25 of TV’s messiest meltdowns

Betty Goes Dark — Riverdale

Riverdale might just be the best show you’re underestimating because it’s on The CW and it’s about sexy teenagers. Don’t be that person. This show is so good, and it’s definitely not all because of the abs and cheekbones we see every week. One of the best things about this series is its nuanced and complex way it paints it’s characters, particularly it’s female characters.

In fact, it’s this reimagining of the Archie comics’ Betty Cooper is especially interesting. What we’ve always known as the “perfect” girl next door eventually grows tiresome and she slides into a seedier, sexier version of herself, fans call “Dark Betty.”

She and Veronica are super, and illogically, good at crime-fighting, and they will do anything to get to the bottom of a mystery. They hatch a plan to catch a creepy male student, and apparently the plan calls for Betty to don a black wig, slap on her best dominatrix gear, and seduce/torture the culprit in question.

Betty’s flirtation with the dark side was more than her due diligence to catch a perv. It was a window into her psyche, and a chance to understand what lies beneath that perky blond ponytail and pink cardigan. She didn’t exactly become someone else; she just became an edgier version of herself, and who hasn’t dreamed about that? We haven’t seen the last of this kind of breakdown from Betty Cooper, and I’m certainly okay with seeing more of Dark Betty.