Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Riverdale: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Quoth the Gargoyle King, Ever-Never More

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 21, 2019

Season Three of The CW's Riverdale was overshadowed by the untimely death of Luke Perry (from a stroke at age 52), who played the father of series lead Archie Andrews (KJ Apa). Perry last appeared in Episode 19 of the season ("Chapter Fifty-Four: Fear the Reaper"). It has not yet been disclosed how the series will address the absence of his character and, perhaps more importantly, the removal of one of the few genuinely decent inhabitants of the series' fictional small town. If Riverdale has had a moral center, then it was certainly Fred Andrews and the warm and supportive relationship between Fred and a son beset by trials and tribulations of ever-expanding proportions. Perry, the former bad boy of Beverly Hills, 90210, gave Fred Andrews a gravitas that will be hard to replace, especially in a show that thrives on dirty deeds and evildoers skulking around every corner.

If you follow the series (or if you've read my Season Two review), then you already know just how far Riverdale has strayed from the innocent sweetness of the classic Archie comics. Season Three continues the descent of creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and his twisted stable of writers into soap opera chaos, with plotting so complex that viewers need several scorecards to keep track of the players and their schemes. Not that viewers necessarily care about plot. Like many a CW series, Riverdale thrives on its glossy surfaces and the rocky romances of its pretty young cast: Archie and Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) and Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhardt). Their quarrels and couplings, rifts and reconciliations, remain the core of the show. In Season Three, the spiral of shady characters and byzantine plots surrounding these four achieves newly farcical heights. And yet somehow the show remains addictive. Part of the reason, I'm convinced, is that Riverdale knows it's ridiculous and is constantly winking at its audience. It's a teen comedy in gothic drag.

The usual spoiler warnings apply for anyone who hasn't seen Riverdale's previous seasons. I'll end the paragraph here so that you can safely quit now.

Season Three is dominated by two major plot lines, which, for a long time, appear to run on parallel tracks—but you just know they'll intersect by the season's end. The first involves a role-playing game, Gryphons & Gargoyles, that suddenly appears among Riverdale High students and spreads faster than the designer drug "jingle jangle", which remains a stubborn epidemic. The game isn't new; it's an old one that the cast's parents played as teenagers and then buried from sight after one terrible night about which they vowed never to speak again. This convoluted scenario supplies the excuse for one of Season Three's most unusual episodes, "Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Midnight Club". Though the title is an obvious reference to a John Hughes classic, the episode has little to do with The Breakfast Club. But it does gives the young cast a chance to play their parents, with Archie appearing as Fred, Jughead as F.P. Jones (Skeet Ulrich), Betty as grumpy Alice Cooper (Mädchen Amick), Veronica as future mayor of Riverdale Hermione Lodge (Marisol Nichols), Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) as her imperious mother, Penelope (Nathalie Boltt), and Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray) as her mom, Sierra (Robin Givens), the former mayor forced out of office by scandal. Several other Riverdale regulars also appear as their mothers or fathers (and be sure to pay close attention to the teacher in charge of the detention where this unlikely group is thrown together; if the face is no longer familiar to John Hughes fans, check the credits).

The ultimate “game master” of Gryphons & Gargoyles is a terrifying figure known as the Gargoyle King, who first appeared back in 1992 and now reappears in the present day. In both time periods, the King leaves death in his wake. Riverdale's writers do an impressive job at keeping you guessing about the Gargoyle King's identity, with multiple possible suspects but no clear evidence. (And yes, your curiosity will be satisfied by the season's end.)

The season’s second major plot strand involves the mysterious cult known as "the Farm", under whose spell Alice Cooper had already fallen by the end of Season Two. The Farm's reach expands exponentially in Season Three, driven by the appeal of its charismatic leader, Edgar Evernever (Chad Michael Murray), who is talked about endlessly but doesn't actually appear until the second half of the season. An amalgam of L. Ron Hubbard, Jim Jones and P.T. Barnum, Edgar promises his followers relief from all their troubles and a host of other miracles. The most loyal of his acolytes can look forward to "the Ascension", and the promise brings the Farm into alignment with Gryphons & Gargoyles, for which Ascension is also the highest award. But what exactly is it?

Around these major plots driving the season, Riverdale's writers have woven an array of lurid subplots, including a stint in prison for Archie, who, at the send of Season Two, had been framed for murder by Hiram Lodge. After a mockery of a trial, Archie is sent to a juvenile detention facility—another Hiram Lodge enterprise, naturally—where the Warden (William MacDonald) appears to have received his training at the Shawshank School of Prison Management. Forced to participate in an underground "fight club" attended by Riverdale's richest and most corrupt, Archie remains bloody but unbowed, not to mention shirtless as often as possible. Jughead's extended family becomes a fixture in Season Three, as does a new gang, the Pretty Poisons, founded by Cheryl Blossom. Hermione Lodge goes legit (or at least so it appears), while Hiram continues scheming to extend his criminal empire into every corner of the town.

Musical performances remain a key attraction in the series, as Veronica opens a speakeasy beneath Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe, where Josie, now minus the Pussycats, becomes the resident chanteuse. Once again, the season contains an episode focused on the annual Riverdale High stage production, this time a musical adaptation of Heathers (Episode 16, "Chapter Fifty-One: Big Fun"). The ending isn't as bloody as the real-life murder that concluded Season Two's Carrie performance, but it's still a shocker that wasn't supposed to be part of the show.

And then there's the peculiar metamorphosis of Penelope Blossom, Cheryl's mother, who miraculously survived the fire set by her daughter at the end of Season One. (A gloved hand to conceal scar tissue is the only remaining sign of her burn injuries.) In the blink of an eye—certainly she hasn't blinked—Penelope has gone from doyen of the town's ruling class to expensive call girl to gimlet-eyed madam. If that doesn't convince you that Riverdale is actually a comedy, then I suggest watching the sequence in Episode 10 ("Chapter Forty-Five: The Stranger"), where Betty goes to visit her father (Lochlyn Munro) in prison. Revealed as the deadly "Black Hand" at the end of Season Two, Hal Cooper is now housed in a special wing with extra security. Anyone who can watch Betty's arrival at his cell without cracking up is made of sterner stuff than I.

Riverdale: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Riverdale continues to be photographed digitally. Season Two's cinematographer, Brendan Uegama (the Child's Play remake), returned for several episodes, with the rest of the season shot by a revolving team, who retained the style established by Uegama for the previous season, with its richly colored surfaces, noirish shadows that never completely obscure the youthful cast's delicate features—KJ Apa's Archie retains the face of a teen heartthrob even when he's pummeled and bloody in the boxing ring—and washes of red, blue and yellow light that subtly retain the series' connection to its comic book origins. Season Three's imagery skews darker than that of its predecessors, reflecting its predominance of dim interiors. The Warner Archive Collection's five-disc set sports an image of similar quality to its Season Two presentation, with precise detail, saturated colors, deep blacks and a lack of distortion or interference except for some fleeting banding that I suspect is source-based. The superior image quality is aided by WAC's continued practice of encoding at substantially higher bitrates than Warner's main TV division. All of the Season Three episodes hover around an average of 25 Mbps, and the image's depth and precision easily exceed those of broadcast and streaming versions.

Riverdale: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 track for Riverdale's third season is comparable to that of the previous two. The dialogue is clearly rendered and cleanly centered, with Jughead's voiceover narration (used even more sparingly this season) set just slightly forward from the screen. The most sonically active scenes can't be described without spoilers, with the exception of the musical episode (Episode 16), where the performances and crowd reactions effectively expand outward into the listening space. Riverdale's soundtrack remains consistent with that of most TV series, with the front three channels doing the heavy lifting but the rear channels coming alive when the occasion demands. CW regulars Blake Neely and Sherri Chung continue their scoring duties, but the musical highlights remain the cast's own singing performances, primarily by Ashleigh Murray's Josie and Camila Mendes' Veronica, who steps up to the microphone more frequently later in the season, probably because Murray character is being spun off into a separate CW series.

Riverdale: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

An unfortunate trend has become apparent with TV releases on home video: As a series progresses, the extras get thinner. Blame shouldn't be placed on WAC, without whom a series like Riverdale would never even see Blu-ray. Extras are the responsibility of the production companies, and once they've established their fan base, they no longer seem interested in spending money on supplements. Unlike previous seasons, Riverdale's Season Three has no deleted scenes or gag reel, just a single featurette and the now-standard Comic-Con panel.

Both of the extras can be found on disc 5.

• Riverdale: 2018 Comic-Con Panel (1080i; 1.78:1; 27:08): The very crowded table includes all of the lead cast, creator Aguirre-Sacasa and several producers. Kelly Ripa (a/k/a Mrs. Mark Consuelos) moderates. It's a bittersweet experience hearing Luke Perry talk about what we now know will be his last season.



• Animal Instincts: Archie and the Pit (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:39): KJ Apa, other cast members and the series' stunt coordinator discuss the plot arc that dominates the season's opening episodes (and resumes later in the season in a different form).

Riverdale: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Season Three ends with a terrific teaser for Season Four that is ripe with possibilities. Presumably Aguirre-Sacasa and his writers know what it all means and (more or less) how they'll get there, but you can be certain there will be plenty of groan-inducing hairpin plot turns and credibility-straining character developments along the way. The series may even find its way back to high school, which disappeared for weeks at a time in Season Three. For good reason, the moderator of the 2018 Comic-Con panel asks whether anyone on Riverdale ever does homework. I can't wait to see what happens when they have to take the SATs. For confirmed fans of the series, WAC's Blu-ray set is recommended, despite the disappointing shortchanging of extras. Newcomers should start at the beginning.