First of all, may I just say that I really like these kids. This season wasn't as good as most-- the central mystery was less out-there than we've come to expect from this show-- yet I still have good feelings about the show as a whole because of the cast and characters. Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica-- these are characters that I care about and enjoy watching. That said, Season Four left me with some questions.
First of all, let's just address that this season had nineteen episodes instead of the usual twenty-two due to Covid-19. I initially wondered if that meant that they would wrap things up early; it did not. The season did not have a proper ending at the end of episode nineteen, it just kind of stopped, leaving a lot of loose ends. That made me think that two things, in particular, would have made more sense and been developed more if we would have gotten the last three episodes.
The first of these two things is the Principal Honey storyline. At the beginning of Season Four, we are introduced to Riverdale High's new principal, Holden Honey, played by Kerr Smith, AKA Jack McPhee from Dawson's Creek. Fun fact: Dawson's Creek premiered during my freshman year of college, and the characters started as sophomores in high school, so I always think of the Dawson's Creek actors as being younger than me. I learned today that Kerr Smith is SEVEN years older than me and therefore pushing fifty. Lord.
Anyway, I found myself perplexed by Principal Honey throughout the season because, while Principal Honey always has a sour look on his face, talks in a nasty tone of voice, at times seems to take an undue amount of pleasure in getting the better of the gang, and makes some unpopular decisions, for most of the season, he doesn't really do anything THAT bad. The least bad thing that he does is hire a proper coach for the cheerleading squad instead of letting Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) run the show, which really upsets Cheryl a lot, but my reaction was, "You seriously don't have a cheerleading coach?" Even if they had the type of coach who mainly let the captain run the show and just sort of supervised...they'd have to have one, right? And the cheer coach that gets hired tells the girls something along the lines of, "I'm going to have you do actual cheers instead of sing and dance to pop songs," which-- yeah. I enjoy their routines, but their cheerleading squad is very weird, and unlike anything that exists in reality. That's par for the course on this show, but the point is, I love how when someone tries to make the kids do something totally normal, it's treated as totally out of bounds in this weird world.
Other things that Principal Honey does that don't go over big are cancel the back to school dance and the talent show; in both cases, the kids just move those events off-campus, so big wow. He gets the back to school party busted, but underage parties that big always get busted, and no one gets arrested or anything, so I didn't hold that against him that bad. The season, as it stands, culminates in Principal Honey getting fired after carrying out an elaborate scheme to cancel prom. We are starting to get hints at that point that Principal Honey really isn't that bad, and I assume we would have eventually learned the reason he was so hellbent on there not being a prom and he would have been vindicated, but as it was, that all ends on a weird note.
The other thing that I feel like they either would have gotten back to or it was just stupid and had no point was the Archie/Betty flirtation. Look. The series began with Betty (Lili Reinhart) declaring her love for Archie (KJ Apa). Even though he said he didn't return her feelings, they were obviously always going to go back to that at some point. However, the way it came about was really stupid and lacked any real tension. One of the big storylines this season involved Jughead (Cole Sprouse) faking his death, which I didn't buy for one minute and I also didn't see the point of. Betty, Archie, and Veronica (Camila Mendes) all are in on the faked death plot, and to throw the rest of the town off the scent, Betty and Archie pretend to date in the wake of Jughead's "death." Cheryl and Veronica later ask Betty and Archie, respectively, whether they felt anything while they were pretending. Both Betty and Archie say that they didn't. Later, though, Betty and Archie both get in short-lived fights with Jughead and Veronica that basically just amount to frustration, and in the aftermath, Betty and Archie kiss for real and get all What Does It All Mean? about it for a couple of episodes. Betty eventually decides that it doesn't mean anything except that she and Archie have a past that should stay in the past, and then...nothing happens. They never confess to Jughead and Veronica. Jughead and Veronica never find out some other way. Betty and Archie never kiss again. I again have to assume that something else was supposed to happen, or that was a whole lot of drama for nothing, which I guess is normal in high school, but still.
I don't really have a lot else to say about the season, other than that they did a great job on the Luke Perry memorial episode that started the season. They really gave him a proper send-off. Other than that, the season was lackluster, but still fun.
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