Riverdale (4×14) How to Get Away with Murder Review

For our review of last episode, click here.

A fire in the woods, three friends in their underwear and Jughead’s iconic beanie up in smoke. This is how the episode starts as Riverdale decides to finally go into its biggest mystery of the season: the Death of Jughead Jones. When they return to Riverdale, their stories don’t match up bringing more fuel to the fire over who may be the culprit of this heinous crime. Here’s what happened in “How to Get Away with Murder.”

It’s funny, when Riverdale is trying to develop its most grounded storyline of its series it ends up be the dullest most eye-rolling narrative it could possibly be. The main story of Jughead’s issues at Stonewall Prep and the Baxter Boys ghostwritership parallel nicely with the ongoing mystery of Jughead’s murder that was introduced at the beginning of the season. It fits nicely into the murder mystery paradigm that he was surrounded by for his entire time at the crappy school.

However, once things got over the proverbial hump the narrative halted and became dead in the water. The actors feel bored with their characters’ situations as each of them almost forgets to mourn Jughead at all. It isn’t like we haven’t seen a death on this show before and the ramifications of it on the other characters within the world so their lack of emotions concerning Jughead is quite startling and a red herring.

They know what Jughead’s plan was all along and it seems easy to believe that this is the narrative being shown. He either feigned his own death to dismantle Stonewall Prep and Mr. DuPont’s legacy from within OR he is currently narrating his plan out to us which just so happens to be his updated version of the Baxter Brothers novel he wrote. Fitting considering it is Jughead who is narrating over the prologues and epilogues of each episode, bringing a sense of gravitas and setting the tone of his own murder.

Hopefully, this on-the-nose storytelling which is being dragged down by quite robotic acting can be saved with its through line that somehow wraps up the worst narrative execution in Riverdale yet. Only this story’s explanation as retelling of Jughead’s story can make sense of these inconsistencies.  Or maybe the use of a real life twin’s body double to throw a curveball into this equation?

What did you think of “How to Get Away with Murder”? Let me know in the comments below!

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Dylan Phillips