Riverdale‘s 10 most insane storylines, ranked
Bloodthirsty cults! Serial-killer dads! Lots of supernatural stuff! The A.V. Club attempts the impossible and counts down the show's most off-the-rails plots
TV Features Riverdale
There’s only one way Riverdale could end: with the entire town traveling back to the 1950s after the explosion of a magical comet. Sure, it’s a far, far cry from the teen soap’s original pitch (Twin Peaks meets Archie Comics), but it’s also a perfect culmination of all the craziness that has come before. People love to say that Riverdale has gone off the rails, but that suggests the show wasn’t in on the joke. On the contrary, every unbelievable plotline over the last six years has been a beautifully bonkers gift from one of television’s most diabolical writers’ rooms. With the final season of Riverdale kicking off March 29 (check out our glowing review), let’s attempt the impossible and count down the most out-there and outrageous plots to unfold on the show.
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They should have ended this show with the Afterlife with Archie comic story. It’s so fun.
I love that series. I was hoping that that would be the plot of the 6th season, as I heard it was going full horror. But alas, no.
At least we got to see Sabrina again.
Now that they’re all stuck in the 50s, I really hope it turns out that this entire series was a prequel to the comics.
Given that the comics have already been shown to be representative of stored memories from their own and parallel timelines, as well as how angels read about the characters’ adventures in literal heaven, this would be a fairly tame development by Riverdale standards.
Riverdale, you crazy bastardGood list, I agree with the prominence of all the Blossom gothic horror insanity
Edgar Evernever attempting to escape via rocket ship while dressed in full 1970s Evel Knievel regalia might be my favorite Riverdale moment.
I love that that also ends with Betty’s secretly-not-brainwashed-but-actually-undercover Mom (who I guess secretely-undercoverly gave away her college fund to a cult) shooting him in the head. This show scoffs at the very notion of rails.
I love that he had the costume ready, presumably in a giant bag that said “OPEN IN CASE OF ROCKET LAUNCH”
My least favorite of all of these was the tedious Hiram-Archie hatefest that went on far too long, though it certainly deserves to be on the list because it was fucking crazy
It did get tedious, but it was always hilarious that this vicious mobster’s deadliest foe was . . . a teenage boy.Which reminds me, Archie forming a vigilante army of masked, shirtless children was also bonkers (though I guess technically it’s covered as part of the Black Hood deal).
Vigilante mobs are a town tradition going back centuries, it seems like.
But not SHIRTLESS mobs – that was an Archie Andrews innovation.
Well back in historical times, they had to keep their shirts on so that other people would know from their costumes what historical time period they were in, clearly.
The Gargoyles plot had so many good moments, but a real mess of an end. I had forgotten who even was the gargoyle king before reading this reminded me.
Now seems like a fun time to rank the MVPs of this show on a performance level.
S+: Veronica. (Camilla Mendez is great, even if she consistently gets the absolute worst plots on this show or potentially any show. Her stupid fucking jewelry store and casino nearly gave me a hernia.) Cheryl. (No notes. Perfect. Chef’s kiss. The height of camp.)
S: Betty. (Elevates the material she’s in.) Jughead’s girlfriend from the last two seasons whose name I can’t remember.A: Archie’s mom. Why are you here, Molly? Please run. Archie’s dad. RIP Luke.
B: The professor who commits to throwing himself face-first out a window. Anyone who has to repeatedly say Edgar Evernever with a straight face.
C-: Absolutely everyone else except.
F-: Fangs. Holy shit, abysmal. His southern accent in the last season was the worst I’ve seen since Andrew Garfield on Doctor Who.
Archie himself began the show as an F character. I’d say he’s risen as high as a solid B, even when he was dealing with his trauma from “the war”.
“After Clifford killed himself”
Nope. Penelope killed him too.
This show is either the greatest piece of satire of all time or the world did end in 2012 and we’re in hell
These are the reasons why I call it “Tween Peaks”.
Don’t forget, while all the Black Hood stuff was happening, Archie was becoming a mob enforcer/mentee for Hiram before their insane rivalry started.
If my count is correct, more than half the teenagers on the show have worked for the mob in one fashion or another. And 100% of them have appeared in sexy musical numbers in a speakeasy.
I stopped watching a few years ago (when the episodes were no longer on Canadian Netflix), but my favourite moment was always yelling “Shut the FUCK up, Hal!” a la John Goodman in The Big Lebowski whenever he said anything. Ye gods, I hated that guy.
I LOVED the comics as a kid, so I’d been putting watching this show off for a while, lest it taint my memories of the Riverdale gang. But I watched the entirety of this show in a couple days on Netflix about a week ago. I watched it at 1.40x the regular speed, so each ep was a little less than a half hour. I don’t suggest doing this as it has made me a hollow, broken, confused shell of my former self.
For some reason, it was the tickle fetish arc that broke me. Everything else I was “okay with” to a certain degree, but that stupid sack of tripe made me yell at my computer more than any other plot on the show. Kevin Keller is the absolute worst and he’s been the absolute worst, which sucks, as he’s basically the only main queer male character.
I wonder if Lili Reinhart and Camila Mendes’s backs hurt. From, you know, carrying this show for 7 years.
Another hilariously ridiculous thing that bugged me: All of Archie’s “war” flashbacks look like he was in a bunker during WWII.
Truly the greatest and stupidest of TV shows. One big maple syrup-filled hot tub of lunacy.