#shock-value

There’s two inherent problems with modern story-telling and I’m frustrated to see them both in Riverdale, so I’m going to rant about them for a second, with the example of Riverdale.

The problems at hand, before I dive more into it, are two simple ones:

Overcrowded seasons with unnecessarily many sub-plots to distract from the main plotline.

“Surprise twists” that make no sense and have not been foreshadowed at all but are just sprung at you for pure shock-value.

Now, Riverdale perfectly encapsulates a one-hit-wonder in a way I’ve never seen in a TV show before. The first season was so incredible. It was amazing. It was also simple. Which is why it stands out for me as a good example for this (even though, sadly enough, I could probably give you five or so different recent examples).

There was one (1) murder mystery.

And the teenagers had actual motivation to be involved since the murdered was another student. It also still sold them as “these are kids. Teenaged high school kids, who sneak around behind the adults’ backs to investigate” in a fun way.

And you were actually invested in it. The show kept dropping hints and clues and every time you thought you had it figured out, it was revealed that this wasn’t the culprint. It kept you engaged with the plot because you followed the kids’ investigations and you wanted to find it out yourself.

And in the end, when it was revealed who the murderer was, the pieces come together in your head because it actually made sense.

This was their one hit. That one season that was so well-written and well-paced. But somehow, the writers looked at it and panicked and took all the wrong things from it to use for season 2.

Season 2 still had the whole being engaged in it, but for one, you had the mystery figured out far quicker because it was executed much more clumsily. And then it still came outta nowhere. The motivation behind it was simply whacky and absolutely ridiculous.

Not to mention, they somehow figured that what this show needed was to be darker and grittier and involve more murder! More crime! More violence!

And season 3 is just completely off the rockers.

One serial killer? Pah. Who needs that, that’s lame, boring, let’s instead pretend that Dungeons & Dragons kills people and we have all of those random deaths! Also there is now a cult in Riverdale and none of the adults are concerned at all... because most of the adults either have no fucks to give or are already members of this “talk to the dead and also lemme marry your women and adopt your children”-cult. And a teen is now running the biggest gang around. There’s drugs everywhere. The kids run legitimate businesses as well as illegal businesses. Someone puts a prize on Archie’s head and he has to go on the run for a while - oh, after he got out of prison where he was also forced into an illegal fight-club! Also, of course, gang-wars, even though our gang-leader couple kinda forgets about leading the gang most of the time.

There is just so much going on and there is far too much murder and violence to be shrugged off so easily in this small town. The first season had everyone rightfully shocked at this one singular murder committed and now it’s like “we found two more teens ritually sacrificed in the woods but like no one aside from other teens is really investigating this? The sheriff, a former gang leader who never actually went through any training to become a sheriff, is too busy managing the gang his son now leads and the drugs his wife is dealing”.

The singularly most disappointing part however is that they don’t even care about the mystery.

In season 1, the biggest fun was trying to figure out who murdered Jason Blossom, piecing together the evidence, following the clues alongside the characters.

Season 2 made it easier and the outcome less logical.

Season 3 just doesn’t give a fuck. There is not a single clue anywhere in this entire show past episode 4, where the only suspect (Hiram Lodge) is already shown to not be it, after that... nothing. No clues, no proper investigation, nothing to unravel. And the outcome is one you could have literally not predicted, you could have literally not figured out.

It’s shock-value. Like so many other TV shows these days, it’s just some “shocking twist!!!” that is revealed for pure shock-values, instead of being an engaging mystery.

And this one... really disappoints me so much, because the first season had done it so well and had been such a pleasant surprise with that, because few shows these days bother with engaging their audience.

Most shows these days think that it’s somehow bad if people can actually figure out the plot. But “Who done it?” is boring if the writers don’t even let you figure out who indeed did it.

Especially in a “murder mystery” show. You want to be part of the investigation, you want to see the clues and fake-outs and evidence.

Me not being able to figure it out is very satisfying when it’s due to how well the misdirect was, at how good the different options of possible culprints are. It’s really cool when you can go “Ooooh. I would have never guessed” but then you can rewatch it and you see the clues and you can figure it out. That is satisfying.

Just putting something in there as the solution that no one could predict or guess isn’t satisfying. Me going “Ooooh. I would have never guessed” because there were no clues and nothing that could have predicted this entirely random turn of events will never be satisfying.

And - and this why all the other points about overloaded plot play into this post - this show didn’t even have time for fake-outs, for clues to lead to a wrong outcome, because it was so busy with the five other brutal, criminal and creepy plotlines.

Both of those are real problems of modern storytellers, especially in the most recent of years.

Instead of consistently telling one story, shows seem to have grown afraid that their audience will be, I don’t know, bored by having only one story going on, so they cram as many plotlines into one season as possible.

Instead of letting your audience figure out hints they place throughout the story, shows seem to be afraid that it’d be boring to the audience if they figure out a solution to a mystery so they instead rather put a completely random, unpredictable and sometimes even OoC twist in there for shock-value, to show just how great they were at surprising their audience!

Experimentation Goals!

…After the experiment a girl who is a lesbian approached me. She said she was attracted to me. I had to tell her, 'I can do this experiment and I can talk to you and know you as a friend. But I can't really totally be part of what you are. I can't be a lesbian.' I found out that you have to set your own goals."

Think of The Red Hot Chili Peppers.