I wasted an hour of my life in pain so that you don't have to. That's right, I watched Riverdale's musical episode, and I have to say I had low expectations, and the show really delivered.
The episode is about the school's production of Heathers the musical, and being a show I love, I thought I'd give it a watch just to see. I regret that decision so much.
Full disclaimer: this is the first episode of Riverdale I have ever seen, so I was hella lost all the way through. It will also be the last episode I watch. Cos ouch.
I'm gonna start with the... actually I don't know where to start. I hated the whole thing. Lets go with the singing. The actors were clearly miming, and some of their singing was so so bad. If they knew they'd be miming and we could tell, they could have at least dubbed their horrible voices.
The songs killed me most. I love the songs in Heathers, I'm very aware that they are pretty cheesy but I know all the words and the contexts and implied meanings of the songs. Whoever wrote this episode of Riverdale clearly did not know any of this. The songs were edited down so much; I was about a minute into the episode, when they started singing Beautiful, when I already wanted to die. They could have edited and rearranged the songs so that when they cut bits it sounds good, but it did not and it was horrendous. They also disregarded any meaning of character, that song is primarily sung by Veronica and is all about how much she hates the school. All the different characters in the show sing it and they don't even sing it right! They changed lyrics and mixed up characters and it threw me off. I guess it's fair, as they're trying to make it fit into the story of Riverdale more, but since I don't know that, I did not enjoy it. Aside from the horrible editing and cutting of the songs, they also changed the lyrics in some of them. The song Big Fun is all about a party where everyone is wasted, it's all about drugs and alcohol and sex and it's a really fun, really crazy party song. In Riverdale, I don't know if they were trying to make it more youth friendly or what, but they changed the lyrics so there was no mention of nudity or drugs. It's all about the wildest party you can imagine and they made it kid friendly. They also replaced all the swears, which they also did in Candy Store, a song that basically relies on bitchiness.
The misinterpretation doesn't stop there. I'm not even gonna start with Dead Girl Walking, I just all round hated it and anyone singing it other than Barrett Wilbert Weed or Carrie Hope Fletcher is unacceptable (I guess their understudies and replacements too, but Barrett is iconic and I love her so much in the role). The song Fight For Me, which, by the way, is the third song in the show, but was towards the end of this, is all about JD (the new guy at school who's hella weird and who, spoiler alert, gets Veronica to fall in love with him, kills half the characters with her and blows himself up at the end) fighting the jocks and Veronica watching on, lusting and enjoying the violence, with the undertone of why is it ok for boys to fight and why does she enjoy watching it? Actually it's not really an undertone, the first line is "why, when you see boys fight, does it look so horrible yet seem so right". Riverdale totally disregards the context of the song, making it a love song. I hate it.
Also Betty looks hella shocked at seeing the cult ritual and them singing Our Love is God, but they've been rehearsing the musical and are looking for ways to fit the songs into their real lives, so she shouldn't really be surprised.
Finally, in the final number, it's basically just Veronica and Martha singing cause pretty much everyone else important has died. In Riverdale, they did a Rent thing where everyone, including crew was on stage, singing different lines. You guessed it, I didn't like that either.
They just overall murdered the musical (lol it's funny cos the musical is about murder) and the episode killed me. My only takeaway is please never watch this show or this episode, especially if you like Heathers because it is horrendous.
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Full disclaimer: this is the first episode of Riverdale I have ever seen, so I was hella lost all the way through. It will also be the last episode I watch. Cos ouch.
I'm gonna start with the... actually I don't know where to start. I hated the whole thing. Lets go with the singing. The actors were clearly miming, and some of their singing was so so bad. If they knew they'd be miming and we could tell, they could have at least dubbed their horrible voices.
The songs killed me most. I love the songs in Heathers, I'm very aware that they are pretty cheesy but I know all the words and the contexts and implied meanings of the songs. Whoever wrote this episode of Riverdale clearly did not know any of this. The songs were edited down so much; I was about a minute into the episode, when they started singing Beautiful, when I already wanted to die. They could have edited and rearranged the songs so that when they cut bits it sounds good, but it did not and it was horrendous. They also disregarded any meaning of character, that song is primarily sung by Veronica and is all about how much she hates the school. All the different characters in the show sing it and they don't even sing it right! They changed lyrics and mixed up characters and it threw me off. I guess it's fair, as they're trying to make it fit into the story of Riverdale more, but since I don't know that, I did not enjoy it. Aside from the horrible editing and cutting of the songs, they also changed the lyrics in some of them. The song Big Fun is all about a party where everyone is wasted, it's all about drugs and alcohol and sex and it's a really fun, really crazy party song. In Riverdale, I don't know if they were trying to make it more youth friendly or what, but they changed the lyrics so there was no mention of nudity or drugs. It's all about the wildest party you can imagine and they made it kid friendly. They also replaced all the swears, which they also did in Candy Store, a song that basically relies on bitchiness.
The misinterpretation doesn't stop there. I'm not even gonna start with Dead Girl Walking, I just all round hated it and anyone singing it other than Barrett Wilbert Weed or Carrie Hope Fletcher is unacceptable (I guess their understudies and replacements too, but Barrett is iconic and I love her so much in the role). The song Fight For Me, which, by the way, is the third song in the show, but was towards the end of this, is all about JD (the new guy at school who's hella weird and who, spoiler alert, gets Veronica to fall in love with him, kills half the characters with her and blows himself up at the end) fighting the jocks and Veronica watching on, lusting and enjoying the violence, with the undertone of why is it ok for boys to fight and why does she enjoy watching it? Actually it's not really an undertone, the first line is "why, when you see boys fight, does it look so horrible yet seem so right". Riverdale totally disregards the context of the song, making it a love song. I hate it.
Also Betty looks hella shocked at seeing the cult ritual and them singing Our Love is God, but they've been rehearsing the musical and are looking for ways to fit the songs into their real lives, so she shouldn't really be surprised.
Finally, in the final number, it's basically just Veronica and Martha singing cause pretty much everyone else important has died. In Riverdale, they did a Rent thing where everyone, including crew was on stage, singing different lines. You guessed it, I didn't like that either.
They just overall murdered the musical (lol it's funny cos the musical is about murder) and the episode killed me. My only takeaway is please never watch this show or this episode, especially if you like Heathers because it is horrendous.
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