Louisa Strohm
Staff Writer
Recently the popular show amongst many American teens, Riverdale, has come back for season two on the CW. Although many are thrilled to see one of their favorite programs back, lots of others are surprised at the dark twist the plot has taken. From shootings, murders, and acts of violent crime in every episode so far, the question some have to ask is: has the show gone too dark?
Season one of Riverdale was a murder mystery, that ended in the direction that no one thought it would. The four main characters, Betty, Archie, Jughead, and Veronica, worked vigorously to solve this murder, all with a reason of why they needed closure. Even though there was a murder involved in the first season, there was always an uplifting plotline in each episode that made you smile.
The last scene of season one ends with an important character getting shot. This came as a huge surprise and left people waiting for season two to see if the character lives. But when episode one of season two came along, there were many fans left uneasy by the amount of sadness and hurt in the episode. There were flashes of a masked man throughout scenes that looked happy, characters turning their backs on each other, and more dark activities, which left many fans upset with the show.
In the three episodes shown so far, there has been a murder, a shooting, it has shown teenagers doing drugs, physically abusing each other, and more. This raises the question: do teens really need to be watching this dark material? Many teens are already under the pressure of social media, school, peer pressure, and much more, so do they really need to be watching other fictitious teens falling down these rabbit holes?
It is understandable that the show needed a new mystery for this season and wanted to start a completely different plot line, but did they have to make it as intense and scary as they did? Last season, it was only described to the viewers what happened to the murdered individual, but this season, the shooting of an important character has been shown multiple times; the shooting of two more teenagers, and a murder of a teacher. This is thought to be sensitive content and for a show aimed towards teens, it may be a bit too much.
I look forward to solving the mystery and seeing what path Riverdale decides to take for the remainder of the season. I think that they are taking a unique risk with making the show more graphics and I am very interested to see if the show will continue on for a third in season two’s footsteps.
If you want to catch up on Riverdale, all of the episodes are available for free at http://www.cwtv.com. Riverdale is on Wednesdays at 8:00 pm on the CW channel.
Leave a Reply