Riverdale Season 3: 3 Ups & 2 Downs From ‘The Raid’

1. Predictably Unpredictable (Just For The Hell Of It)

It's rather fitting that the most frustrating thing about this week's episode revolved around the show's most frustrating character.

After some coercion from Betty, Cheryl agreed to take part in a covert mission to infiltrate The Farm and gather information on them. However, a few meetings later and she predictably went rogue, insulting Betty and signing herself up to become a member of The Farm for real. While her reasoning behind doing so (somehow seeing Jason) was solid and actually shed some light on Alice's reasons for joining too, the whole swerve in her behaviour was so predictable that it wasn't even a swerve.

The promo for the episode deliberately led viewers to believe that Cheryl was next on The Farm's recruitment list. It was troubling and forced us all to question her for doing something so radical when she knew that The Farm was potentially dangerous. So, the question is: Why did the episode cleverly subvert our expectations at first, only to do a complete 180 and have her join anyway? It ended up undermining the plot and came off as a desperate attempt to be unpredictable - when, in reality, it was actually quite predictable.

Cheryl Blossom has the potential to be brilliant, and occasionally she is. However, she often falls victim to major character regressions, with the writers constantly dropping the two years worth of development simply to paint her like who she was instead of who she is. Her erratic switches between what's in character and what's out of character just aren't shocking anymore, and it often feels like she's just called upon for nothing more than to raise some hell. A real misuse of such a great character.

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