The 7 Strangest ‘Riverdale’ Episodes So Far
Although the show has always been off-the-walls crazy, UFOs and superpowers didn’t seem to be in the cards when the show first premiered. Yet, with a turn of events, Riverdale (with a brief stop in Rivervale) is more supernatural than ever, and even Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) has arrived. The teenage witch from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was always set to live in the same universe as Archie (KJ Apa) and co., but that the main four would become entrenched in the supernatural world themselves in the way they have wasn’t something anyone could’ve expected.
Riverdale has come so far from its first season when “weird” was associated with Jughead Jones’ (Cole Sprouse) “I’m a weirdo” speech. It no longer relies on popular tropes like love triangles, outcasts, and dysfunctional families; nowadays, magic is involved. Yet the show’s reputation of having the weirdest and most over-the-top storylines to come out of this decade precedes the sixth season. Do you remember the cult-like The Farm, Betty Cooper’s (Lili Reinhart) serial killer gene, high school serpents in gangs seemingly being normal, or even Jingle Jangle?
Riverdale is often described as camp and just downright odd, but still, people tune in each week (or stream on Netflix). And in honor of the sixth season indicating that things are just going to keep getting stranger and stranger (plagues! everyone’s dying but coming back!), it’s time to look back on the CW drama’s strangest episodes so far.
Riverdale, Sundays, 8/7c, The CW
"Chapter Thirty-Seven: Fortune and Men’s Eyes" (Season 3 Episode 2)
Remember when Archie was in juvie, giving speeches to his fellow young law-breakers about the “triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of high school football”? (Read the prison yard, Arch!)
But that’s not the only thing that was riotously off-kilter for a series about high school students. The Farm had come to the forefront and recruited Polly (Tiera Skovbye) and Alice Cooper (Mädchen Amick), or so it seemed. There was a villain known as the Gargoyle King. Veronica (Camila Mendes) was running Pop’s and opening a speakeasy. And to think: In just a couple seasons, they’d be heading off to college and into the real world, with people whose lives hadn’t included anything like that.
"Chapter Fifty-One: Big Fun" (Season 3 Episode 16)
Although the tradition didn’t start in the first season, an annual musical has become expected. (Did we ever see them in drama club besides those singular episodes? No. And sure, they are all musically inclined which they do demonstrate in the occasional performance, but this still seems to be a random group of people who kept getting cast over and over in the school musical.)
The best or let’s say weirdest musical episode yet is the one that combined the craziness of Riverdale’s overarching subplots the best, “Big Fun” in Season 3. The Farm had started to infiltrate the school and sponsored its musical, Heathers. As with Carrie, the music from Heathers was used in the episode to express everyone’s feelings, especially the core four. But sprinkling a little Glee into Riverdale was normal. What still stands out to this day was the official introduction of The Farm’s ominous leader, Edgar Evernever (Chad Michael Murray), in the creepiest way possible: that rhythmic clapping with his followers, all dressed in white.
"Chapter Sixty: Dog Day Afternoon" (Season 4 Episode 3)
Things with The Farm just kept getting more and more absurd (again, high school students, as well as adults were involved!) — yet believable for a cult — as the storyline continued (though at that point, it was easy to chalk it up to it being Riverdale).
Originally inspired by Netflix docuseries Wild Wild Country, The Farm started off as what seemed to be a slightly manipulative scheme, but became so much worse. Not only did they use dangerous therapy techniques, have a member that pretended to be a teenager to lure in younger people, and perform illegal surgeries to harvest organs from their members and sell them for profit, but Edgar also had the time to build a rocket and make a scheme to kill all of his disciples. Sure, this was an escape plan, but he still had a comic book-like rocket ready, as well as a star-spangled-banner-inspired jumpsuit.
"Chapter Ninety-Three: Dance of Death" (Season 5 Episode 17)
Season 5 saw the Riverdale group graduate high school before a time jump took them seven years into the future. With the town disintegrating, everyone ended up returning, and at one point, it looked like Mothmen actually existed. And given everything else that had happened so far and the path the show was on, we didn’t question it. In fact, it was odder that there wasn’t an extraterrestrial species in Riverdale since the ‘70s. (Instead, countless people had hallucinated them.)
It was a story made up by The Starkweathers, a family with some connections to the Blossoms: a couple unable to have kids themselves ultimately adopted half a dozen kids that were the biological children — from affairs — of Nana Rose’s (Barbara Wallace) late husband. They lived in the woods and tried to keep everyone out, and therefore the mythical Mothmen were born. Jughead and Tabitha Tate (Erinn Westbrook) even encountered one of the kids, a now old man called Dreyfus (John Prowse).
"Chapter One Hundred: The Jughead Paradox" (Season 6 Episode 5)
With the five-part event Rivervale, our favorite characters were taken to a parallel universe, one where magic and all things supernatural were a common occurrence. People could even be sacrificed, then resurrected, like Archie. And who could forget about those comic books (which have continued to be part of the show)? With the conclusion of the event came multiple Jugheads (including the narrator), Archie the serial killer, trying to find a way to resurrect his father, and even Ross Butler’s Season 1 version of Reggie Mantle (now played by Charles Melton).
"Chapter One Hundred and Nine: Venomous" (Season 6 Episode 14)
By this episode, we’d adapted to the supernatural world now part of the series. The latest member of the powered club: Veronica, with a deadly kiss, and Archie, with his invulnerability, is the only one able to survive it… so Betty offered up her boyfriend so V’s last kiss wasn’t Reggie. (Cue the official re-introduction of that love triangle as the season moved forward. It’s like Riverdale trying to be normal at times in the middle of the madness!) And when better to have Betty’s serial killer genes become a major plot point again? Plus, Jughead worked on expanding his powers (and remembered his and Betty’s relationship) and Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) helped save Archie find a way around his palladium weakness with soup and her fiery powers. Although this episode isn’t exactly action-packed, it’s a fun and quirky watch to catch up with all the recent changes.
"Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen: The Witches of Riverdale" (Season 6 Episode 19)
After Percival (Chris O’Shea) let loose plagues on the town, Archie, Jughead, Toni (Vanessa Morgan), Fangs (Drew Ray Tanner), and Nana Rose were among those killed as firstborns. Who better to turn to for help than Sabrina herself, to bring them back from the dead? That was just the beginning of the craziness. The dead were in the Sweet Hereafter (heaven), and no one was jumping to leave behind their “lives” there to return to Riverdale. Archie was married to Betty, and they had two kids. Jughead had an endless supply of burgers and worked on his comics in Pop’s. Toni and Fangs finally resolved the war between the Serpents and the Ghoulies. Nana Rose had her family again, including Polly (Tiera Skovbye) and Jason (Trevor Stines).
Sabrina managed to get herself a bit more time with her dead boyfriend, Nick (Gavin Leatherwood in CAOS), in Jughead’s body. Meanwhile, Veronica (after a weak excuse for why Betty couldn’t go for Archie, to continue to fan the triangle flames), Tabitha, and Cheryl first died to try to bring back their loved ones, then it turned out Cheryl had phoenix powers she could use to accomplish the task when no one wanted to return. Cheryl even was able to use the powers she just learned she had to bring Polly and Jason back from the dead, too. Riverdale just keeps getting wilder and wilder…
