Draft Riverdale News Today

Riverdale delivered a funny, emotional, meta finale to conclude one of the wildest teen soaps television's ever seen

Though the town’s key twentysomethings have converged on Riverdale High as a new locus of action, “Back To School” nonetheless takes on the fragmented feeling of the downbeat episodes that fill out the midsection of each season. We’ve got some sturdy narrative potential from the recruitment of the hottest teaching faculty in human history, guaranteed to yield classfuls of A’s in at least economics and shopwork, and Archie’s plotline works comfortably within that sphere. But we’ve ...

Upon last week’s return to a changed Riverdale seven years into our present, I compared the lamentable state of the town to J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, a reference point the latest episode grabs onto and clutches for dear life. With all the characters somewhat settled in their new lives (with the exception of Jughead, who doesn’t have two thin dimes to rub together, unless he Jokerfies himself into a Vance double by writing Elegy For A Small Town, but hold on, we’re getting there), ...

Riverdale ends its time in as a teen drama (in setting, anyway), which could be the death of the show or the beginning of its revitalization.

“Chapter Seventy-Eight: The Preppy Murders” muddles through the work of getting the show’s most tedious ducks all in a row before we hurtle into the future.