Riverdale started off with so much promise last night, teasing a wild party at the Andrews household. Archie would take his shirt off, Cheryl would look the most glam, and everyone in attendance would lose control. Also, there would be confetti. What we ended up getting couldn't have been further from all of this potential.
The "Lost Weekend" party begins with a tiny “get together” for Jughead’s birthday. The resident loner (Cole Sprouse) is less than enthused about the celebration since he doesn’t particularly enjoy speaking to anyone who’s not his best friend Archie (K.J. Apa) or girlfriend Betty (Lili Reinhart). Things go from bad to worse when Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) and disgraced football player Chuck (Jordan Calloway) arrive with every teen in a five mile radius and two kegs for a rager. Somehow, free beer is Cheryl and Chuck’s version of revenge after Veronica (Camila Mendes) and Archie respectively wronged the "agents of chaos."
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For a while, the party goes as expected with confetti raining from the sky a drunk Archie pretending he’s not heartbroken about his parents finalizing their divorce. Eventually, Jughead’s Southside Serpent dad FP arrives to give his son a birthday gift. This so-called "rager" is so tame, FP doesn’t even attempt to stop the underage, boozed-up merriment, or call Archie’s dad, Fred (Luke Perry). This means something, when you take Archie’s "Outsiders" trip to the biker bar into account.
FP phoned Fred to pick up Archie when he was in actual trouble at a Serpents hangout. This time, FP doesn’t see anything close to concerning for him. In fact, the adult casually walks around the Andrews house until he comes upon fellow Serpent Joaquin making out with boyfriend Kevin. That is how lame this party is.
If that’s not enough of a reason to prove no one should have FOMO about this bash, let’s also remember all the actual partying was put on hold for a bizarre game of truth or dare. For everyone who’s actually been at a wild party, please imagine if someone decided to cut the music and throw the lights on to share strange, shady monologues. That would be the worst.
No one even seemed upset the party was stopped to allow Cheryl and Chuck to air out their grievances, since no one was probably having that much fun anyway. "Moving on to dear Daddy Lodge," Cheryl yells at Veronica.“Isn’t it true that your father, from prison, illegally purchased the drive-in land? Which makes me wonder, what else is he doing from behind bars?" Betty’s personality switch in “Body Double” also comes out, along with Archie’s controversial sexual relationship with Mrs. Grundy, which could be statutory rape.
All of this tea spilling is fun for viewers to watch, but, wow, is it weird for everyone else at the party, who is forced to silently stand in Archie’s living room seconds after sipping out of the keg. None of these people — save for gossip-loving Kevin — care about all this drama; they just wanted to dance, blow off some steam, and drink free Natural Light.
Despite how snooze-worthy Riverdale’s rager ended up being, at least it gave us Archie and Veronica’s first official, non-coerced hookup. And that’s definitely not boring.