Then again, I still shake my head with bemused laughter at how normalized it is for a high school senior like Veronica Luna (nee Lodge) to run a speakeasy and maple-rum club in her free time.
Or Archie Andrews running a community center/boxing gym and a construction company in his free time.
Or Betty Cooper fretting about having the "serial killer gene."
Or Cheryl Blossom rolling her dead brother's body around the house and exorcising the spirit of her absorbed fetal triplet.
Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera...
But this blog post is about Kevin Keller. "Riverdale" has no clue what to do with Archie Comics' favorite gay teen.
He was Betty's gay best friend in "Riverdale" Season One. He quickly latched onto Veronica and then began dating Joaquin, which was an interesting pairing given that he was the sheriff's son and Joaquin was one of the Southside Serpent gang members. And then he raised eyebrows in Season Two when he almost got killed by the Black Hood cruising adult men as a high school sophomore in the wooded area outside Riverdale. And then he briefly dated Moose Mason before getting brainwashed by the Farm in Season Three. And now he's just there. Occasionally. And usually if he's there he's just sitting in the audience clapping while one of the other "Riverdale" characters sings a song or plays a sport.
But he finally got a Season Four story line this past Wednesday. He could have joined Betty's quiz team and showed off his smarts. Instead, he hooked up with some guy and got talked into filmed tickle fetish porn. Off-camera, no less.
I might have liked to see what tickle fetish porn looked like, or at least got a glimpse of it. I'm sure we would've gotten a glimpse if Cheryl was involved, or Toni, or Reggie. But Kevin didn't even take off his perfectly-pressed button-up shirt for the program. He just talked about it and got paid afterwards. And he was apparently good enough to get asked back for more videos. So Kevin's new tickle fetish porn career will stick around for a brief moment this season.
I guess I should be happy that Kevin is getting a story line. But I just feel like "Riverdale" has absolutely no idea what to do with Kevin Keller and they're too chicken to either step up his sexy image, to give him more day-to-day social interactions with the main cast, or to just decide that he's not really working and to ship him off to Greendale.
If this were Matt from "Melrose Place," he would be fiddling around with the stereo equipment while the rest of the apartment building schemed and screamed. But that was 1992 and this is 2020 and I'd thought that network television had learned by now how to maintain engaging gay male characters.
And it's not like "Riverdale" doesn't know how to maintain well-rounded queer characters. Cheryl Blossom and Two-Fisted Toni Topaz are two of the funnest characters on the program. Maybe it's a difference between male versus female characters. I don't know.
All I know is that I want Kevin Keller to act like the star "Riverdale" character that he actually is. I want him to become more integrated with the other characters. I want to see him engaged with the school again. If he's going to start up a new online porn career, then actually give us a bit of eye candy. Because otherwise, what's the point?