If there’s anything that fans of the CW’s Riverdale have learned, it’s that when it comes to the adaptation of Archie Comics properties, expect the unexpected. I’m sure no expected their newest spinoff, Katy Keene, to be this boring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KpPusuHMaE
The show follow Katy Keene, working in an upscale NYC boutique and hoping to be promoted to personal shopper. However, she gets passed up for the job and now needs to figure out what she should do with her deferred dreams of being a fashion designer. Meanwhile, Josie (who left Riverdale amid all the murder and cult stuff) moves in with Keene to work on her music career. There are two more roommates — Jorge, a drag performer who dreams of Broadway and Pepper…who I will get to in a minute. We also get a brief look at K.O. Kelly, Katy’s boxer boyfriend but he doesn’t seem to factor in all that much to the plot yet.
Reportedly, the show takes place years after Riverdale which is…weird given that Josie’s actress hasn’t aged very much since she left the show. It does open up questions about the potential crossovers and hints that they at least know where Riverdale is going plot-wise.
I have to say, given how Riverdale and took interesting new angles and tried out different plot styles from their original source materials, Katy Keene feels a little too safe. It’s likely that they are trying to tap into the Gossip Girl and Carrie Diaries market and it just feels lazy. I mean, sure we have Jorge filling in for a “fourth girl” slot but even that feels like a cliche.
Also does anyone else find it weird that Pepper gets no plot line in the trailer? She’s just sort of there, and until they actually put up her name, I wasn’t even sure she was a roommate. According to her official character notes, she is “an it girl with a mysterious background who wants to own the next fashion-empire.” Maybe we’ll be lucky and she’ll turn out to be a serial killer or cat burglar.
Katy Keene will premiere on the CW sometime in 2019 or early 2020.
