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Poster: Riverdale/The CW
Google will tell you that Riverdale is an American teen drama about romance, adventure, and mystery. But to me, Riverdale is a modern absurdist masterpiece.
Riverdale aired on The CW from 2017-2023. Loosely (and I mean loosely) based on the Archie comics created by John L. Goldwater, Bob Montana, and Vic Bloom, the show follows high schoolers living in the small town of Riverdale. It gets harder and harder to remember that they’re in high school the longer you watch the show.
Image: Riverdale’s Characters/Pinterest User ywihoe
A quick rundown of the characters:
Archie is a quintessential American high school footballer.
Jughead, his best friend, is described best by one of his own monologues, in which he says, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m weird. I’m a weirdo. I don’t fit in. And I don’t wanna fit in. Have you ever seen me without this stupid hat on? That’s weird.”
Betty embodies the girl next door who’s sick of always having to be perfect.
Veronica is Betty’s foil — she’s rich, confident and unapologetically herself. Her father, Hiram Lodge, is an evil CEO.
Cheryl Blossom, a cheerleader at Riverdale High School, is the typical queen bee (think Regina George) — selfish and manipulative, but also compassionate to those close to her.
As Riverdale recently turned 8 years old, it’s only right that we take a look back on the series in the form of this little interactive quiz. I’ll describe a storyline, and you have to guess whether I made it up, or whether it was an actual plot line that made it into Riverdale.
1: Jason Blossom, twin brother of Cheryl Blossom and quarterback of Riverdale High School’s football team, was shot, killed, and dumped into a river, kickstarting a murder mystery plotline.
Image: Jason Blossom/The CW
This is REAL!!! This was the central mystery of season 1 of Riverdale. It was later revealed that Jason’s killer was his father — Clifford Blossom — who captured and killed him because Jason refused to inherit his father’s illegal drug mafia business.
Image: Clifford Blossom Shooting His Son/The CW
2: A mythical entity known as The Gargoyle King leads a cult of loyal subjects who have been making human sacrifices in town.
This one is also TRUE!!! It turns out that Penelope Cooper, Betty’s mother, created The Gargoyle King persona, and made her adopted son Chic, wear its mantle. She did this because she hates the town of Riverdale and wanted to terrorise its residents. I think.
Image: Chic and The Gargoyle King/Express
3: A game of truth and dare goes wrong as Veronica is dared to drink from a chalice that has been passed down as an heirloom in her family for generations, leading to her awakening as a vampire.
This one is FALSE!!! Sadly, vampires were not a part of Riverdale’s plot, even though it would have fit right in and viewers probably wouldn’t have questioned it too much. Missed opportunity.
Image: Twilight/Stephenie Meyer
4: After a bomb in Archie’s house, planted by Hiram Lodge (Veronica’s father) blows up, it rips a hole in the fabric of space-time. The result? Jughead is transported to a parallel universe called Rivervale, where alternate versions of his friends (and himself) exist.
This one is TRUE!!! This kickstarted the events of season 6, where Riverdale Jughead is transported to Rivervale and has to work with his alternate universe self to find a way back home.
Image: Rivervale/The CW
5: Riverdale’s local orphanage is revealed to be a covert military base of operations where the government harvest organs for cross-border trafficking.
This one is FALSE!! There is actually no orphanage in the canon of the show, even though there should be, with how many parents turn out to be murdered/become murderers. Also, there is an organ trafficking storyline in Riverdale. However, instead of involving an orphanage, it involves a cult known as The Farm.
Image: The Farm sacrificing babies/The CW
6: Rivervale’s version of Betty has her unborn child stolen from her womb by a vengeful spirit of Mexican legend called La Llorona.
This is indeed something that happened. It was revealed that La Llorona is the vengeful ghost of Martha Mallon, an innocent nurse who was killed in a witch hunt in olden Rivervale. Fun fact: Toni, Cheryl’s lover, sacrifices herself and inherits the role of La Llorona to set Martha’s spirit free.
Image: La Llorona (left) and Toni (right)/The CW
7: When Jughead’s father, Forsythe Pendleton Jones II, is kidnapped by a Jorōgumo (half-spider half-woman creature of Japanese folklore) the gang have to risk their lives to save him.
This one is false. Although Riverdale has borrowed from the mythologies of many cultures, Japan is not one of them.
Image: Jorogumo/Roppongi
8: Betty has an evil split personality named “Dark Betty”.
Somehow, this one is true. When she’s in her evil form, she wears a wig.
Image: Betty (left) and Dark Betty (right)/The CW
9: Betty is revealed to be the biblical figure “The Whore of Babylon”.
Also somehow true.
Image: The CW and Wikipedia, Edited by Me
10: Using mystical superpowers granted to her by the collision of the parallel universes of Riverdale and Rivervale, Cheryl uses her powers of the phoenix to resurrect her dead brother Jason (and his dead lover, Polly).
This one is in fact, true. It turns out that when Jughead was transported into Rivervale, the merging of the two universes resulted in the residents of Riverdale obtaining magical superpowers.
Image: Cheryl (left) and Jason (right)/The CW
11: A serial killer nicknamed “The Bobicidal Maniac” has claimed several victims in Riverdale. The one thing the casualties have in common? They all have a chic bob.
This one is NOT true. There are, however, many other serial killers in the show (of which, 5 are Betty’s family members). My favourite is the Trash Bag Killer.
Screenshot: The Trash Bag Killer/Villains Wiki
As an aside, a total of 142 deaths have occurred in the town of Riverdale, which is consistently described as a small town. Estimates would place the town’s population at around 25,000. If this is true, it means that the town of Riverdale has a murder rate of about 6 in 10,000 people, which would be higher than any country in the modern world.
12: Percival Pickens, an evil sorcerer, uses a voodoo doll to mind control the freshly resurrected Jason to attack Cheryl. Left with no other choice, Cheryl burns her twin brother alive using her powers of pyrokinesis.
Sadly, this one is true. Rest in peace Jason.
Image: Cheryl reciting an incantation to ward off a comet threatening to destroy Riverdale/The CW
That brings us to the end of the quiz. I hope you’ve enjoyed this retrospective on Riverdale. As much as I love writing, there are certain limitations to the medium — like how words alone cannot fully capture the mania of Riverdale. I end with this: There is no better way for you to experience the insanity of the show than to watch it for yourself.