"RIverdale" Season 3: Turgid Plot, Endless Beefcake

Riverdale, the turgid soap opera starring the abs of K.J.Apa, based very roughly on characters from Archie comics, is now in its third season.  The plotlines about serial killers, gang leaders, and "buying Pop's diner" have mostly been resolved -- face it, all of the parents in town except for Fred Andrews are pure evil.   We just need to tie up some loose ends.

Like Archie (K.J. Apa's abs) on trial for the murder of someone I don't remember from last year, with his mother as his defense attorney. 

Um...he's fifteen years old.  Juveniles don't get jury trials.  And Mom should definitely recuse himself.





While the jury is deliberating, the gang has one final weekend of hugging and reliving their childhoods.

Archie tosses a football with Reggie (Charles Melton's abs).


 Sweet Pea (Jordan Connor's abs) tries to get with Josie (of the Pussycats), but she demurely crosses her legs.  Was there another subplot going on?





Then  Archie decides to accept a plea bargain--   two years at the Leopold and Loeb Juvenile Detention Center, a Big House heavy-laden with every cliche this side of an old Humphrey Bogart movie. 

He meets his surly roommate Mad Dog (Eli Goree's abs) and reunites with some old enemies -- he's personally responsible for most of the inmates being there.

Although juvenile inmates are required to get the same education they would get on the outside, the inmates here seem to do nothing but sit around with their shirts off, glaring at each other and picking fights.

Fortunately, Archie doesn't stay in prison long. Even though he's pleaded guilty, so there's no recourse, he gets sprung so K.J. Apa's abs can be present for the new plotline:

Students at Riverdale High are becoming obsessed with a new Dungeons-and-Dragons style  game.


Really? A Dungeons and Dragons cautionary tale, in 2019?  We had Mazes and Monsters, with Tom Hanks going crazy. 30 years ago.

Jughead starts investigating, and finds an eerie ritual,with  Dilton Doiley dead and Ben (Moses Thiessen's abs) in a coma.

You have to pity Ben -- he's already been murdered by Miss Grundy in the first season, and he drove all the way over to Greendale to get murdered on Sabrina.

We flashback to the 1990s, when all of the parents (played by their kids) were in high school, and played a similar Dungeons-and-Dragons style game, and introduced something unspeakably evil into the world. 

Oh, and the new subplot involves Veronica opening a speakeasy.  Huh?

Awful stuff, but look on the bright side -- you can see more abs in ten minutes of Riverdale than on a whole season of anything else. Somebody has a fetish.