Archie’s and Veronica’s Misconceived Return to “Riverdale”

“Riverdale,” which airs on the CW, has a witty conceit: take the “Archie” comic-book characters, then peer at them through the neon-noir lens of “Twin Peaks.” Riverdale is now a run-down maple-syrup town, where snooty founding families are hiding dark secrets. Veronica Lodge is a Bettie Page-style bombshell; Archie Andrews is a sensitive jock with a six-pack; Betty Cooper is a virgin with a blond ponytail, but she’s also an amateur detective who takes Ritalin. The show’s banter is up to date—“What do you say, Archiekins, be the Jay to my Bey?”—and yet when teen-age girls get pregnant they’re sent away to cruel convents straight out of the nineteen-fifties. It’s camp lite, essentially, all abs and arched eyebrows. But even air quotes need something worth quoting.