Netflix’s Controversial Thriller Series Had A Near-Perfect First Season

Thriller TV shows often have outlandish-sounding premises, so it makes sense that many of them are based on popular books, with the adaptation already having a built-in audience. Everything from Netflix’s You to HBO’s Big Little Lies to Peacock’s recent record-breaking hit All Her Fault owes a thank-you to their source material for being a major part of their success.

However, while these TV shows are straight adaptations of their thriller novels, Riverdale is anything but. The CW show, which became a streaming hit on Netflix, is an incredibly subversive take on the iconic characters of Archie Comics. Launching in 1942, Archie Comics centers on carefree teenager Archie Andrews, his hamburger-loving best friend Jughead, and the two frenemies competing for his affection, girl next door Betty Cooper and sophisticated rich girl Veronica Lodge.

Archie Comics was all about the good, clean teenage misadventures Archie and co. got up to, which makes Riverdale such an out-of-left-field interpretation. The series, which premiered in 2017, sees the core Archie Comics quartet investigate the murder of a local teenage boy, uncovering shocking secrets about their sleepy little town along the way.

Critics largely enjoyed Riverdale‘s dark take on Archie Comics, awarding season 1 with an impressive 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. From there, the show continued to pick up steam with audiences, and Riverdale aired for seven seasons, ending in 2023. Unfortunately, some of Riverdale‘s prestige wore off, and it became known as a “so bad it’s good” show at best and a “so bad it’s bad” show at worst. However, many forget just how spectacular the series’s first season really was.

Riverdale Season 1 Was A Taut Murder Mystery That Subverted IP Expectations

​​​​​​​

More Twin Peaks than Saved by the Bell, Riverdale took a bold swing when it premiered — and it’s one that paid off. Like the cult classic David Lynch show, the Archie Comics adaptation uses the murder of an attractive, popular teen — in this case, Riverdale High’s water polo captain and local rich kid Jason Blossom — to expose the seedy underbelly of the supposed idyllic town and its residents.

Some of these residents include Archie, Jughead, Betty, and Veronica, who are simultaneously much more relatable and darker than their comic book counterparts. Before the events of the show, Veronica was every bit the spoiled mean girl she was in the comics, but after her family’s reputation takes a hit upon her father’s imprisonment, she looks to start over in a small town. Meanwhile, Betty is still very much the sweetheart girl next door, but her dark side runs far deeper than any Riverdale character.

Jughead, a character whose voracious appetite is his entire personality in the comics, is a brooding philosopher from a broken home, and his relationship with Betty, aka “Bughead” is the romance audiences didn’t know they needed. As for Archie, while he still very much presents as a wholesome heartbreaker, he has his secrets — like an illicit affair with his teacher, Miss Grundy, who gets a major glam-up from her Archie Comics depiction.

Riverdale season 1 was also the perfect length. At 13 episodes, audiences had time to get to know the characters and see them develop, while the investigation of Jason’s murder didn’t feel too rushed nor too bloated. This would be the last time any Riverdale season was this short, a decision that proved detrimental to the show’s reputation.

There’s Only One Reason To Watch Riverdale After Season 1

Even though streaming was becoming rapidly more mainstream when Riverdale premiered in 2017, it didn’t have the stranglehold over television that it does today, and plenty of audiences still hadn’t cut their cords on network TV. This meant that traditional 22-episode seasons were still commonplace. However, because the CW knew they were taking a giant risk on Riverdale, season 1 was only greenlit for 13 episodes as a test run.

Unfortunately, the network took the wrong lesson from Riverdale‘s early success, and subsequent seasons were much longer. This led to bloated storylines and ridiculous flights of plot fancy as, over the course of its seven-season run, Riverdale became absolutely unrecgonizable from its prestigious season 1 roots. Critical ratings continued to plummet to the point that season 7 didn’t even have enough media outlets covering it to warrant a Rotten Tomatoes score.

It seemed like each subsequent season of Riverdale felt the need to up the absurdity, with teenage gangland wars, organ-harvesting cults, literal superpowers, a parallel universe, and, yes, time travel all incorporated into the plot. This is a far cry from the simple smalltown murder mystery of season 1.

Essentially, post-season 1 Riverdale is only worth watching if you lean in and embrace some of the silliest twists and turns in television history. Watching Archie fight a literal bear or Chad Michael Murray as a cult leader who evades the law via a rocket ship may enrage season 1 purists, but it certainly will delight fans of all things camp. So, only proceed if you, like gang leader Jughead Jones, are a proud “weirdo.”