Hey guys!
For some reason I am still watching the giant trainwreck that is Riverdale. I’ve had my issues with past seasons but there’s always a spark of potential you can see shimmering through. So, here we are again, hoping that the first half of season five was decent!
The Plot:
Picking up where we left of in season 4, this one concludes the mystery encountered. Once that is neatly wrapped up, we do a little time-hop. After seven years away all our favorites return to Riverdale. And – of course – nothing is as it used to be…
The Rating:
Okay, so what was that wrap up of season 4? To be honest, I was very confused after the final episodes of that one as it seemed they had just stopped somewhere in the middle of the season. I guess it only makes sense that the first episodes of season 5 now have to solve that mystery and make sense of what happened. But I wish they had just done that in the last season and started this one with the time hop.
While that’s just a minor, stylistic note I wasn’t a fan of, the bigger problem is the plot. No spoilers, but (why do I feel like I say this in every Riverdale review?!) I’m not sure the grand reveal made much sense. If you think about the logistic and stuff that went into creating the tapes, I just don’t believe that the person who turned out to be responsible could have orchestrated all that. But let’s just move on from that, shall we?
I’m not gonna lie, I was very intrigued by the time-hop idea. They did what they could with the characters in the setting they were giving but I don’t think another season with them as high-schoolers, or well, starting college would have managed to keep me interested. So, I’m glad that the show got a fresh coat of paint with this.
The next part will contain spoilers, as I will talk about what everybody is up to seven years later!
First of all, we have Archie. I feel like he is still the exact same character. He went to war and came back but ultimately, was there any character development? Not really. Once he’s back in Riverdale he wants to rebuild the town and gets his old friends to work as teachers at the school. I’m sorry, but how does that make sense? Don’t they have other jobs they’d need to show up at? And how can you just hire a bunch of people as teacher with no teaching expierence or education in that field? But then I guess they had to find some pretense to get everybody back.
Veronica is still the aspiring business women she was set up to be. However, now she finds herself trapped in a marriage. I was somewhat surprised that she got married so quickly. See, she and Archie were a thing, so I’d assume it took her a minute to get over it. Then she has to meet the new guy and fall in love. Maybe it’s just an American thing that people get married so quickly but I’m not sure I see that as in-character for her. She’s always been cautious with her assets and businesses, so I would have assumed she’d do more to protect those. I do like her character after the time hop, but the storyline is rather flimsy. And I fucking hate her husband.
Betty on the other hand has a most intriguing story. She’s with the FBI but once she returns home, her sister goes missing. That is such a good story arc and I can’t wait to see more.
Jughead’s character theoretically is the most intriguing to me, but I’m not sure I like where his story is going. So far, I’m just not sold on the supernatural/alien mothmen thing. It was next level weird even for Riverdale standards and I’m not sure that this is a hole that the show will be able so successfully crawl out of. Sure, with great writing this could turn into something. But from experience (see evidence A, B, C and D: seasons 1-4) the setup is usually much better than the weak and half-baked conclusion we get. And it barely makes sense most of the time. We still have half a season to go, so maybe this time they nail it, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up to high.
We’ll also need to talk about Cheryl. That woman needs therapy like yesterday. Everything she does after the time hop is just straight up weird and I find that extremely irritating. Again, this is a character with so much potential that’s just not used.
And don’t even get me started on Hiram Lodge. His schemes are so ludicrous it borders on comedic. It’s like he’s the villian of a Scooby-Doo story. Seriously, who greenlighted any of this?
The whole tear down the city/rebuild the city is just not working for me. At all. It barely makes sense and I don’t want to even hear any more about it.
So far, this season has been a bit of a clusterfuck. There are elements that could be good, but I don’t have much confidence that those will be played to their full potential. Additionally there are lots of aspects in this season that are half-baked and just ruin it for me. Let’s find out if they can turn the sinking ship around in the second half of season 5 or wether it is time to abandon ship.
Did you watch the season? Let me know in the comments what you think!
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The Punk Theory 
The reason they stopped the way they did was because of Covid. They couldn’t continue filming and had to post-pone the conclusion to the season like a lot of other shows. Pretty much all the CW shows needed a couple episodes to wrap up the previous season before starting with the new plot, therefore the first 3-ish episodes were always technically still the old season.
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That totally makes sense, but I was just very confused as I remember on Instagram, the acted as if it was the proper season finale that concludes everything. I really wish they hadn’t done that. 😂
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They really did that for all their shows though haha I think it would have been weird for them to call it the previous season, but have like a year between episodes.
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