When you find yourself sick during the holidays, you experience isolation and boredom. As if quarantined on a cruise liner, you are exiled within your room's same four walls.

You are surrounded by various medications, gulping down excessive amounts of ‘liquids,’ and searching for what’s new on streaming services like Netflix.

In order to distract yourself for hours on end, you need something with a gripping plot and dynamic (and preferably hot) characters. Then again, you don’t want any series that requires too much pondering because your head is already pounding.

I had already finished ‘Big Little Lies,’ which was emotionally riveting. ‘The Office’ was prescribed as my laugh-a-day to keep the semester’s stresses away. Michelle Dockery’s ‘Good Behavior’ was my insomniac go-to and during visits by ‘Aunt Flo,’ I alternate between ‘New Girl’ or ‘Downton Abbey.’

‘Riverdale’ or ‘Stranger Things’ was next on my hit-list. Being the nerd that I am, I researched both options; actors involved, story’s origins, critics responses, etc. However, I didn’t have to scroll through too much after learning that ‘Riverdale’ was based on an iconic comic book. I had made my decision.

For as long as I can remember, the ‘Archie Comics’ lined Publix’s check-out racks. I loved looking at the colorful covers even before I knew how to read. Therefore, I had to know how the comics had been transferred to screen.

(Fair warning, there are spoilers ahead).

Within the fictional town of Riverdale, Archie Andrews and his friends face the drama of high school while their town investigates one of their classmates' homicide. Yet, even once the murderer is found to be Jason Blossom’s own father this little town still finds itself ripped apart by secrets, a serial killer and gang-related rivalry.

Archie fiercely protects his Dad, Fred Andrews, after a serial killer, later known as the Black Hood, shoots him in Pop Tate’s old-timey diner. Then his best friend Jughead Jones joins his father’s gang, the Westside Serpents, which causes strife in his relationship with the girl-next-door, Betty Cooper. During the Black Hood’s reign of terror, Betty is emotionally tortured by his mind-games and worries about the safety of her pregnant sister, Polly. Simultaneously, the sassy and fashion-forward Veronica Lodge tries to understand and overcome her parents’ criminal dealings.

Now, this might only be the antibiotics talking, but maybe ‘Riverdale’ can comment on 2018.

The Black Hood was motivated by a quasi-religious desire to cleanse Riverdale of “sin.” He exposed residents’ secrets; ranging from Alice Cooper’s unsavory past as a Westside Serpent and several men’s vengeful murder of an innocent man.

Clearly, murder was not the proper way of urging townspeople to claim responsibility for their misdeeds, but many began to fear that the skeletons in their closet would be brought out of the cover of darkness and into the light.

More often than not, we are emboldened to do in the dark what we never dream of in the bright sunshine.

Watching these nail-biting episodes, I put myself in the shoes of Riverdale’s terrorized inhabitants. At the start of this new year, I urge you to do the same.

What are you hoping that the Black Hood keeps from publishing in the school’s newspaper, ‘The Blue and Gold’?

What skeleton is hanging up in your closet or boxed up in your basement?

Does that skeleton still have flesh because it’s that new?

We usher in a new year, 2018, that many associate with a fresh start. That being said, fresh starts often follow bitter ends.

So what skeletons need to be properly buried before this year’s finish?

Grab a friend and pick up a shovel; learn from the past, but lay it to rest.

Then we can all grab a milkshake at Pop Tate's Chock'lit Shoppe and enjoy one another’s company until the next tumultuous season begins.