Bless this age of television. I mean truly, grab your hands, put them together, and bow your heads in praise of this content avalanche.
Without so many choices, we’d be up to our eyeballs in pretty young things. And if you’re like me, you do not watch anything to feel your age. I want to know when I turn on the TV, everyone is vaguely ten years older than me.
It is entirely disconcerting to know that Hulk Hogan—who always looked a thousand years old, give or take 200 years because racism—was exactly the age I am right now during his Wrestlemania prime. Or that Princess Diana died at thirty-fucking-six. Which is a year YOUNGER than me.
Depending on how hateful I feel is how fast I bring up a Google age search. Like, there is a journalist on ABC Nightly News, Tom Llamas, who looks 25 but is in fact forty-something; and I have never loved a man more. And I married a dude.
I watch Nightly News just so I can feel young. Which completely disregards the fact that 1) I watch the Nightly News 2) follow it with Jeopardy and never know shit 3) Always need a shower immediately thereafter to wash the geriatric away.
I play this game called Guess Their Age and I always wanna be wrong so I feel better about myself and how little I’ve done with my fucking life. But deep down I wanna know I still have a chance to make shit happen and I can’t do that if everyone is younger than me on TV.
GIMME SOME HOPE I AM DESPERATE OUT HERE IN THE SUBURBS.
So it would seem entirely off brand to watch Riverdale—with all of its young man candy, showing off their hairless chesticles like that isn’t a thing that makes me think of fetuses. Because that’s exactly what happens every single episode. I feel like it’s every episode. Those guys are always taking their shirts off, it’s very Chippendales meets Twin Peaks.
When I dove into Riverdale, I did so on the recommendation of a friend of mine who gave me the show’s bona fides like it’s from this showrunner who wrote these comics and he has this horror background, but she didn’t reveal the cast. So when I started watching the first episodes as they aired like a 20th century old head, I had no idea LUKE FREAKING PERRY was on the show.
And then the mother of all goddamn reveals happened: Skeet Ulrich came upon the screen.
Yes, that SKEET, the awkwardly named Not-Johnny-Depp-But-Could-Be Ulrich of SCREAM and THE CRAFT.
My vagina damn near exploded from pent up 90s thirst.
Skeet is our replacement Johnny. He’s always been set up that way, and damn has it not worked out with Johnny being rather assaulty as of, apparently, forever.
Next up there is Marc Consuelos of Kelly Ripa’s husband fame. He’s a little short for me with not enough scruff but still a zaddy in a binder full of them so I will take it.
Then, there’s Sheriff Keller played by Martin Cummins and he was shirtless and also hairless in an episode, and it gave me a creepy American Beauty vibe so he’s also a pass. But only for me—Cummins is a fine piece of older man for another friend of mine who’s perimenopausal and needs a sacrificial man feast before her body combusts into flames.
There’s another dad in Riverdale but I’m going to skip right over him. He was in Scary Movie, and he’s like a condiment on the zaddy table — you squeeze him onto a Luke/Skeet man meat sandwich and indulge. Or just go ahead and remove him like a pickle.
Watching Riverdale is the TV version of my really, real life. Like a few weeks ago at the strip club when I turned to my bestie and drunk slurred to her, IT’SSSS LIKE WE’RE 25 AGAINNNN and she looked at me like, WHAT.
If we were really 25, she woulda heard that shit.
It was such Bad Moms level trash moment but it was OUR TRASH.
And that’s Riverdale. Luke Perry is never gonna be Dylan and Skeet is never gonna be Billy again but deep down my lady boner thinks it’s possible. And that counts for something.
Because they’re clearly ten years older than me.
