The gang’s all here
Archie and his friends return with a dark update in new show ‘Riverdale’
AguirreSacasa insists that the themes of the series will always return to those of the Archie comics he grew up reading.
O
n paper, the concept sounds a bit mad: What if the freckledfaced teens of the wholesome Archie comics were wrapped up in a seedy murder mystery? And yet the CW’s Riverdale is arguably one of the most anticipated new series of 2017. Ever since Riverdale’s pilot debut at San Diego Comic-Con last summer, fans have been
buzzing about this Twin Peaks-meets-Dawson’s
Creek drama. Gone are the cartoonish glances and crosshatched sideburns, the new Archie — as embodied by K.J. Apa — is ripped.
In fact, everyone in Riverdale — “The town with pep!” — has changed. Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) pops Adderall, Veronica Lodge’s (Camila Mendes) family is in ruins, Ms Grundy (Sarah Habel) is no longer a senior citizen but a Lolita-sunglasseswearing cougar, and, oh, yeah, Archie’s dad is Luke Perry.
The plot picks up after the suspicious death of a Riverdale High student and teeters between teen drama and murder mystery for the rest of the season. “We always try to tell a story that works both as an Archie story and as a noir, David Lynchian kind of story,” said Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, series creator and executive producer.
Aguirre-Sacasa’s eclectic work history laid the groundwork for the series. As a playwright he wrote the book for Duncan Shaik’s musical adaptation of American
Psycho, he worked on TV series including Big
Love, Looking and Glee, and, after 11 years writing comic books, he was named chief creative officer for Archie Comics. Despite Riverdale’s new moody aesthetic of fog-filled streets (even Pop’s Chok’lit Shoppe is shrouded in mist), Aguirre-Sacasa insists that the central themes of the series will always return to those of the
Archie comics he grew up reading.
“Our show is not that different from the core of Archie from the 1940s or the 1950s. Archie, in the comics, was a good kid who always tried to do his best, frequently screwed up, made things worse before he made them better, and then learnt a lesson. The Archie on our show is actually like that as well. He is basically a good kid, but he’s in much more adult situations
than he ever was in the comic book. He’s wrestling with that, but his essence is still the same.”
The same holds true for Betty and Veronica, he says, noting that the former is still the “perfect girl next door” who gets good grades and wants to be a cheerleader. “What we’re exploring is, what is the cost of being perfect?”
Executive producer Greg Berlanti, who oversees the CW comic book adaptations of Arrow and The
Flash, can trace his Archie influences all the way back to his days working on Dawson’s Creek.
“This is one of the few instances where I’m working on something where it is actually (one of) the roots of the comic-book love triangle,” said Berlanti. “The original Dawson-Joey-Pacey was Betty-Archie-Veronica.”
REVAMP
But no matter how timeless the central themes may be — and despite the addition of the first openly gay character from the Archie comics in Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) — the producers felt that the source material still needed an update for modern audiences.
“A lot of these comic books were written in a time where the bulk of people reading them and writing them were white,” Berlanti said. “That’s not the world we live in anymore. We were cognisant about changing the ethnicity and updating the characters.”
Veronica Lodge is now played by Latino actress Mendes, and local Riverdale band Josie and the Pussycats is an allblack trio led by Ashleigh Murray.
The relationship between Betty and Veronica has also received tweaking. While the central love triangle remains intact, Riverdale has turned the trope slightly askew, refocusing more on the friendship between the women and not their desire for Archie.
“I’m not interested in stories about girls fighting with each other,” says executive producer Sarah Schechter. “That, to me, feels really antiquated, and it’s certainly not helpful. It doesn’t feel real to the depth of my relationship with other women as a woman. We were never interested in making them frenemies. They’re both complicated women.”
Not all characters were destined for a total overhaul. Archie is still very much a redhead, which Apa is reminded of every two weeks when his hair is bleached down and re-dyed, “The first time I did it, I was sitting in the salon for about 10 hours.” Apa says. “I remember staring at myself and thinking, ‘I’m going to be bald by the time we finish this.’”
Even though the actor hails from New Zealand, Apa believes
Riverdale has global appeal, with the great unifier being, once again, surviving high school. “[Archie’s] figuring out, through trial and error, his relationships with people, with Betty and Veronica, with girls, with his career choice . ... I think people can relate to that,” he says.
“I think there’s a reason why Riverdale plays really well to adults, because we were all teenagers, and I think we all still feel a little bit of that: ‘Who are we and how do we define ourselves and what’s important to us?’ It’s an ongoing process,” explains Schechter. “A part of you is a teenager forever.”