‘Riverdale’: Meet Jughead’s Stonewall Prep Squad

The CW’s Riverdale isn’t exactly known for its subtle character names. After all, this is the show that named an extremely tall character Tall Boy, and had another one named Old Deuteronomy, presumably because he was… Old? And looked like a cat? Unclear, because the character was off-screen. But the latest addition to the Riverdale canon is a teen from elite private school Stonewall Prep named Bret Weston Wallis (Sean Depner), and it might just take the name cake.

A simple perusal of Twitter will yield a bevy of reactions from, “I’m losing my head here” to simply “BRET WESTON WALLIS????” The reason, for those of you not in the know, is pretty simple: Bret Weston Wallis is a play on “American Psycho” author Bret Easton Ellis. Though “American Psycho,” which was adapted into a movie and a musical (hey, does that mean they’ll be using it for this season’s musical episode? Hmm…) may be Ellis’ best known work, the Wall Street satire probably isn’t the touchstone Riverdale is going for here. Most likely, they’re riffing off another book by Ellis, “The Rules of Attraction,” which was also made into a movie starring James van der Beek, Jessica Biel and a few other folks.

Like most things Riverdale, it probably won’t follow the plot of the book closely, but that novel mostly focuses on Sean Bateman (yep, he’s the younger brother of Patrick Bateman, the titular psycho from “American Psycho”) as he attends an elite liberal arts college, gets caught in a love triangle, and engages in a lot of debauchery, drug use and sex. Also probably important to note, Ellis’ novels — including “Rules of Attraction” — are characterized by misogyny that was initially passed off as satire, but over time has struck some media pundits and fans as a feature on the part of the author, not a bug. To put it delicately.

Anyway, in the latest episode of Riverdale, “Fast Times At Riverdale High,” Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) gets invited to join Stonewall Prep by teacher Mr. Chipping (Sam Witwer), a man whose cheekbones would make Patrick Bateman blanche in fury. Jughead is offered a full ride, a tour, and later a chance to sit in on a salon where they’ll be discussing Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.” Jughead impresses the other students — and Mr. Chipping — by pointing out that Melville didn’t want “Moby Dick” to be read as an allegory, so technically the white wale at the book’s center stands for nothing. If you stand for nothing, whale, what will you fall for?

Before that, though, we meet Wallis, played gamely by Deadly Class alumni Sean Depner, on the tour. He seems friendly enough, but also strangely dismissive of Jughead’s girlfriend, Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart). While Jughead fits right in with the pretentious school — and as he later finds out, his grandfather Forsythe Pendleton Jones briefly attended Stonewall — Betty leaves almost immediately, which frankly seems like the right idea. Again, Depner seems pleasant enough, but if his character’s name wasn’t enough of a tip-off, the actor played a fascistic, sadistic psychopath named Viktor on Deadly Class, as well as a misogynist cult-member on Netflix’s The Order, so I’ll be stunned if he turns out to be a normal, nice guy on Riverdale.

We also get to meet two other Stonewall Prep characters in the salon: Johnathan, played by Alex Barima; Joan, played by Doralynn Mui; and Donna Sweett, played by Sarah Desjardins. No, I’m not misspelling Donna Sweett’s name, please see above re: Old Deuteronomy.

Barima is an old hand at The CW, having previously appeared on Supernatural, iZombie, and The Flash, among other series. He also had a regular role on the short lived The Exorcist TV series, so despite his innocuous appearance, he knows a thing or two about horror. Mui was actually on Deadly Class (briefly) with Depner, as well as The 100 and Siren on Freeform, though Riverdale seems to be her biggest role to date.

Desjardins, meanwhile, has appeared on Netflix’s Project MC2, and YouTube’s Impulse, (as well as Supernatural) before heading to Riverdale. Her presence has also been riling up fans, who think she might come between Jughead and Betty, given that he’s at the school all week. For her part, Desjardins seems to be playing with them as well (check out her recent tweet on the subject), though showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa noted at New York Comic Con that all the show’s main couples will be staying steady, at least through Season 4’s midseason finale in December. That said, just because Jughead won’t be responding, doesn’t mean Donna isn’t sweet on him (sorry, sweett). And given the “Rules of Attraction” of it all, it stands to reason that some weird stuff is about to go down at Stonewall Prep, with Donna, Bret Joan and Johnathan right at the center of it all.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on the CW.

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