“Why can’t you use GrindEm like every other gay guy in the world?,” Betty (Lili Reinhart) asks Kevin (Casey Cott) in the latest episode of the CW teen drama Riverdale, deeply concerned about her friend’s safety.
More specifically, she’s worried that Kevin’s taste for cruising “Fox Forrest” for hookups will have dire consequences. After all, a killer is on the loose!
It’s a bold plot move for the series, now in its second season.
“Kevin has pent up a large amount of loneliness and he’s in a lot of every other character’s drama up until now,” Cott, 25, told Bustle about his plot in the episode. “He just needs to feel something and he’s trying to find someone in whatever way he can and that leads to this really risky, dangerous situation we find him in in this episode.”
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So why can’t Kevin use “GrindEm,” the show’s not-so-subtle reference to Grindr?
Well, as he puts it: “Nobody is who they say they are online. At least in real life, what you see is what you get.”
OK fair point, though cruising for anonymous hookups in the woods comes with its own unique set of safety risks, even when a killer doesn’t happen to be on the loose.
Fans hoping for more gay stories in Riverdale can expect to see much more of Kevin in season 2.
“I think what’s cool about Kevin in season two is we kind of explore many different kinds of love interests, the same way that high schoolers do. Some are people you just meet, but are quick; sometimes you find a long-lasting relationship,” Cott told Teen Vogue. “We kind of delved into a few different kinds of relationships in Season 2. I think a bigger, more long-term relationship is coming for Kevin very soon.”
Related: So, the first steamy gay scene from C.W.’s “Riverdale” is here. Curious?
Public cruising seems a slightly odd throwback, though. What’s next — personal ads in the back pages of a local rag?
h/t NNN
Heywood Jablowme
Why? Simple. Cruising in the woods is much more visual. “GrindEm” wouldn’t make for very interesting TV, would it?
It reminds me of what Jennifer Aniston said recently about how they couldn’t do a show like “Friends” nowadays. If you made a show about 6 young people in a coffee shop in 2017, they would all be staring at their phones all the time and never talk to each other.
veradunn8787
5645456
like Timothy answered I am amazed that someone able to make $7869 in four weeks on the
computer . find out here…
gravityyaoi
Ok… I didn’t like Riverdale anyway but now this really isn’t something to role model and make ok in a show that quite a lot of younger people watch.
graphicjack
Don’t clutch your pearls, dear. As long as it’s consensual, anything goes. If you don’t like cruising, don’t do it. Stop judging certain sexual behaviors unless you’re fine with someone judging yours…. either straight homophobes or me who is assuming you are just a bore in bed.
lauraspencer
How is this any different than people hooking up on apps? Like Kevin said, at least you see people and know what you are getting.
lauraspencer
and if someone is watching the CW for role models then they have even bigger problems.
Texasholdem
You obviously didn’t watch the episode since Kevin imagined getting stabbed by a guy who was trying to pick him up but to the audience it looked like it really happened. So I don’t think they were u glamorizing it
JPDonahue
One of my favorite kind of Comments:
The “I don’t like this but I’m gonna take time out of my day to comment on it.”
jjose712
I don’t think this has nothing to do with role models. It’s a show and the storyline has a lot to do with the estate of mind of the character.
It’s dangerous and there are safer ways to find a sexual partner but he is a teenager and teens not always make the best choices.
I like they are not afraid of showing the character’s sexuality and he is interesting enough to have his own storylines (apart of playing a supporting role in others)
BigDaddy58
I guess you are a city boy who goes to the gym/saunas for your hook-ups…reality baby!
gravityyaoi
It’s pretty funny how I’m told not to judge others when my opinion gets judged. My opinion on the matter has nothing to do with shaming or anything other than safety.
All the bait comments aside, I know plenty of young people who watch this show. Young people are impressionable and think they’re invincible and as someone who lives in the RURAL Tennessee, not the city, this is not a safe practice down here.
Just a few years ago men were beaten outside of a club and another club was set fire to. People get shot traipsing onto other people’s property in the night here. So please forgive me for “clutching my pearls” when I’d rather not see that happen to anyone else.
Many parents don’t or don’t know to discuss these kinds of safety issues with gay youth and I believe media outlets have an obligation for the wellbeing of their marketed viewers whether that happens or not.
Again, it was my opinion on the matter and really the best way to sway someone to your view isn’t with insults and condescending remarks so please keep that in mind.
Ken A.
That is all you have to complain about, previous to this cruising, Betty told on Kevin’s father of this behavior–some friend huh? –Archie was having a mad affair with his teacher. Who was killed this season.
Jaxton
Most of the men who cruise in the woods are not gay-idemtifying. They are straight-identifying. Many have wives and a family. They see cruising as an escape from the sexual frigidity of women.
When you cruise, you enter a world of uninhibited, indiscriminate and adventurous bliss.
paul dorian lord fredine
‘star’? i don’t even remember a character named kevin in the comic books so how can he be a ‘star’ of the show? now, if they had archie or jughead, THAT would be a ‘star’ i’d love to see ‘cruising’.
geb1966
Then you haven’t read the comic books in quite a few years. He was introduced in 2010 and became an integral part of the Archie universe. He even had his own title for about a year and a half.
Texasholdem
Kevin had a gay wedding in the comics in 2012 before Obergefell.
Juanjo
Frankly I do not see it as likely that a high school teenager would consider cruising the woods at night. My experience with gay guys in the teens and twenties is they are hooking up on social media when they want to hook up at all.
geb1966
They address using a hook up app in the episode. Read the first line of the article, not just the headline.
Prax07
Right, because anyone that doesn’t engage in dangerous behavior, in this fictitious case, cruising dark, foggy woods where a killer may be lurking, is automatically boring in bed? Fekking idiots. Just because you’re a perv that gets off humping complete strangers on public naturelands, disregarding whatever diseases those other same types of pervy guys may be carrying, doesn’t make the rest of us boring in bed. It makes us less mental and safer.
startenout
Yup nobody has EVER caught a disease or been murdered hooking up through an app or website. Oh… wait…
Lord in heaven, y’all don’t even watch the show or follow the comic since 1980, so why do you even care to judge? Sheesh.
baggins435
I thought the show runners were supposed to be our allies. In season one Moose was ready and willing to keep “playing”, but Kevin didn’t want to be “some straight boy’s experiment”, so cruising a park at night for randoms is better? What teen cruises a park like that? And Kevin’s father is a sheriff or police officer. Our community needs more positive role models and representation right now, not more ammo for the right wing nutjobs, who are, if you haven’t been paying attention, doubling down against us under this new regime. They already assume we are sex obsessed freaks with no self control. And yes, this is a TV show, but they mirror society and its perceptions. Star Trek in the ’60s was a Sci-Fi show, but the reality was it portrayed ’60s social and political issues.
Daniel-Reader
It’s not like straight people don’t cruise – only it’s just called “walking down the street”, “walking in the mall”, or “walking down the hall at school or university” – pretty much anywhere straight people gather.
DCguy
So I have to assume that all of the writers for Riverdale are over 50 and missing the days of the Chelsea piers or something?
This seems like a plot point more for a show based in the 70s or 80s. Betty is right, why would the Sheriff’s kid risk getting arrested rather than looking at an online app??
Apparently the writers are also from the school of writing that made Cam on Modern family such an insulting stereotype, or who thought it was funny on the TV show “Marry Me” to have the daughter with two gay parents talk about how great the food was at a shop owned by an anti-gay bigot and how she always went there.”
zach_
As much as I like riverdale it confuses me a little bit. It seems like it is set in the 80s such as some of the cars that are seen in the drive in movie theatre, and just over all feel of the setting. Yet they have brand new phones and like in this article mentions grindem as an app. To be honest I haven’t seen the episode this article is refers to yet either. But i guess the contrast in time periods is to appeal to the current generation.
Ken A.
There was a message behind this scene. The character said that is all he had, others could choose but his choice was limited. I do not think that is true anymore but that is why Kevin was cruising in the woods looking for love.