Riverdale Chapter 1: The River’s Edge

By Courtney

I’ve been eagerly anticipating the CW’s new show Riverdale, since I first heard about it a couple months ago. I even watched the trailer, which I don’t generally do for television shows, and it looked excellent. The trailer promised a good mix of drama, supernatural elements and cast of characters that would be familiar. I will say that I have never read any of the Archie comics, so my excitement came with very little background knowledge of the subject matter in this case. This show is loosely based around the Archie comics.

The show starts as it should, by introducing the characters: Betty the girl who is pretty and blonde and focused on getting into college, Veronica, the brunette, who is the new girl with the shady family past and Archie, the best friend of Betty who is a football star who also happens to write music and is adorable. There are of course the other minor characters whom we get to know less well; one of the more interesting ones is Cheryl who is clearly the redheaded villainess of the show. Cheryl has a twin brother who dies mysteriously on the fourth of July while they are out on the river. Cheryl is the only witness and the body is never found, so it’s chalked up as an accident, but is it? There are a lot of stereotypical character tropes that happen in the first episode, however; you’re given just enough information about each character, that you want to know more.

The first episode of this show did not disappoint. It would have been easy for the writers to drag out certain stereotypical storylines, but if they do (it’s one episode, I’m not sure yet), they’re going to be done in an interesting way. Betty decides that she wants to be more than friends with Archie, and he tells her by the end of the first episode that he will never be good enough for her, thus breaking her heart. I did wish that I had them as barbie dolls so I could mash their faces together at that point, but I respected the show for not dragging that out. There is clearly more mystery and I hope that Betty and Veronica’s friendship will continue growing and that they will explore the mysteries together with Archie. We don’t meet the character of Jughead until the end of the first episode. He gives Archie advice about dealing with Betty, he tells her to talk to her, that doing so would have helped a lot with him. This show was excellent at making me want to know more information about all of the characters. Quite frankly I wish it were on Netflix so I could binge watch it. The music in the show was great as was the lighting, it was purposefully kept on the darker sides and reminded me of what they did with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it’s supposed to be dark so that was the look they gave it.

I would rate it 4.5 stars out of five. I can’t wait for the next episode.

Riverdale airs on the CW Thursday nights at 9:00 PM

 

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Supernatural S12 E9 “First Blood”

By Domoni

 

When last we saw the Winchesters, they had just removed Lucifer from the presidents body. Not soon enough, as he was able to impregnate a staffer with a nephilim. Castiel was sent to keep track of the woman, while our boys got arrested by the secret service.  Enter Hiatus…..

Sam and Dean are in the hole. Locked away in a black site prison. None of the hunter contacts can track them and Cass and Mary are becoming more and more despondent. The white haired jackass lets the boys know there will be no torture, only nothing. 6 weeks of the same walls, no contact, no conversation, nothing, the brothers are willing to die, this is too much. Enter the spoilers…

Dean calls on Billie and makes a deal, she talks to Sam and he agrees. The Winchesters die, again. Removed from their cells and taken to the morgue, the Winchesters are alive, again. Able to break out of the prison, they run through the woods of Colorado, hunted by military, hoping Cass and Mary will find them in time.  Almost caught, they subdue a soldier and carry out a conversation with the man who believes he is hunting the brothers. Dean sets him right.

 

The tables are turned, as is always the case when you have a Winchester against the ropes. Traps are set and our boys make it to the rendezvous with Momma Mary and forlorn Cass. How did Mary find them in the wild woods of Colorado? With a little help from the British Men of Letters. The plastic men (seriously, why do they look like the guys from Lazy Town, or some possessed creation of Madame Tussaud?) have vast tools and want to use them to work with hunters in America. Though they have had little luck convincing any hunters.

After being reunited, Cass and the Winchesters head out. Midnight strikes and the car stalls, the twist has come. Billie got them out, but she wants her payment. The only thing Billie has always wanted, was for a dead Winchester to die, again, and this time stay dead. Enter the typical pitch of brother sacrificing himself for his brother, until the parent sacrifices themselves for the son. Cass has had enough, he kills Billie and gives a speech about how much the world needs the Winchesters and how much he cares for them. (Sorry Billie, I really liked you)

The episode wraps with the plastic letters killing everyone who had contact with the boys at the black ops site. Must keep things tidy. Then Mary seems to be coming around to the plastic way of thinking.

While this episode had plenty of the things the show is known for, we didn’t need each one of them to be included in the episode. It was a bit of a bridge episode, but it could have been more. 250 episodes is a milestone and I expected a bit more than some new catchy one liners, perfect for the gif crowd on Tumblr. Not much happened to progress the story, so I hope the next episode jumps right into the hunt and takes us back to the show we love. What did you think of the latest episode? Let us know in the comments.

Supernatural airs on the CW network, Thursday nights at 8

 

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