#riverdale rewrite

[siravalondulac]

now, i do not watch riverdale. i have seen the first seven episodes because my sister forced me to but that's it. i do, however, know exactly what is happening on the show due to a few kind people on the internet recapping this madness. i have therefore seen the final scene of season 6 and have come up with a (better) version of it.

so, my rewrite would have the scene go as normal, with jughead explaining what has happened to riverdale after the comet. but then, he would say, "there are only two people who remember what happened. me-" he stops writing and looks directly into the camera "-and you." cut to black.

season 7 would then have jughead constantly talking to the audience, maybe doing a dora and asking for our help to come up with ways to fix riverdale.

#this is only partly a joke #riverdale #jughead jones #riverdale rewrite

[thelioninmybed]

Tonight on Riverdale

Who Killed Jason Blossom 2 Electric Boogaloo (it was Cheryl, with the power of pyrokinesis)

Archie’s dog has healing saliva

They Ocarina of Time a baby

Reggie is turned into a ventriloquist’s dummy

Betty cuts her undead boss up with a chainsaw

The gang team up with their alternate universe selves to send an evil wizard back in time to before he became immortal so they can murder him and the devil can claim his soul

A comet is going to destroy the Earth in 24 hours

#riverdale #riverdale my beloved #I can't list every unhinged thing that happened or I'd just be rewriting the entire script

[doctorcurdlejr]

Riverdale // James Baldwin // Kaveh Akbar // Lori Gottlieb

#Archie trying to rewrite history when he needs to let it go ! #archie andrews #betty cooper #riverdale #web weaving #a day in the life

[somedudenamedanthony]

I've been feeling like shit lately and it's 2:40 am so I'm re-watching Riverdale season 1 because that always brings me joy

#Indefinitely not planning on rewriting Riverdale to make it make more sense. No that's crazy... #Riverdale

[thetaoofbetty]

Do you still think the show will go back to a certain season 5 episodes cause 👀

my vote is never say never, doll!

do i see a way they could do it? absolutely. it's really right there hanging out and kicking its feet up. is there a way to do it without it? for sure. the writers have only ever written themselves into a corner a couple of times (and even then, do they care about that?) so they leave lots of pathways open a lot of the time.

i think this event is the weirdest track to have taken for the show overall but the best way to take it for these current ships. if you feel me.

if it were me and i was thinking about it and the bomb under the bed isn't a fixed point, i would find when time becomes that point. fixed points are the ones that change everything, right? you can't change what happens in that moment but you can change what happens from there.

or, you know, hey, it's all some sort of coma dream and none of it meant anything, ha.

for real tho, riverdale loves easy explanations that hand wave the weird away. and they're willing to do a lot more with stuff when they know it won't matter in the end.

#besos! #anonymous #riverdale speculation #it does seem like other elements from s5 are being brought back too tbh #jughead not being able to write #if veronica is some sort of black widow that feels very on the nose #betty's serial killer aura thing #archie saving riverdale #b/a starting off the season (not the event) not even being exclusive #veronica's unavailability #betty being just as traumatized from the jump #it's like a bonkers rewrite of s5 to me at this point #cheryl started s5 feeling cursed #and then she cursed the town #like #bring in heather and make her snap cheryl out of it pls #anyways will it mean anything? #who knows #but it's weird #even the betty fbi thing #and the other stuff that got shrugged at in the last 2 eps or so

[navree]

god i miss riverdale season 1

#personal #listen season 1 was flawwwwwwwwwed i started having issues with the show around episode five #but there was this odd sort of nostalgic feeling to the first four episodes and even some of the stuff after it #like there was just something about it that tugged somewhere and this is coming from someone who had NO frame of reference for it #because i never read the archie comics as a kid #it just did Something #anyway god i need to finish chapter 4 of the riverdale rewrite i feel real bad about that

[consciouschunkofmoss]

sorry for liking the sugar coated façade more than the monstrous that lays beneath 😔

#most of the time i would oh so readily embrace the latter #but. in this very specific situation #i cant enjoy it #and i can excuse many things within the fictional scopes. but grooming a minor is very well beyond my taste #plus the whole narrative felt like a riverdale style last minute plot twist change purely for shock value of a very impressionable audience #if you do happen to know who or what im talking about no you dont. or yes you do if cringe culture doesnt actually take part in your ethics #we need to talk about this or else my head will simply explode #im more angry than willing to twist the narrative for excuses #mostly so because there is nothing to twist enough to make this narrative and character acceptable #so i just want to scream #and maybe write an au #a whole rewrite reconstruction #also point out to the flowers motif to which never went anywhere and one to which i was so desperately excited about being developed #i wanted the clean cut white purity based aesthetic character to be the central point of oozing pain so bad #just rambling

[archieism]

i actually do think this season has been super fun exnay on the betty..snay

#don't care for all the retcons required to support betty's darkness. i am an anti at this point #sorry women #i think her killing is fun i simply think they don't need to rewrite the entire cooper family history to do it <3 #j watches riverdale

[nikosasaki]

thinking of turning benny's fic into an original story lol

#me on my third rewrite of ior: what if i did all of this again #its just. i hate the plot of riverdale so very much. #chats

[ariesbilly]

i miss fp jones and his shenanigans

thats the devil talking i know but... the heart wants what it wants

#by this of course i mean i miss getting to rewrite riverdale canon every week to suit my own gay agenda #but also sometimes he did some shit i could work with! and it was funny! and by funny i mean he was traumatized lmfao #anyway

[imreallyloveleee]

Where do you think it all went wrong with Riverdale?

honestly, part of me is like, the show's over and nothing but fandom matters. so who cares?

the other part of me loves to complain about Riverdale and will continue to do so until the day I die in the parking lot of Michael's Diner in Montgomeryville, PA at the age of 86. so, long-winded answer under the cut

I'm tempted to say it's the s4 b*rchie kiss. It was so wildly out of character for both Betty and Archie that it's laughable. You know how you can tell when something is just blatantly OOC with no justification? They...don't justify it. They find ways to dance around any interaction that might offer clarification. They mute the reactions of the characters who should be devastated by it. And then they jump ahead 7 years so it's easier to just handwave it away as something that happened a long time ago.

but the thing is, I did keep watching after that. I thought: okay, at least we should get an exes-to-lovers arc out of this, which is one of my favorite tropes. there is no way they would spend 4 seasons developing Bughead as this loving, supportive, communicative, sexy, and almost-unbelievably-compatible couple just to tear them apart and never do anything with that dynamic again. maybe it'll be even sweeter seeing them come back together after so much hurt and longing.

boy was i wrong!!!!!!!!!

so, the episode that actually made me stop watching for good, with the exception of some standalones like The Jughead Paradox and the finale, was the s5 musical. that was when i realized that this team of writers was 100% willing, maybe even eager, to completely drop storylines they themselves had been building over the course of a season - do a 180 with all of the characterization and relationships - and then act as though the buildup they wrote never even happened.

in this case, i'm specifically talking about the Bughead reunion storyline they dropped in s5. i'm not going to pretend like it was a GREAT buildup - and it was mostly on Jughead's side, Betty's character in s5 was basically an emotionless misery bot that had sex sometimes - but it was there. Jughead told Tabitha he had unresolved feelings around Betty. that's followed by an entire episode that lays out Betty & Jug's time jump relationship, and how Jughead still believes she's the one who saves him from himself. they work on a case together, they start opening up to one another. Jughead's so worried about her he can't eat.

and then...you know what happens.

(i'll also note here that there was random bts stuff that strongly indicated the musical ep storyline had a drastic last-minute rewrite: lili tweeted a blue dress, suggesting the song with that line was meant for her character; RAS said cole had to do last-minute recording sessions; supposedly crew members have confirmed this was the case, too. since none of it's 100% confirmed you can take it all with a grain of salt, but i believe it.)

it was so fucking insulting as a viewer to give my time and attention to a show made by people who would not only randomly drop the threads they set up, but torpedo them altogether, and then behave like the fans are the ones somehow at fault for expecting a story that actually follows through on its own emotional and plot beats. we're just shippers, so our opinions are dumb and biased! it's just a tv show, so who cares! get over it!

so, i stopped watching, because i knew they would continue to write without any thought or respect for their characters or their audience, and therefore inevitably write themselves into another corner. and, shocker, i was right. they did it again, whisking everyone away to the 1950s because actually resolving any of the scenarios they set up was ToO hArD. why bother when you could just make every single character Righteously Angry and Incurably Horny all the time, lecture the audience about social issues that have already been mainstream progressive for the last several decades, and call it a "love letter" to your fans?

#WHEW ok anon idk if this was what you were looking for but it's what you got #hopefully this has fully exorcised my need to Go Off against the creators of this show but you never know!! #my capacity for bitter resentment is apparently endless when it comes to this show #rd negativity #riverdale #anti b*rchie #anti j*bitha #just in case #anon

[teaandpinkfrosting]

Beautiful Broken Things

Season One Rewrite

Betty/Jughead, 81k words

It's finally finished! I know that some of you have been following this fic as I've posted it, but if you haven't checked it out yet, my Riverdale fic is officially complete. Feeling nostalgic for those season one vibes? Give it a read!

#riverdale #riverdale fanfiction #bughead #bughead fanfiction #betty x jughead #my writing

[kickedshins]

readalong riverdale playlist guide

songs have been added in no particular order. sometimes songs tie to broader visions of a musical episode, but some are just “they should have shoehorned this in somewhere in that classic riverdale way”. all songs are musical theater songs. yes i know they did superboy and the invisible girl but they did it wrong (sorry cami, you were great). this is an eternally updating playlist and guide. enjoy!

Corner of the Sky, from Pippin: Archie!!! This literally could happen anywhere at any point in time. What is this song if not Pippin going left Pippin going right. Put this wherever your heart desires. I want to come up with a Pippin musical episode plot because it’s so good. Jughead singing "Simple Joys" over a montage of Archie not dealing with his problems… I’m getting carried away.

Kind of Woman, from Pippin: Veronica would sing this in an entirely unselfaware way. I’m thinking early season two. Isn’t it a beautiful vision?

Superboy and the Invisible Girl, from Next to Normal: THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A COOPERS SONG. I’m mentally rewriting the n2n episode with this being a Coopers song.

Could I Leave You?, from Follies: A timeskip Veronica and Hermione duet at their respective shitty husbands. It ends with Hermione resignedly going back to the minutiae of marriage and with Ronnie shooting Chad in the face. Don’t worry about how this messes with plot this isn’t about that.

Your Fault, from Into the Woods: Read this post and envision a beautiful ITW episode.

I’ve Never Been in Love Before, from Guys and Dolls: Okay honestly? Archie and Josie duet. Cuter than "Fight For Me", imo.

Mother Knows Best, from Tangled: Alice, duh. Season one or season seven.

Do You Hear the People Sing?, from Les Mis: Season six union stuff baybee! Hand in hand with "Bread and Roses". It also would be really funny to have KJ and Vanessa, who in my opinion suffer the most from iPhone Voice in the cast, to do such a grand musical-y song. It would not be very good but boy would it be entertaining.

Therapy, from Tick, Tick… Boom!: BUGHEAD DYSFUNCTION DUET YES PLEASE. Let’s say season four. "Exquisite Corpse" vibe, but suppress it all. Maybe the problem’s simply codependency!

Get This Right, from Frozen II: Okay hear me out this is one of the most stupidly romantic songs I have ever heard. An Archie song, obviously. Timeskip Varchie. Maybe he’s actually about to propose, maybe not, doesn’t matter. All that matters is how much I genuinely think KJ could have slayed this song.

Being Alive, from Company: Obviously go read Jughead’s Weird Fantasy right now if you haven’t already. But even in Riverdale canon I would want Jughead to sing this in timeskip. If we’re getting specific it feels very Tabby tucking him in after he gets too drunk at the key party. Sorry for nixing the gay subtext by putting it next to a Jabitha moment jail for a million years for me I know. It could also be after Archie calls him when he’s in NYC. There you go, gay people.

Something’s Coming, from West Side Story: Season one or seven Archie. Just feels very wholesome. I think it would be cute. Could be performed on stage if season one.

How Did We Come to This?, from The Wild Party (Lippa): A Veronica La Bonne Nuit performance that somehow becomes a group number (she’s the only one singing on stage though). Season three. No "Queenie Was A Blonde" tag. I could make an AMV to this song. I should not do that I already have three in the works. But I could.

Run Away with Me, from The Mad Ones: This is purely self-indulgent because I like on-the-road Jarchie and I have a soft spot for this mediocre musical for personal reasons. 

Suddenly Seymour, from Little Shop of Horrors: Choni! Choni forever and ever amen. Season seven, I think, when Cheryl finally accepts that she’s a lesbian and is facing homophobia from her family/society/etc. Cheryl is Audrey which is funny because “mama was poor” lol no she wasn’t. They should go all the way and get the rights to change the lyrics to Suddenly Toni. Neither Madelaine nor Vanessa has the right voice for this song even a little bit. I do not care. 

Partner in Crime, from Tuck Everlasting: Betty and Archie. In my wildest fantasies this is like a season four flashback to them as kids and we have kid Barchie sing this song but other than that I think this could be a number when they’re hooking up in timeskip. Even though I don’t approve of Barchie hooking up in timeskip because I hate straight people I do think they would slay this. KJ specifically I think would sound great on this, it’s not really a Lili song but oh well. Another version that would be incredibly funny but not as good would be having timeskip Veronica and Reggie sing it about, like, actual crime.

Totally Fucked, from Spring Awakening: Kevin-centric group number in the style of "In" or "Beautiful". Could be anywhere from seasons two to four. Maybe we include the “did you write this?” thing with Betty and Jughead as Melchior. They did some expose for some paper. You know how it is. I wish the Riverdale characters were allowed to say fuck so bad.

Moving Too Fast, from The Last Five Years: Timeskip Jughead. It almost fits but doesn’t in a way that’s oh-so-Riverdale.

The I Love You Song, from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: Sad. Shared between Betty, Veronica, and Cheryl, but Veronica-centric (could be an unhinged La Bonne Nuit performance from her with cutaways to the other two, actually). Whenever the most amount of parents in this group are in jail. There’s at least one meaningful shot of Jughead reacting.

I’m Breaking Down, from Falsettos: Okay this one is sort of cheating because I don’t necessarily want to fit it into the actual canon of Riverdale I just think if Archie had come out in high school Veronica would have pulled a "The Ladies Who Lunch" and done this at La Bonne Nuit. I think Cami would body that.

What Is This Feeling?, from Wicked: Hear me out. Bret/Jughead duet.

For Good, from Wicked: Betty and Veronica, season seven. Or quad number in late s4/early s5 before the timeskip. I think Lili would sound gorgeous on this, especially the bridge.

Two-Player Game, from Be More Chill: Look Joe Iconis wrote music that was used in Archie: The Musical let me have this okay. Season one Jarchie. Jughead as Michael obviously even though he’s nothing like Michael and Archie is nothing like Jeremy. I just want to make Cole Sprouse say “favowite”.

Mother’s Gonna Make Things Fine, from A New Brain: I have a whole beautiful vision for an A New Brain musical episode that takes place in season four. It’s too long to get into right now but just know it’s there and it’s gorgeous and I’m going to fully flesh it out soon. Once again this is obviously an Alice song, except instead of well-meaning Jewish mom it’s overbearing evil (albeit MILFy) WASP. She’s fretting over Betty because Betty’s fretting about college or Jughead or something who cares. I just need Mädchen to do this.

Change, from A New Brain: This would happen about three quarters of the way through the episode. In classic Riverdale fashion they’d get a little insensitive with it and this would be a Ronnie La Bonne Nuit performance. Change the government kill the mayor! Say that! Even if the mayor is your parent! Especially if the mayor is your parent!

Brain Dead, from A New Brain: This is my favorite part of my A New Brain musical episode. It’s once again a Bughead repression duet. Just imagine the lavender marriage dream sequence anger tango they would do. I also think Cole Sprouse wouldn’t sound too horrible on this song. High praise. No lyric changes Jughead is saying “as the MD lifts me in his cruisy chiseled arms”. I’m getting angry about the fact that I will never get to see this on my screen I’m going to do some breathing exercises to calm down.

Take Me or Leave Me, from RENT: We’re gonna split this up among couples in classic Riverdale fashion. Timeskip, our Maureens are Kevin and Veronica, and our Joannes are Fangs and Archie. The Joannes don’t really work so maybe we’ll pull another classic Riverdale and cut their verses. Unfortunately the best line of the song (“Women, what is it about them? Can’t live with them or without them!”) has to be cut. I wish Choni could also sing this but alas it can’t work in this. Mostly this is an excuse to give Casey Cott more stuff to sing and I think it would be hilarious if he sung this.

Tango: Maureen, from RENT: Honestly, Riverdale both could and would do a really messy RENT episode. I should ruminate further on that. Anyway. I don’t actually know where or how this could work but I want it to be a weirdly sexually charged Vughead duet. But that makes Betty or Archie Maureen, and they are not Maureen… I don’t know. This one’s just in here because I like imagining Cole Sprouse dancing, and because I think Jughead is Jewish and it would be really funny to hear him say “Riverdale Jewish Community Center”. Let’s go with timeskip. She cheated! She cheated! Betty cheated! Fucking cheated! Oh, shit, could this be a Jarchie song in timeskip when Betty and Archie are hooking up? I think it could! Wow. Good work gang.

Razzle Dazzle, from Chicago: I’m also creating a beautiful Chicago musical episode that I don’t have time to detail right now but trust me it’s awesome. It’s in season four, Hermosa is relevant to it. Anyway this is another Kevin-centric group number where everyone is lying to different people about different things. Crucially, Cole Sprouse says the line “they’ll never know you’re just a bagel”.

I Can’t Do It Alone, from Chicago: Veronica’s asking someone to help her scheme!

Mister Cellophane, from Chicago: GAY KEVIN. NEED I SAY MORE.

My Own Best Friend, from Chicago: Beronica duet. Lives would be changed. They’re sort of fighting at this point in the episode so there would be an underlying current of potential hatefucking. But that’s sort of always the case with this song tbh. Also this isn’t on this playlist but imagine Reggie singing "Roxie". So bad. So good.

American Idiot, by Green Day/from American Idiot: Songs from jukebox musicals count too, right? Archie-led group number obviously. Let’s go with season six, but it could be season one or five, too. Maybe he is the faggot America. Jughead says the line “now everybody do the propaganda”. There’s a coordinated dance thing a la "Random Number Generation".

A Cockeyed Optimist, from South Pacific: Archie, duh. Season one, six, or seven. Probably sung directly to a Lodge.

Watch What Happens, from Newsies: Betty, season four. She's doing a piece on the community center that Archie and Mad Dog co-run. I think Lili would slay this honestly. I debated adding the reprise largely so that I could have Cole sing the snake line and to have an iconic "the poor guy's head is spinning" thing side note how can I make Davey and Jack about Jughead and Archie someone needs to shoot me. Anyway we'd cut the stuff about Katherine being into Jack in this song obviously because Betty is unhappily hetero with Jughead. Hashtag women in journalism.

Matchmaker, from Fiddler on the Roof: 50sdale girls. Really strong fun gay visuals exist in my brain for this one.

Anything You Can Do, from Annie Get Your Gun: Vughead. Neither can I!

Let Me Entertain You, from Gypsy: Ronnie duh. Season three-ish La Bonne Nuit Era. Or Polly Amorous.

I Cain't Say No, from Oklahoma!: 50sdale Betty sexual awakening era. I can SEE a beautiful beautiful dream sequence vision where she dances around flirting with Archie and Jughead and Reggie and Veronica can't you.

Tribulation, from Schmigadoon!: Yes this is a TV show not a staged live musical who cares. I don't like Music Man I'm not putting "Ya Got Trouble" on here. Alice gets a patter I don't think Mädchen would be particularly good at it but it would be extremely fun. Season seven most likely, but let's be real it could come at any point in the show.

Naughty Baby, from Crazy for You: You think I'm about to say Veronica or perhaps Cheryl don't you. WRONG Dark Betty. Oh it would be so cringe so painful so bad so terrible. It must happen. I don't know when in the show it happens it could literally be any time in s1-6.

With One Look, from Sunset Boulevard: Ronnie... I'm thinking s5 Riverbucks era.

that's all i have for now but there's more to come :]

#riverdale #kickedshins originals

[paging-possum]

Milwaukees your protocol

I spent so much time this week being like “ohhhh god I haven’t been working on my comic at all this week, where are the pictures” as if I haven’t been plugging away at the script nonstop. Everyday I wake up and I start writing and then I realize what I’m writing is really weak and then I start rewriting BUT the outline is fairly solid and I’m maybe ⅓ of the way through writing. This will get done and it will be interesting (affirmation) (prayer). 

As previously mentioned, I don't have that much art this week because writing, but I did decide that the characters in this one are going to all get fun unique little outfits because I ADORE putting those together! It’s like designing someone’s room, but you get to see it way more often in the story! Lyssa’s room will show up though, nobody worry, you WILL get to see her space at some point. While doing that I did realize that my roommate and I dress like Lyssa and Terry respectively which is humbling on my behalf but at least I’m in control of his outfits. And speaking of my roommate, the reason I don’t have more characters drawn is because I was going to do that last night but we ended up going through all her dating apps so I could have opinions about all the people she’s talking to and it was a BLAST. It also took 3 hours. But that's what my 14 hours on a bus this week are going to be for (lying to myself) (I will fall asleep immediately).

Of course he has blue hair and pronouns. Other projects this week! I'm drawing lots of cities so I'm doing lots of city studies! They’re very fun and VERY useful for some current things I'm working on >:] I’m hoping to do more when I go home for break this week and am no longer stuck on campus, but for now I’m working off photos my sister sends me since she lives somewhere way more visually interesting than I do. 

On the homework front, I made some very cool things this week! I had to make a piece using a rubber duck in ‘an atypical way’ and ended up making a comic I’m really happy with, but it also has a nonzero amount of me bitching about my old friend group being so obsessed with boys so I can’t really post it. But I can post some of it!

WHAT AM I LISTENING TO THIS WEEK:

Riverdale. Yes it’s a show, yes it’s still been such a core part of this week’s creative process that I just have to put it down. I’m finally getting to season 7 and GOD I love Riverdale everyone watch Riverdale so you can finally understand the triumphs and defeats the epic highs and lows of high school football. 

Too Polite to Fight by Autoheart

Friendly Neighborhood Poltergeist by Rory Webley

Archie’s All American from the hit CW drama Riverdale

Also another blatant plug for my friend who introduced me to devlogs in the first place- she does a radio show on Wednesdays that I always listen to (it’s been running for two weeks but it’s just that good) (if friends or mutuals want to know when/where to listen you can message me and ask) Anyways, she posts the playlists on Spotify afterwards, here’s this weeks if anyone wants to hear it and future sets! a

#comic update #my art #milwaukee protocol #sorry these keep getting later every week I sit down in the morning like I should work on my devlog now but ill totally have time later #and then I fuck around until I have to go to bio class

[kurozu501]

i have a friend i've known since we were both teenagers, we both loved naruto back in the day and he still keeps up with boruto. he was infodumping about the latest developments in it to me today and i genuinely thought he was messing with me. like what in the riverdale is this shit, what do you mean naruto and hinata were banished to the shadow realm by a weird creep kid who retconned reality so he was naruto's biological son and not boruto. what do you mean boruto's turned into sasuke 2.0 and sasuke's probably dead. wtf is that new sarada design. creep kid retconned reality not by stealing naruto and sasuke's super powers or anything cool like that but via a girl obsessively in love with him who casually happened to have the power to rewrite reality, what in the fanfiction…?

#i was laughing really hard by the end of our talk #its so funny #the simpsons-ification of naruto is taking it some truly weird places #all i care about is sarada at this point so someone let me know if she ever gets to become hokage

[desmondsprettyface]

Okay here's what I can't stop thinking about tho- and I genuinely can't decide if this is genius and deep or just Riverdale embracing its core wilful ignorance of its own plots-

the WHOLE finale was Betty and Jug reminiscing on 'the way it used to be,' specifically referring to the love triangles, the football, the milkshakes, and the general childhood innocence that makes high school drama seem so important. BUT THAT'S NOT AT ALL WHAT HAPPENED AT ANY POINT IN RIVERDALE!! 👏THAT'S👏 WHAT👏 HAPPENED👏 IN 👏THE 👏COMIC👏 THAT THIS ADAPTATION IMMEDIATELY AND WILDLY DEPARTED FROM AT EVERY TURN!?!!

So the question is: What life is this finale actually reminiscing on? When Betty says "I wish I could go back to the way it was..." is she really talking about the first season of Riverdale? OR is she talking about the genuinely innocent character she was in Archie Comics before Riverdale made her a trauma-stigmata serial killer cult member FBI agent kidnapping survivor sex addict?

The generous reading is that the real finale of "Pop's Eternal Narrative Heaven" is not that they're trapped in Riverdale forever. It's that they finally escaped Riverdale (CW 2017) and made it to the wholesome world of Archie (Pep Comics 1941).

It's specifically in the way Jughead talks about this projected simplicity especially around Pop's that just never existed. You're reminded of that when Jason opens the door to the idyllic world as if to say, "Welcome back! Remember when everything was fun and simple? Because I don't! Because I was already murdered by my father by episode 1! This has never been real in Riverdale!" He's the gatekeeper to the original Pep Comics world not just because he was the first to die in Riverdale, but because his character is more anchored to the carefree milkshake plots of the early 80s issues from whence he originated.

Of course modern Archie Comics have developed along wildly diverse and often dark plot lines, as any comic book still going after 60+ years would. In that sense, Riverdale isn't that far off much of its more recent source texts. But Riverdale has made a point of cordoning the dark plots off from the characters' experience and recollection as the series wound to a close. This disconnect is evident in the unsettling way they all casually chuckle at the horrific details in Archie's poem about the stuff that actually did happen to them. It's like he's recounting something portrayed about them in a comic book instead of the other way around.

I interpret Archie's poem as a kind of metatheatrical catalyst for the Riverdale characters to leave those adapted selves behind as a story about them instead of their "real lives" so they can return to their core selves as Pep Comics characters.

Which perhaps makes the whole thing one big metaphor about post-traumatic dissociation? Anyway, ending on Jughead at the typewriter as he places them all back into their original comic book diegesis fulfills the dream he was deprived of when no one met him at Pop's after graduation. In a show ostensibly about the Archie Comics but which immediately skipped past the low stakes wholesome high school drama straight into murder, it took a main character removing himself from the narrative and rewriting it himself to get them all to the 'real' Pop's where which milkshake they're going to have really is the most pressing matter. In that sense, Riverdale has traced a reverse trajectory in adaptation where characters with little more than hair color, pearls, and a silly hat anchoring them to their namesakes spend 7 seasons working their way back to their source text.

#riverdale #archie #pep comics #don't mind me #analyzing the finale