Hey there! We noticed you from across the quad and we absolutely love your vibe. Would you mind if we treated you to a milkshake? Photo: The CW Last night, after seven mind-bogglingly thrilling seasons and 136 episodes, the brilliant pilot Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and his incredible team from Riverdale finally brought their wild ride to a perfect landing. And wow, did they nail it! We always had high expectations for this eccentric CW teen soap opera, what with its gang wars, bear attacks, and ghostly encounters. We knew it was going to end in a spectacular fashion. And yes, the final two episodes of the show were typically bizarre, unique only to Riverdale. But they were also deeply emotional, self-aware, and wholeheartedly embraced the teen soap genre that made the series so captivating. After all these years, what other show on any network could inspire headlines like “The ‘Riverdale’ series finale reveals that Betty, Jughead, Archie, and Veronica were all in a quad relationship with each other for a year?” The ‘Riverdale’ series finale reveals that Betty, Jughead, Archie, and Veronica were all in a quad relationship with each other for a year. pic.twitter.com/mMS2sQbkFY— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 24, 2023 A quad! For those who may have lost track after the first season, when things got crazy with the Red Circle and the Gargoyle King, there’s a lot to catch up on to make sense of all this. Riverdale delved into the supernatural a long time ago. By season five, the show had escalated both its campiness and its dark undertones to a point where Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) was an FBI agent who got kidnapped and trapped in a well, akin to the senator’s daughter in “Silence of the Lambs”. Her brother turned out to be a psychopath marrying another psychopath who had stolen his identity, and her sister, a cult escapee and sex worker, went missing and was later found dead on a mysterious road known only as the Lost Highway. By season six, the show introduced magic, superpowers, parallel dimensions, and time travel. The season ended with a bang, as a psychic blast sent the characters back in time to the 1950s, where they suddenly found themselves as high school juniors. This is the setting for the final season. Apart from the trademark Riverdale peculiarity of having actors in their late 20s and early 30s portray innocent teenagers of the 1950s who are experiencing things like sex for the first time and using phrases such as “golly” and “gee whiz,” the time travel element infused the show with a simplicity and lightness that had been absent for years. Reggie (Charles Melton) was no longer a sleazy bully but a charming farm boy going through life’s milestones alongside his best friend Archie (KJ Apa). Veronica (Camila Mendes) didn’t have to confront her abusive crime-lord father; instead, her parents were the stars of “America’s #1 sitcom, Oh Mija.” Mrs. Grundy wasn’t grooming Archie; she was encouraging his dreams of quitting the basketball team and pursuing poetry, against his uncle’s wishes. This season was pure fan service. It understood the dynamic between the characters, allowed room for slice-of-life plotlines, and created opportunities for unique relationships to form. In the season premiere, Tabitha Tate (Erinn Westbrook), the town’s guardian angel with the power to bend time, tells Jughead (the only one who still remembers the old timeline, although he will forget it after sharing a memory-wiping magic kiss with Tabitha), “You all have to live your lives here in the ’50s to ensure that the moral arc of this universe bends towards justice.” Essentially, she sets up the entire season as an inclusive 1950s homage that not only embraces colorblind casting but also creates an optimistic alternate history by undoing past injustices. This means that the characters, despite being in the ’50s, openly express their sexuality, engage in interracial relationships, challenge societal norms, fight McCarthyism, oppose the Hays Code, expose Russian spies, and support the civil rights movement, all while paying homage to various B-movie genres like nudie films and pulp horror. It’s an absolute blast! This brings us to the penultimate episode, aptly titled “The Golden Age of Television.” Now that the gang has created a better version of history, Tabitha returns with a color TV and tells Jughead to tune in. And guess what’s on the screen? The very first episode of Riverdale! After catching up on the entire series, which still exists within the show and forms a perplexing logic puzzle, Jughead remembers his past life. With tears in his eyes, he exclaims, “Neat,” before switching back to using present-day slang. Tabitha explains that they can’t magically return to the present day in this new timeline; they have to live out their days here and decide if they want to remember their other adventures. So, one by one, the cast of Riverdale watches Riverdale. We, as viewers, watch the Riverdale characters watch Riverdale and witness their reactions to the events of their own lives in the show. It’s a surreal experience and sets the stage for the final episode, “Goodbye, Riverdale”. The episode opens with an 86-year-old Betty Cooper reading Jughead’s obituary, realizing that she’s the last surviving member of their friend group. The entire episode is like one long post-credits scene, set in the ’50s on the last day of school. It bids farewell to each character as they move on to the next chapter of their lives, showcasing how they live and eventually pass away: • Archie’s mom (Molly Ringwald) meets a woman named Brooke and discovers her own sexuality.• Alice becomes a stewardess, performs a heroic rescue like Sully, and later becomes a pilot.• Fangs dies in a bus crash shortly after leaving town.• Veronica becomes a successful studio executive, with two Oscars to her name, and is buried in Hollywood Forever cemetery.• Archie moves to the West Coast, starts a family, and becomes a construction worker.• Reggie joins the Lakers and has two athletic sons.• Kevin and Clay move to New York City, where Clay becomes a professor and Kevin writes musicals. They live well into their 80s.• Betty’s life embodies the spirits of Helen Gurley Brown and Gloria Steinem.• Jughead founds a Riverdale version of MAD Magazine, known as “Madhouse.”• Cheryl and Toni become artists and activists, and they have a son named Dale, named after Riverdale itself. They both pass away peacefully after leading vibrant and fulfilling lives. And yes, as Kevin reminds Betty in the ’50s, “Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly forgotten that you, Archie, Veronica, and Jughead have been in a quad relationship this entire last year!” This includes numerous romantic entanglements between Betty and Veronica, more frequent than one might expect. As noted by Twitter user @korysverse, “There’s something about writers creating an incredible universe…”
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