Oh,
Betty… There’s a lot to enjoy about crazy, glorious Riverdale, but probably my favorite thing about it is how it
handles main girls Betty, Veronica, and Cheryl.
While I like both Betty and Veronica in the comics (Cheryl has yet to
show up in Jughead, so I can’t speak
to her there,) all three girls are just fantastic on the show, none more so, in
my opinion, than Betty (a few Betty-related spoilers.)
Even in
the pilot of the series, which heavily features the famous triangle from the
comics, Betty is immediately interesting.
She’s painfully into a woefully clueless Archie, yes, and her
insecurities start to mount as soon as gorgeous Veronica breezes into town, but
it’s clear from the start that she’s not just “one of the two girls” in
Archie’s story. Hers is the strongest
perspective in the opening triangle stuff, and the story takes time for things
happening in her life besides Archie, like her genuine burgeoning friendship
with Veronica and her attempt (with Veronica’s backing) to stand up to Cheryl
and join the River Vixens.
But
there’s so much more going on with Betty, and the pilot only begins to delve
into it all. She has a personal stake in
Jason Blossom’s murder, since her sister had been his girlfriend, and Betty is
kept in the dark about a mysterious Something that went down between Polly and
Jason. Her interest in finding the truth
there, along with nearly-singlehandedly running the most ambitious school
newspaper around, leads her to begin her own investigation into Jason’s murder
and the many secrets that surround it.
It doesn’t take too long to realize that Sheriff Keller’s investigation
skills are laughable compared to Betty and Jughead’s, and the pair are our
first really significant window into the murder.
The
investigation shows off a lot of Betty’s great qualities. She’s smart, obviously, as well as curious,
determined, and creative. She can be a
lot steelier than she’s usually given credit for, and her pursuit of the truth
brings out her courage in spades, both in confronting intimidating people and
in facing truths she might not be ready for.
Also, during a non-related mini-investigation, we discover that she can
jimmy open the lock on a car and
employ assorted other lockpicking skills.
I love how pleased she sounds with herself when she credits Nancy Drew books with teaching her the
latter; Betty Cooper is a wonderfully-nerdy badass.
Even
better, the show explores Betty’s flaws and fears in a pretty serious way,
too. Her parents, especially her
Everything Just So mother, have done a number on her. Betty’s perfectionism is a stress-filled
need, not a desire. Although she of
course wants to do well, fit in at school, etc., she’s been taught to maintain
a carefully-constructed façade of a prototypical happy suburban family, and her
role within in it is that of the impeccably-behaved high achiever. Her mom’s expectations for her, coupled with
Betty’s awareness that she doesn’t know the full truth but realizes her family
isn’t as polished as it pretends to be, fuels her anxiety, and she fights hard
to suppress her strong emotions. Betty
does tons of plot heavy-lifting with the mystery and a major romance, but
another huge part of her story is finding the courage to be who she is: to allow herself to deal with her messier
parts honestly and to let her parents see her rather than just the person they
want her to be.
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