Though the town’s key twentysomethings have converged on Riverdale High as a new locus of action, “Back To School” nonetheless takes on the fragmented feeling of the downbeat episodes that fill out the midsection of each season. We’ve got some sturdy narrative potential from the recruitment of the hottest teaching faculty in human history, guaranteed to yield classfuls of A’s in at least economics and shopwork, and Archie’s plotline works comfortably within that sphere. But we’ve officially reached Lots Of Stuff Going On territory, with Cheryl Blossom forging paintings and Jughead on what seems to be a wholly tangential adventure and Betty tracking down her sister, who’s not so dead after all. It’s an eventful hour, and in spite of a an instantly immortal karaoke performance, that’s all it is full.
Upon last week’s return to a changed Riverdale seven years into our present, I compared the lamentable state of the town to J.D. Vance’s
Hillbilly Elegy, a reference point the latest episode grabs onto and clutches for dear life. With all the characters somewhat settled in their new lives (with the exception of Jughead, who doesn’t have two thin dimes to rub together, unless he Jokerfies himself into a Vance double by writing
Elegy For A Small Town, but hold on, we’re getting there), the show requires a new focal point for its dramatic stakes, and the soul of Riverdale will do quite nicely. It’s like the old
“Chapter Seventy-Eight: The Preppy Murders” muddles through the work of getting the show’s most tedious ducks all in a row before we hurtle into the future.