This review contains spoilers for the Riverdale Season 3 premiere, titled "Labor Day."
It's a shame that showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is airing on Netflix instead of The CW, because the Season 3 premiere of Riverdale effectively lays the groundwork for how the two shows could coexist in the same universe. Between the mystical, baby-floating creepiness of The Farm and whatever occult nonsense Dilton Doiley has gotten himself mixed up in by playing Griffins and Gargoyles - a secret, Dungeons and Dragons-esque RPG with an apparently real monster - there's definitely a chill in the air in Riverdale this season.
Riverdale has never been a particularly grounded series - despite its high school setting, Season 2 pretty much established that it's as far removed from reality as any of Greg Berlanti's other CW comic book shows (around the time Archie instigated his own gang of mask-wearing vigilantes and Cheryl Blossom suddenly became an archer to rival the Green Arrow) - so we're not about to criticize it for being totally bonkers. Your enjoyment of the series may hinge on your ability to suspend disbelief and not to get hung up on Archie's very poor tattoo aftercare regimen (you can't submerge it in a gross, leech-infested swimming hole a day after getting inked!) and frustrating martyr complex, but in the Season 3 premiere, the show is trying to spin a few too many plates to fully come together as a coherent episode.
First, there's Archie's impending time in juvie. Because of our teen hero's aforementioned taste for self-sabotage, it makes sense that he would impulsively choose to forego another trial and instead plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit, just because he feels guilty. It's hard to predict what the season will look like when it's effectively isolating its lead character - something that Arrow will also have to grapple with this season, in an interesting and inadvertent parallel between the two Berlanti shows - but it's a risky move, and one that comes with plenty of TV cliche pitfalls that it would be easy for the show to trip over.
It remains to be seen how long the show will keep Archie behind bars (we'd bet until at least midseason), but as frustrating as Archie's sacrificial choice is, it clearly provides plenty of narrative juice for those around him: it's a catalyst for Veronica, who now knows that she's the reason Archie is being framed, all because her father wants to teach her a lesson for choosing her boyfriend over her blood; and for Fred and the other "hot dads of Riverdale," FP and Tom Keller, who are making it their mission to take down Hiram and get justice for the various wrongs he's done them; and even for Betty, who has been interning with Archie's mom and Sierra McCoy on his defense.
Sadly, Betty has other problems - perhaps health-related, given the seizure she has at the end of the episode, or at the very least, mentally and emotionally, since she's been popping pills and faking visits to a therapist, all while refusing to deal with the trauma of having a dad who's a serial killer. (She and Veronica have more in common than they think!) The culty nonsense of The Farm is the episode's least compelling and most shopworn storyline, because blah blah, religion bad, all the members are basket cases who need saving (yawn), and hasn't the Cooper family suffered enough at this point?
Jughead's ongoing feud with the Ghoulies is equally tedious, because we spent all of last season playing it out, and Penny Peabody is an exceedingly one-note character. While there's undoubtedly some dramatic tension to the Serpents trying to figure out who they are now that they can't call themselves Southsiders, we don't need to see another variation of last season's turf war play out.
More intriguing - if equally silly - is the inclusion of this secretive role-playing game that is apparently going to start spreading among the kids of Riverdale like a nerdier version of The Ring. It's doubtful the show is going to go full supernatural villain, even if it's toying with Satanic rituals, but it's one narrative thread that at least isn't similar to anything the show has done before.
And as amusing as Cheryl's Crimson Archer routine is, here's hoping she gets more to do next week than just strut around with a bow and arrow or get stuck wearing a leather jacket during a heatwave.
The Verdict
Riverdale introduces a few intriguing plot possibilities in its Season 3 premiere - we can't wait to see what Veronica chooses to do now that she's disavowed her father, or how the Hot Dads of Riverdale will scheme to bring Hiram down - but the premiere is trying to juggle a few too many storylines to really do justice to any of them. Archie's time behind bars may be a welcome wake-up call for our impulsive hero, or it could end up being a major drag, but as always in Riverdale, we know things will never be boring.