Riverdale Quiz 4: with this test dedicated exclusively to season 4 find out how much you really know about Riverdale!
Riverdale's fourth season seems to answer one question: "What mental and existential repercussions have our main characters had after past events?" If we thought for just a moment, of the many terrible experiences that many Riverdale characters have gone through, we would get chills. Serial killers, pagan sects of dangerous people, and a host of residents we could no longer trust. It was impossible to think that the instigator of Jason's murder was his father, but Riverdale has been able to tell us how unpredictable people are and how mysterious their thoughts are.
So in the fourth season there are not all those puzzling and absurd events of the past seasons, but the repercussions of the past seasons. There is a mystery knocking at the door, that of the videotapes, however, it is clear on the part of the writer's room, the goal of exploring the psyche of adults and teenagers who have all had, some more and some less, very strong traumas.
Think of Archie, the moral protagonist of Riverdale. After all he has been through, we find out in the first episode that his father has died. This choice on the part of the writers was necessary because the actor who played him, Luke Perry, died. The first episode therefore was a memorial to the untimely deceased actor and to Archie's father. This is yet another wound for the character who had already suffered numerous traumas. As well as Archie, Cheryl is also a character shattered by past events, one among them, the incipit of the whole Riverdale. Jason's death. That loss was painful enough to make Cheryl wear a mask, plus when we find out that Jason was unburied by his sister we understand how very fragile the character's psyche is. These characters are indicative of the authors' willingness to take stock of what has happened.
Not everything is perfect, as dealing with these issues is really difficult, yet Riverdale tried. It had that courage that the series needed to stop and let the characters breathe, after all the events that we have and they have experienced.