Beware of the Sugarman
It’s safe to say that Riverdale hasn’t exactly been my favourite show recently. The first season was surprisingly excellent but unfortunately, since then it has gone quite downhill as it is slowly becoming like every other teen show even though it felt original and new at the start. The last two episode, while not appalling, wasn’t exactly the best episodes but this week’s episode brings it back up a little as the show starts to become a little bit smarter again, even if its still making some stupid mistakes.
In this week’s episode, Death Proof, we see the Southside Serpents being raided on by the police and the mayor. The northside is trying to crack down on Jingle Jangle after the events of last week’s party and what happened to Cheryl. Along with all this, Betty is still under the influence of the Black Hood and her friends are slowly pushing her away because of it. Betty is on the search for the Sugarman who deals all the Jingle Jangle in Riverdale and the capture of this apparently scary man might bring a bit of peace to Riverdale.
There are moments in the episode that are quite clever and ones that are predictable, a common theme for every episode of Riverdale these days. Jughead going up against the ghoulies to stop Jingle Jangle in southside high was quite a surprise as he is slowly taking his dad’s role in the Serpents, this is also simply making me miss his Dad as the character of FP made all the Southside gangs scenes feel worth it and also realistic but there isn’t a new character that has that same feeling to them yet. Despite that Jughead wins the battle against the Ghoulies temporarily, thanks to a suped-up car by Betty and I didn’t realise she was a mechanic now?
In the Northside of Riverdale, we have Betty who is trying to take control of the Black Hood and try to figure out who he is. Despite her high confidence, I’m sure won’t find out who it is for a long time anyway. Nick St Claire can basically be ruled out at this point as Highram Lodge does a great lot of deal to him and his family after finding out what he tried to do to Veronica which I guess makes him now a good guy bad guy Lodge.
The capture of The Sugarman at the end of the episode does unfortunately render some of the episode useless as he was being built up to be a scary character, one that Cheryl’s mum is afraid of. However, he ends up being captured and killed and then thats it, not even harming anyone else unless theres a successor in place or something ridiculous like that.
Overall there is still a lot of silly moments to laugh about in Riverdale, from Jughead and Toni to Cheryl’s random antics and acting. The show itself is on break next week and maybe the break will do it a favour so that it calms down and then the week later in focuses on the characters rather than random events happening all over town, nevertheless it’s still a step in the right direction for Riverdale.