The Complete Second Season of Riverdale is now available on DVD, and in the second season, we get nearly 2x the amount of episodes, a musical, shirtless vigilantes, and more!
Here’s how the second season of Riverdale is described:
Based on the characters from Archie Comics, Riverdale returns with its subversive take on small-town life. Determined to protect the sanctity of his town in the wake of his father’s shooting by the Black Hood, season two of Riverdale finds Archie (KJ Apa) seeking justice…and vengeance. As a civil war brews between the Northside and the Southside, loyalties are divided. Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Jughead’s (Cole Sprouse) relationship enters fragile territory when Jughead decides to join the Southside Serpents and Betty’s long-lost brother Chic returns. Veronica (Camila Mendes) finds her life upended by her father Hiram’s (Mark Consuelos) arrival and his dark schemes for the town’s future. Everyone will have to pick a side, including Queen Bee Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch), star-to-be Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray), Kevin Keller (Casey Cott), and Reggie Mantle (Charles Melton). Things are never what you’d expect in Riverdale, and that’s especially true as Archie and the gang race to avert a full-on riot and to solve the mystery of the Black Hood.
Thanks to Warner Home Video, we have a copy of the DVD to review… so what did we think of the set? Read on:
Before We Begin: The wider release for Riverdale: The Complete Second Season is on DVD rather than Blu-ray. You can get the Blu-ray from the Warner Archive. Why this isn’t the main release perplexes me, as Riverdale is one of the best looking series currently on television, and I would love to see the show with those better looks. Maybe the thought is that the younger Riverdale audience isn’t buying anything and is only streaming anyway. Who knows. Still a disappointment.
The Episodes: Most people who know me know I love Riverdale. I’m even a host on the Archie Digest Podcast where we talk about this story about a town. With that said, Season 2 of Riverdale was kind of a slog. That’s something I couldn’t have even imagined after a near-perfect first season.
I love how subversive the show gets… but sometimes it’s okay to let teens be teens. Archie as a mafia coppo? Betty’s psycho brother? Jughead the gang leader? It just got weird. I also ultimately felt Riverdale worked better as a series with a smaller number of episodes…. so much was thrown into these 23 episodes, but at times it felt like the pacing was off to get to whatever finish lines they needed to be.
With that said: We got a musical. We got Choni. There are some really good performances in Season 2, even if you don’t agree with the character directions. It’s not a total wash, though I’m curious if my opinions or assessments will change now that I have all 22 episodes of Season 2 at my fingertips.
The Extras: Since Riverdale might be WBTV’s current most popular show among young people, it’s no surprise that a lot of effort was made to give us good extras. There are deleted scenes, a gag reel, featurettes on the musical and the characters’ “dark sides,” and the Riverdale Comic-Con panel, which is amusing especially in that now we know what spoilers they were alluding to the summer before the season started. (Camila Mendes totally gave away what a creep Nick St. Clair is, for example.) A fan will definitely get their money’s worth on this set…. even though, again, it would be nice if Blu-ray had been more readily available.
Packaging/Design: The packaging is great, with my queen Cheryl Blossom as much in the center as anyone not named Archie can be. I approve.
Is It Worth It? Story issues aside with Season 2, I do still love Riverdale, and I know this is a show I will revisit. Having so many extra features is a bonus. Definitely worth giving a purchase…. which you can do here, and support KSiteTV in the process!
