The CW's Riverdale is a teen-focused drama based upon the Archie Comics series. It attempts to take a darker and more mature approach to the exploits of Archie Andrews (KJ Appa), Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart), Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse), Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), and their friends and acquaintences. Whether or not it succeeds in doing so is entirely up to the viewer's mileage. Thankfully, it's very easy to catch up on it thanks to Netflix.
One thing that CW'sRiverdale is infamous for is its tendency to get outright weird. There are a lot of plots, characters, and dialogue that feels outright surreal for both new and old viewers. It even dips into the realm of horror. Sometimes, the show feels just plain bizarre, it isn't even finished. Here are some of the wildest plot points so far.
10 Archie Becoming A Gangster Thanks To Hiram Lodge
This first bout of intense weirdness comes from the villainous Hiram Lodge (played excellently by Mark Consuelos). At first, he is hesitant to accept Archie as Veronica's boyfriend. He keeps Archie at a distance, and even tests him on the Riverdale wrestling team.
However, Archie proves to be determined and ambitious, so Hiram essentially makes Archie a go-fer in his mobster criminal empire. Things took a turn for the worst when Hiram frames Archie for murder, which leads to Archie's stay in juvenile detention. However, his friends help stage a prison break, he hides out in Canada for a bit, and then he returns to Riverdale and forges a truce with Hiram. This apparently didn't last, as Archie tries to bring down Hiram after the seven year time-jump.
9 Jughead Jones Faking His Death To Expose The Preps
Jughead (who has been a werewolf in the comics, by the way) transfers to Stonewall Prep in his senior year of high school to put more effort into developing his writing. Unfortunately for him, there is a deep, dark conspiracy going down at Stonewall. This leads to a particularly strange turn of events where Bret Weston Wallis (Sean Depner) and Donna Sweett (Sarah Desjardins), two other students at Stonewall, try to kill Jughead.
This leads to Jughead faking his death at the hands of traitorous Penny Peabody (Brit Morgan) and the Ghoulies and eventually expose Wallis and Sweett, the former of the two eventually dying in jail. These are some MCU level twists and turns.
8 Veronica And Jughead Kissing To Save Their Relationships
After several cathartic emotinal experiences, Betty and Archie end up sharing a kiss. This is particularly unfortunate, as Betty had been dating Jughead (though the two were on a break at that point), and Veronica and Archie were in a longtime relationship.
The four teenagers end up taking a weekend getaway at Hiram Lodge's mountain vacation house. To resolve this, Veronica proposes that she kiss Jughead to heal the rift. This leads to Jughead oddly referring to the kiss as "Vughead" and his relationship with Betty as "Bughead."
7 The Serial Killer Who Shot Archie's Dad
The Black Hood (Jay Clift, Cameron McDonald, and Lochlyn Munro, at different points) was a recurring threat in the first three seasons of Riverdale. This cruel serial killer primarily uses a gun, though he has been known to use other methods to dispose of his victims.
One of his victims is Archie's father, Fred, whom The Black Hood shoots in Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe. Fred survives the experience, but he goes through a series of hallucinations where he is unable to watch Archie grow up because of this tragedy. During one of these dreams, he sees Pop himself (Alvin Sanders) saying the iconic line, "Time dies, doesn't it?"
6 The Southside Serpents Storming The Cooper House
This story starts with Betty and her mom, Alice (Madchen Amick), covering up for Betty's estranged brother Chic (Hart Denton) killing a man named Dwayne (Christian Sloan). A part of the cover-up is hiding Dwayne's car in Swedlow Swamp. However, the car actually belonged to Darla Dickenson (Azura Skye), Dwayne's ex-girlfriend.
Darla and Marcel, the owner of the hostile that Chic used to live at, track down Chic at the Cooper residence and blackmail the Coopers into paying for the car. However, they try to push it further, prompting Jughead to kick down the front door with a dozen Southside Serpents to intimidate Darla and Marcel into taking the money and leaving.
5 The River Vixens Performing Outside A Prison
After being framed for murder, Archie is sent to a juvenile detention facility. Among the things that his friends do for him while he's locked up is a performance of Riverdale's cheerleader squad, the River Vixens.
Veronica, Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch), Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray), and the rest of the Vixens perfoom "Jailhouse Rock" by Elvis Presley outside the prison's fence while Archie and the rest of the inmates go wild in the yard.
4 Archie Being Saved From Murder By A Preteen With A Slingshot
The aforementioned Penny Peabody later tries to kill Archie for his close friendship with Jughead Jones. She grabs a knife and gets ready to slit his throat, and it looks like all is over for him.
This is interrupted by Jellybean Jones (Trinity Likins), Jughead's younger sister who was about 10-12 at the time. Somehow, this plucky kid managed to subdue Penny by nailing her with a slingshot in a very Bart Simpson-esque scene.
3 Betty Almost Boiling Another Student Alive In A Jacuzzi
In the first season of Riverdale, Betty and Veronica decide to get some revenge on the more misogynistic boys of Riverdale High, who had begun marking girls with "sticky maple" to imply that they were promiscuous. This leads to Betty and Veronica leading Chuck Clayton (Jordan Calloway), one of the said boys, into a jacuzzi and handcuffing him.
Betty then begins turning up the heat to get him to admit what he's done and rat out the others involved. This continues far beyond anything remotely, safe as Betty's "Dark Betty" personality takes over.
2 Josie And The Pussycats Performing "Milkshake" On A Roof
In a more uncomfortable scene, Cheryl Blossom joins up with Josie and the Pussycats to put on a performance on the roof of Pop's Chock'Lit Shoppe to help promote the restauraunt and keep it from having to close down.
That's all well and good, but the trio decide to perform "Milkshake" by Kelis. This song is likely a joke on the fact that Pop's serves milkshakes, but that doesn't change the fact that these teenage characters are singing a song that is widely accepted to be about something far more sexual in nature.
1 Archie's Relationship With His Teacher, Ms. Grundy
The wildest thing about Riverdale remains one of the first major twists revealed in the show: Archie Andrew's romantic relationship with his teacher, Ms. Grundy (Sarah Habel). Archie is a teenager, and he's in a relationship with one of his adult high school teachers.
The show takes a very weird approach to this as well and seems unwilling approach how messed up it all is. Ms. Grundy only gets exiled from Riverdale for what she did. She does get brutally garroted by the Black Hood with a violin string later in the series, and it's almost presented as karmic punishment for continuing to have relationships with minors. The messaging is mixed and weird to say the least.