really actual explosion left him injured? A five-episode anthology of every forged member’s mystical Fantasy Island world? A easy excuse to introduce the magic of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s neighboring Greendale into the story?

The reality is, all the things feels doable after the season 6 premiere, which is the candy spot the place Riverdale thrives. Critics would possibly knock the present for dwelling its fact so bombastically, however followers know the collection’ pure, unabashed hubris is its secret, un-parodiable sauce. The season 6 iteration of Riverdale is a bit cheekier than the previous season, winking to the viewers about the place we’ve ended up after so a few years. The Rod Serling persona permits Jughead to shed his overwrought, dour novelist tone and be nearly impish, relishing strains like, “Let’s go subsequent door, the place my outdated chum, Archie Andrews, resides with my ex-girlfriend Betty Cooper … let that one sink in for a minute.” However although the collection is self-aware, it’s by no means self-conscious, even — particularly — when it’s having characters say issues like “I’ve at all times wished to make it on a pile of cash” with a straight face.

How Riverdale lands the aircraft has by no means been a very powerful factor, as long as it might always be topping itself and elevating the bar for audacity alongside the way in which. This can be a present the place Archie fought a bear, joined the Mafia, and extolled the highs and lows of highschool soccer, and his friends met all of them with the identical sincerity. (All of his decisions have been additionally largely footnotes to the extra bombastic components of their respective seasons.) Now his first try this season to analyze bizarre happenings has discovered him with an antler crown and runes drawn on him in his personal blood. The premiere’s ultimate sequence within the woods is lofty, daring, and stuffed with unimaginable aesthetic decisions, as the entire city comes collectively within the Cheryl Blossom Midsommar assortment. In different phrases, it’s precisely what Riverdale must be.

The primary episode of Riverdale season 6 is now streaming at CW.com, with new episodes airing on Tuesdays.