The original post: /r/television by /u/Amber_Flowers_133 on 2026-02-18 20:30:37+00:00.
I think I know what happened, but lets go over the main problems
- The Characters Remember in Season 1, where Archie wanted to be a musician and felt guilty about him having an affair with his teacher? yeah, literally Archie had a complete character arc about him being a musician and coming out of his shell. Not only that, but Archie was a likeable and cool dude. Sure, he is good looking, but he’s a nice friendly guy. He has flaws. What mattered is that Archie showed us that his good looks don’t define him, it was his personality that made the audience like him and engage with him.
How about Veronica Lodge? She had good looks, but what made her special was that she forced herself to start at the bottom, and wanted to change. She was a bully, and wanted to change. She wanted to dethrone Cheryl because she was a meanie. The most interesting thing about Veronica in Season 1 was that she stood up for the little girls. Or she stood up for the unpopular kids.
You know what? To put the nail in the coffin. Look at Betty Cooper
Did you know what made Betty likeable? It was that she wanted to be a normal girl. She was literally the one that the audience can place their shoes in, or the audience’s eyes or something. She wanted to be more popular, she wanted to be part of the cheer leading squad. That’s what made Betty engaging and likeable, she was just like us. She was relatable, in girl terms. So what happened?
Well now everyone is defined by their good looks. they aren’t likeable. The only interesting thing about them is their appearance now.
Veronica turned from a girl who stood up for the unpopular kids to a horny girl who does the devil tango with Archie and Reggie. Like all the time. So many times Veronica just becomes horny and wants to bang Archie. In fact, literally after Archie gets his hand broken and takes his dad to the hospital, Veronica goes in the shower and literally bangs him.
What the hell happened? How did Veronica change from a likeable character to a horny character? Don’t get me started on Betty Cooper. She went from a girl who had girl problems and wanted to be a cheerleader to… a webcam model, and a girl who is interested in kinky stuff, as well as wanting to strip her clothes randomly.
What the actual heck happened to these characters? They were so simple back then. Seriously I am asking. Because this scene where Becky stripped was so cringey that it hurt my soul.
To quote a comment on YouTube: Imagine being like 17 and stripping to mad world(like wtf why that song) in front of your mom(my mom would smack me on stage in front of everyone) and a bunch of old man and your boyfriends dad.
I swear, this scene made me feel like my soul has having critical damage. Why cant things be so simple
Another thing. There is this Gang called The Serpents, and in Season 1 they actually behave like a gang and a bit threatening.
However, in Season 2, the Serpent Gang devolved from a gang with a heart of gold to like an emo or goth group, where literally ANYONE can get in, as long as they’re friends with Jughead. Its not the part that anyone can get in that bugs me, its how the Serpents devolved from a cool group who have each other backs to an emo/goth groups. There are just so many examples. how Kevin went from a supportive gay friend to a guy who’s only interestsing aspect is that he is literally gay. Or how Cheryl went from a girl who’s a bit crazy to a bisexual who’s only interesting quality now is her looks and she’s into a girl. Or even Jughead, who went from a guy who’s weird but was the underdog to some weirdo who keeps on saying movie references every 3 lines. 2. The Story In Season 1, the plot was simple. Discover who killed a classmate. Plain and simple. The reason why that story was good was because it was only 13 episodes long. Which allowed more tight story and less plot ends. Sure, it wasn’t groundbreaking like Breaking Bad. But it was a great story nonetheless. It didn’t need to be “unique” it just needed to be good. Not only that, but we get more character building and fleshed out world. Now… oh boy. Ever since CW made Riverdale have 24 episodes, its just all over the place. The problem is that the creators have the ending, but they don’t know how to get to the ending, so its all just basic filler. But its to the point where the filler isn’t entertaining, but just boring. There are so many plot threads that end in an anti-climatic way, or have no impact whatsoever. For example, Cheryl’s uncle who is her dad’s twin plays no role whatsoever. The whole FBI arc thing was ridiculous (you expect me to believe that the FBI need a fricking teenager to take out a crime boss).
Finally, there are the plot twists. See, for a plot twist to work, it doesn’t just need to surprise you. It needs to make sense, and be built up.
For example, in Avengers 3, Spider Man dies from the Snap. Why does that make sense? Its because with Spider Man dead, the spotlight can be on the original Avengers with Captain Marvel, Nebula, and Ant-man. There was a purpose to it all.
In Riverdale Season 3, it turns out that an FBI agent is Charlie, Betty’s long lost brother.
But why is the plot twist bad? Because it comes out of nowhere. There are many instances where Betty’s mom repeatedly says that her son is dead, and we feel bad for her mom. But now that Charles is alive, it makes all the emotional investment with Betty’s mom worthless.
Don’t get me started on the musical episodes, where it served no purpose or plot at all. They were annoying. Finally, here’s the real kicker. 3. The Dialogue The dialogue here is like what 40 year olds believe teenagers will say. Now, there WAS actually good dialogue in season 1
However… things dropped the ball to the point where the dialogue is hilariously bad. When Archie is in jail the people were complaining about how jail sucks, and Archie tells them the benefits of going to high school. and this guy said “Not me…” and literally says this dialogue.
sighs What makes this so fricking hilarious is the guy said that he dropped out in fourth grade to RUN drugs to support my nana. He didn’t say “I dropped out in fourth grades to HELP SELL drugs to support my nana.” Which means that literally. LITERALLY, there are grown ups who have a ten year old as a boss. A little kid, as their own boss. A little kid bosses them around, and orders them what to do. That is just insanely inaccurate. I can get over Archie’s “Epic highs and lows of high school football.” But there’s no way I can believe that a group of grown men will be okay with having a 10 year old boy as their boss. That doesn’t happen at all in real life. The dialogue in the show… is just so bad. There are just so many examples, but I don’t want you to hurt your brain cells reading them.
In conclusion, the reason why Riverdale sucks is because of 3 reasons: Characters, Story and Dialogue.
Its a shame, because if season 2 and 3 had the same quality as the first season, and had shorter amount of episodes. Riverdale would have been a good TV Show.
What the hell happen to Archie, who showed us that he was still a flawed, and shy individual even with his good looks. what the hell happen to Veronica, who turned from likeable character to a girl who’s running a business and is extremely horny.
What the hell happen to Betty, who turned from someone who wanted to be a cheerleader and be cool, to a girl who keeps on saying “The Farm” and into kinky stuff. The reason why this show sucks is because it went from a simple “who killed him” story with likeable cast and engaging story, to a softcore supernatural tv show who’s characters are defined by their sexuality and appearance.
- The overdramatic writing is ridiculous and forced. I don’t mean the plot, the dialogue. “I’m cuckoo bananas for you, obvi”, “I dropped out in the fourth grade to run drugs”. It’s ridiculous and a lot of people are laughing at them.
- The musical episodes. I wasn’t a fan of carrie previously but I have always loved heathers and what they did to it was a nightmare. The actors can’t sing, and the ones that can sing have had their voices overproduced to the level where it sounds bad. I don’t blame the actors -they didn’t sign up for a singing role - but whyyyyy
- The plot. It makes no sense. In season 2, they found the murderer after like nine episodes and then ignored that storyline for a few more, leaving their murder mystery show without a murder mystery. Then all they had was their characters who are all irritating.
- The treatment of LGBT characters. Can you name a single personality trait of Kevin’s that doesn’t directly relate to him being gay? Did you scene the amount of Cheryl/Toni scenes that were cut? Including a 30 second song from the musical episode that I’m really mad about because it’s literally 30 seconds and they left the rest of the scene in. Just deleted the song.
- Their portrayal of minors in sexual relationships. Many teen shows are guilty of showing teenagers in steamy sexual relations ships which I’m not pleased about but I’ll let go because they all do it. What isn’t okay is having a SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD character perform a strip tease in a bar of fifty year old men. And I don’t want to hear bullshit about ‘oh Betty had to do the serpent dance’. The writers could make it so she doesn’t have to, and you know it.
- Portrayal of mental illness. Betty consistently refers to a ‘darkness’ she possesses, with the writers heavily suggesting…
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