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He’s also supposed to be 15.

Ignore the fact the actor playing him is a grown man whose abs and cheekbones are so chiselled they should be on display somewhere in Florence.

The character is a 15-year-old child sleeping with his teacher.

And like so many stars of teen dramas before (Pacey in Dawson’s Creek, Luke in The O.C. and Aria on PLL to name a few), Archie is consumed by the fear they will get caught because, somehow, he too will get in trouble. In Riverdale, this is compounded by what can only be called Ms. Grundy’s gaslighting of Archie, over whom she holds both the power to end an independent study in music – and their relationship.

Twenty years ago, this stuff was already raising eyebrows and concerns about the normalization of statutory rape. But in 2017, amid the discourse of rape culture, it feels a little tired to see the trope playing out once again.

Every time I watch the show, I can’t help thinking: he is a child and she is raping him.

Almost every month, if not every week, there’s a new headline about a teacher being caught sleeping with a student — no, sorry, raping, a student. But when the victim is male and the perpetrator female, coverage still too often focuses on their “relationship” and not her exploitation. When the teacher is male, this narrative has, thankfully, fallen by the wayside.

For a show that’s otherwise so progressive (though admittedly still teeming with stereotypes), it’s a bit disappointing to see that narrative played out once again.

But I’ll keep watching and hoping Ms. Grundy is the next one to get led away in cuffs.