Riverdalehas always deserved more credit than it got. The show’s freshman season was an inspired take on a well-known property, updated to match the aesthetic of edgy post-streaming teen shows while seeking inspiration from classics likeTwin Peaks.What it lacked in inspiration, it made up for in the way it presented the residents of the idyllic town of Riverdale. The show managed to find a way to make Betty (Lili Reinhart), an arguably boring character defined as being the ‘good girl’ into someone actually interesting to watch, and the choice to cast a Latinx actress for Veronica (Camila Mendes) gave the series some much-needed representation. And Archie (KJ Apa)…well, even if the show has never known what to do with him, it has always managed to make sure we were enamored by his physique. As the series progressed, though,Riverdalegot stranger and stranger, a seemingly ordinary teen drama that traded excess for nuance turned into a cacophony of clashing genres and storylines. And out of it emerged a show that’s so impossibly unhinged, it’s quite literally hard to describe. Now, as the show teeters towards its seventh season, the cosmic balance ofRiverdalehas once again shifted this time due to Betty and Archie getting superpowers.
Show creatorRobert Aguirre-Sacasa,the current Chief Creative Officer of Archie Comics, started out as a writer for the comic books where he introduced the supernatural to Riverdale in a series calledAfterlife with Archie. While the tone and genre of the series were a big departure from the Archie Comics most people were used to, its popularity led to the creation of the darkerChilling Adventures of Sabrinacomics and series. Suddenly, the Archie Comics world was open to experimentation. What had started out as a lightly comedic love triangle between an all-American high school boy and his love interests became ground zero for the writers to introduce zany concepts to the preexisting world of Archie. Titles likeArchie vs PredatororArchie vs. Sharknadoare out there for public consumption and are more well-received than you’d imagine. It’s important to point out that prior to Aguirre-Sacasa’s tenure as the CCO, Archie Comics had dabbled withsome out-of-the-box conceptsincluding throwing in the Punisher and time traveling. But it’s safe to say that those out-there stories were exceptions rather than the rule.
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All the internet hullabaloo aboutRiverdalebecoming yet another superhero show seems silly when keeping into account that the Archie Comics brand’s success in recent years has one key element: the willingness to embrace lunacy. It’s understandable that viewers have an easier time accepting the Archie comics for fighting zombies than forRiverdaleto dabble in the science fiction pool, because the long-running comic book format allows for a greater variety of stories and tones that can be written out the minute the series ends. Those complaining aboutRiverdalemaking a joke of itself due to the superpower twist may be forgetting that surrealist absurdism has been a defining factor of the series to date. Even before it made Betty magically detect emotions and Archie Captain America, the show was barreling straight to the loony bin from the minute the second season began. While the first was a heavily stylized and self-aware murder mystery with a good heaping ofRyan Murphy-inspired camp, the following seasons seemed to delve deeper and deeper into wackier plotlines without a care in the world about logic or substance.
That’s what is and will be the enduring legacy ofRiverdale.Let’s face it:Riverdalehasneverknown how to be a normal teenage drama, instead serving as a conduit for just about the wildest idea the writers' room could think of. Archie worked for a mobster and then got framed and ended up in prison where he joined an underground fight club andadvocated for the importance of high school football, after which he began a militia to take down a serial killer — all in the span of one season. Cheryl (Madelaine Pestch) is somehow obsessed with Archie to a disturbingly violent length… until she is not and is given a female love interest and becomes the Serpent Queen and burns down her mansion and nearly kills her mother and later joins an organ harvesting cult before starting her own cult with preteen and teenage girls. Oh, and she has also been keeping the corpse of her twin brother in the basement of her house and conversing with him regularly. This isn’t even taking into account the Jingle Jangles and Gargoyle King and The Black Hood of it all.
From flying babies to a cult leader building a rocket on the roof of a building, the last thing you could incriminateRiverdalefor is being conventional. And that’s all good.Riverdaleseems incapable of becoming a normal high school show anymore, nor should it need to be when there are plenty ofOne Tree HillsandThe O.C.s available to stream. The show has a loyal younger fanbase dedicated to following romances and developing ships, as well as adults who are into the “so bad it’s good” genre of television that has been a mainstay in popular culture. Even aside from the many reality TV series being consumed for the same purpose, scripted content like the since-concludedGleeand the still-runningDynastyrely upon the voracious appetite of consumers interested in content that is laughably over the top.
Now, withRiverdalegranting superpowers to its two main characters and possibly bringing more into the fold, it has a shot at supercharging itself by exploring new territories untouched by Archie Comics. It won’t be too surprising if the show goes full superhero mode down the line and even rallies in superhero characters from the Archie Comics-owned Dark Circle Comics — and that still won’t be the craziest thing the series will have done to date. You could make a solid case for the series having peaked long ago, but if the show must go on, we should gladly letRiverdaleembrace the madness.
