Riverdale, Season 4: More Over-the-Top, More Hunks

I didn't think there were any more sharks for Riverdale to jump over, after 3 seasons of serial killers, gangs, drugs, cults, organized crime, and weird mash-ups of all of the above.  But in Season 4, we go off even more deep ends. Most of the recognizable characters -- Moose, Dilton, Ethel, Reggie, Mr. Weatherbee  -- are gone or only appear once in a blue moon, while the Gang (Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead) is split into a dozen or more crazy storylines.

Jughead

1. The aspiring Kerouac (I still think the whole series is his purple-prose novel) enrolls at snooty Stonewall Prep, where he butts head with rich kid Brett Weston Wallis (Sean Depner,top photo.)   That's Riverdale-world Brett Easton Ellis, by the way.  Brett snubs his work and plays fun pranks like locking Jughead in a coffin all night.


2. Meanwhile Jughead stumbles onto a mystery involving the authorship of the Baxter Brothers series (Riverdale-ese for the Hardy Boys).  And an associated secret so terrible that teacher Mr. Chipping (Sam Witwer) commits suicide rather than reveal it.






3. Jonathan (Alex Barima), s relatively indifferent to Jughead.  I think he's mostly there to be black and pretty.















Betty

Other than making out with Jughead, Betty's job is to find out who is sending videotapes of her house and calling and claiming to be her dead serial-killer father.  She also worries that she has a "serial killer gene." She is assisted by:

4. Charles Smith (Wyatt Nash), her older half-brother, who claims to be an FBI agent investigating serial killers (lots of them in Riverdale), but has his own secret agenda.  He's in a relationship with Chick, who pretended to be Betty's half-brother ages ago.  So maybe Kevin will get someone to date after his previous boyfriends have vanished.







Archie

The allergic-to-shirts redhead and his bff Mad Dog turn their boxing gym into an all-around community center for homeless and at-risk kids, which draws the ire of:

5. Dodger (Juan Riedeger), a small-time drug dealer.  He gets mad when Archie tries to draw his boys into the straight-and-narrow.  Hint:  It was Fagin who had a stable of boys, including the Artful Dodger.

Turns out that Dodger is a younger son of a crime empire (another).  When he is beat up, some relatives arrive to shoot up the community center, including:

6. Ta-da! A Fagin, except it's spelled Fagan (Adam Klassen),
















Veronica

Other than pouring money into whatever crazy scheme Archie proposes and running her nightclub in the basement of Pop Tate's, Ronnie's main job this season is to yell at her parents, who are variously on trial, running for mayor, and introducing previously unmentioned siblings with agendas of their own.

7. Oh, she also kills a serial killer known as the Family Man (Ben Cotton), who attacks her in the diner.  I would be talking about that for the rest of my life,but Veronica never mentions it again.  I guess there are so many serial killers in Riverdale that one more doesn't even rate a mention when friends ask "So, what's new?"


Cheryl

Cheryl Blossom (of the maple syrup empire) and girlfriend Toni spend most of their time in their mansion, doing creepy things like talking to dead people, having premonitions, and keeping the corpse of her dead brother in a secret room downstairs.  Three relatives show up, trying to get Cheryl to sign over her fortune, including:

8. Alexander Lowe as Cousin Fester (It's not a nickname: about 30 years ago, someone named their kid after the Addams Family character)

So Cheryl kills him and serves him to the other relatives to get them to back off.  Or not really?














Toni also hires:

9.  The uber-muscular Darius (Austin Miklausch) to take care of things, but Cheryl can't stand the idea of a stranger in the house, so she sends him packing










Whew.  They own businesses, sign contracts, witness in court, kill people, scheme, sleuth, and otherwise forget that they are children.  Does anyone even think about attending class at Riverdale High anymore?

10. Someone must, because there's a new Principal, with unlikely name Mr, Honey (Kerr Smith), who has his own secret agenda...well, never mind.