Riverdale’s Season 6 Finale Made the Show Even More Insane

If you watched final night time’s Riverdale season six finale, I assume you’re nonetheless reeling from the insanity that simply went down. If you didn’t, right here’s what occurred on the present that makes Gotham appear like a low-key, down-to-earth drama.

Trying to elucidate every little thing that’s occurred on Riverdale this season is an inconceivable process, however to sum it up: Hiram Lodge tried to explode Archie with a bomb, which as an alternative in some way gave the primary solid quite a lot of superpowers and allowed a darkish sorcerer named Percival Pickens to reach on the town from one other dimension. Also, Cheryl Blossom grew to become a witch (unrelated). Archie and the gang managed to homicide Percival earlier than he was in a position to take over the city—each time journey and Satan had been concerned—however not earlier than he was in a position to redirect Bailey’s Comet (not a typo) to move immediately at Riverdale. This is rather a lot, and I’ve barely scratched the floor of what’s occurred in season six, and I gained’t even get into how the lance that pierced the aspect of Jesus whereas he was on the cross ended up in a Riverdale pawn store.

So that’s the place “Night of the Comet” begins, with the Riverdalians trapped on the town by Percival’s magic and someday left earlier than the comet hits. Luckily, Veronica has a hell of an concept: to make use of her poison powers to, uh, in some way leech Archie’s invulnerability, Betty’s potential to see evil auras, Jughead’s telepathy, and Tabitha’s time-travel potential into herself, after which cross them to Cheryl by way of a kiss. This works, as we discover out when Veronica shoots Cheryl out of goddamned nowhere and the bullet doesn’t pierce her pores and skin.

The hope is that Cheryl will be capable of harness the vitality of these superpowers to gasoline her Phoenix hearth magic—she has Phoenix hearth magic, by the way in which, and attire like Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey from X-Men: The Last Stand to show it—to soften the comet earlier than it hits, with out draining her of the ability she must maintain all of the useless folks she’s been resurrecting alive. This works, but it surely additionally has a really curious aspect impact, in that all of a sudden it’s 1955, and Archie and the gang are again in highschool and every little thing appears joyful and harmless and pure and Jughead’s sporting his precise hat from the comics, which appears utterly bananas in actual life (and might be seen above). Basically, Riverdale has rebooted itself to be a present concerning the precise, traditional Archie comics for the seventh and last season, and solely Jughead remembers what the previous/future was like.

This being Riverdale, I’m certain issues will get darkish and twisted sooner moderately than later, however I’m truthfully agog on the present writers’ potential to maintain topping themselves in the case of madness. I’d say the present began going off the rails again in season two, when Betty’s dad was revealed to be a serial killer and Archie fashioned a squad of masked vigilantes, after which flew thus far off the rails that when superpowers had been launched the rails had been utterly out of sight, however this… that is like Riverdale returned to the rails solely to smash via them and shatter them into one million items, every of which is formed like a whoopee cap.

What on earth will season seven be like? Will Mark Consuelos return as Veronica’s dad Hiram? Will Betty’s father not have been a serial killer? Will Cheryl’s famously useless twin brother Jason be alive? Will Riverdale even hassle to return to its “normal” timeline earlier than the collection finale? We’ll have to attend till the present returns in 2023 to search out out. Until then I’ll be staring on the above photograph of Jughead.

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