Riverdale Review: Chapter Eight: The Outsiders (Season 1 Episode 8)

“Chapter Seven: In a Lonely Place” wasn’t a perfect episode, but its focus on Jughead and his father, F.P., was one of the show’s strongest A-plots so far in its freshman season.

Unfortunately, Riverdale Season 1 Episode 8, “Chapter Eight: The Outsiders,” is a bit of a step backward as the focus shifts to one of the show’s more boring storylines.

When you have someone as well-known as Luke Perry playing the lead character’s father, you’re obviously going to want to give him more to do than a typical teen drama parent. But the whole plot about the new construction project just isn’t all that interesting.

It’s clearly meant to give the parents — Fred, F.P., Hermione, Cliff Blossom, and Mayor McCoy — their own storyline that doesn’t involve their children, but on a teen drama, do we really care that much about what the parents are up to when it doesn’t involve their children?

Certain parent subplots — like F.P. being a Southside Serpent, and Fred and Hermione’s relationship — are interesting, but they have a direct affect on their children. Even the fact that Fred’s business is struggling could be compelling on its own, but not when it’s tied up in this overly complicated fight over the former drive-in land.

Not only is the storyline boring, it’s another flop of a plot for Archie to lead.

It’s no secret that Archie has the least compelling storylines on the show — from Miss Grundy (remember her?) to his music vs. football dilemma. Whenever Archie is off dealing with his own problems, it’s almost guaranteed that the other teens are doing something far more interesting, and this episode is no exception.

On “Chapter Eight: The Outsiders,” Archie just trying to be a good son and help out his dad, which is… nice. It’s nice. He has good intentions, even if he does some pretty stupid things. But Archie Andrews, the Good Son, isn’t really any more interesting than Archie Andrews, the Wannabe Musician, or Archie Andrews, the Unsure Football Star.

Aside from being uninteresting, Archie attacks Jughead for not telling anyone his dad is a Serpent, which certainly won’t endear him to viewers who are probably sympathizing with Jughead in the moment, especially after the last episode.

But at least after Archie reveals that secret, we delve a little further into F.P.’s involvement with the Serpents, which is the most interesting thing that happens in the A-plot.

F.P.’s behavior on “Chapter Seven: In a Lonely Place” made me want to believe he really was going to try to be better for Jughead, but “Chapter Eight: The Outsiders” shows that he’s clearly a leader in the Serpents, and he is definitely hiding some pieces of the Jason Blossom puzzle.

Jason’s involvement with the Serpents is the only real development on the murder mystery front, but his name is mentioned fairly often in the episode’s B-plot: Polly’s baby shower.

This half of the episode is slightly more entertaining, especially since it involves the Cooper and Blossom matriarchs going at it, which is the kind of parent drama we do care about.

Polly’s stay with the Lodges ends up being much shorter than expected, as she decides to go stay at the creepy, creepy Blossom mansion by the episode’s end.

As a result, Alice Cooper is humanized a little bit. Since Alice has been pretty actively awful so far, you would think that any attempt to garner sympathy for her so suddenly would give you whiplash, but turning her against her husband is actually pretty effective.

Mädchen Amick’s performance in the big Alice-Hal fight scene also definitely helps earn Alice some sympathy.

As enjoyable as it is to watch Amick snark at other parents and yell about wishing she had murdered a teenage boy, it’s also immensely satisfying to watch her tell her husband to go to hell and to weakly admit that she doesn’t care what other people think anymore.

It will be interesting to see how Alice moves on from here — if she’ll snap right back to being villainous, or if she’ll maybe be a little kinder to Betty and Polly from now on and pass her Worst Parent mug to Hal.

Overall, the parents really do dominate “Chapter Eight: The Outsiders,” when you boil the episode down to the most important parts. It’s not the worst episode of the season, but still, let’s hope Episode Nine gets back to the teens on this teen drama.

OTHER THOUGHTS:

• I’m pretty sure everyone who watches Riverdale has mentioned this by now, but yeah, it’s weird that they tip-toed around using the word “abortion.”
• Nana Blossom returns! She claims Polly is having twins. I still love her, and her one random red curl.
• I’m sad that Kevin’s gang member boyfriend is apparently just using him as a means to find out what the sheriff knows, but also that twist would maybe pack more of a punch if we had seen Kevin and Joaquin together sometime after they first met?
• Jughead and Betty seem to be going strong, with Veronica using the B word (boyfriend), while Valerie and Archie are… well, dating, at least. Val gets to speak in one short scene in which she urges Archie to talk to her, but he decides to go be reckless instead.

What did you think of “Chapter Eight: The Outsiders”? Share with us in the comments below!

Reviewer Rating:

User Rating:

 

Riverdale airs Thursdays at 9/8c on The CW.

Follow us on Twitter @telltaleTV_

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!