Riverdale died as it lived: with teen angst and multiversal time travel
Why did Riverdale return to the 1950s? The same reason Riverdale does anything: because it can, and because it’s the only show audacious enough to do it. In interviews, the cast has credited this choice to showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s desire to end things in the most “wholesome, Archie Comics way possible.” But the truth — and how it got to its big, twisty, and complicated ending — is much more complex, and much more interesting. This is, after all, Riverdale; nothing here is as straightforward as it seems.
[Ed. note: This post discusses the plot of Riverdale in full, meaning it spoils a lot along the way, including the end of the show.]
It’s hard to give a rundown of every single thing that happened on Riverdale. It started as Twin Peaks lite, with the gang trying to solve the murder of Jason Blossom and uncovering the seedy underbelly of the “Town with Pep!” By season 2, Jughead and Betty were hunting serial killers while Archie and Veronica were dabbling in her father’s mob business. Season 3 was the Satanic Panic. In season 4, the kids celebrated senior year with Betty finding out she had the “serial killer gene” and a secret brother, Veronica waging war against her father (through her various business interests), Jughead getting pretend-murdered to reveal some other killers in a The Secret History-esque plot, and Archie escaping prison. After being interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, season 5 picked up with the graduation of the kids, alongside Archie and Betty kissing, which breaks up the core four right as they go their separate ways for college before a seven-year time jump. When they return to Riverdale, Hiram Lodge is running it into the ground to make way for a for-profit prison, so each member of
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