10 Best 'Riverdale' Easter Eggs and References of 2017

Sabrina the Teenage Witch

This was one of the most major Easter eggs to be unveiled in season one, appearing in the finale episode "The Sweet Hereafter."

After months of fans anticipating Sabrina Spellman's involvement in the show, fans sort of got their wish...but probably not how they'd hoped. Instead of Sabrina actually debuting on the show, we got to see FP Jones holding one of Sabrina's comic books, which ended up being Chilling Adventures in Sorcery #1.

The Easter egg still hasn't amounted much within the world of Riverdale, but it's a sign of what's to come. The show's first spinoff series will be (you guessed it) Sabrina, which currently has a two-season order at Netflix.

Wilbur Wilkin

Another name in the Archie Comics world - albeit one much more obscure - came up in season two's "The Town That Dreaded Sundown."

The episode saw Archie taking his Black Hood vendetta to another level, including to buy a gun. To do so, Archie offered up a fake ID card with a pretty interesting name - Wilbur Wilkin.

So, who is Wilbur Wilkins? He's an obscure character from deep in Archie Comics history. The character comes from Wilbur Comics, a book published between 1944 and 1965, though in the title the character's name is Wilbur Wilkin. Wilkin is a contemporary of Archie in comics, making his first appearance in Zip Comics #18 three months before Archie made his first appearance. The character also appeared in several other Archie comics as a backup feature in Pep Comics.

Again, he might not be the most mainstream character, and he probably won't make his way onto the world of Riverdale. But that nod was still pretty clever, and probably made the more faithful Archie Comics readers chuckle.

The Red Circle

Related to Archie's vigilante quest is the Red Circle, a name that sets up a pretty strange issue of canon within the Riverdale universe.

Throughout Riverdale's first season, Archie's bedroom was filled with DC Comics issues and various posters (likely due to EP Greg Berlanti's ties to the Arrowverse). As the sophomore season rolled on, though, all of the DC titles changed to Red Circle, a.k.a. Archie Comics' superhero-related imprint.

In the long run, this probably had one of the biggest effects on the show, as Riverdale's version of the group took the name of the Red Circle to a completely different level (thanks to some spray paint and a Chippendales-esque video).

Jingle Jangle

Yes, that name that you've heard over and over again in season two is technically an Easter egg - and a pretty clever one at that.

Jingle Jangle, the Pixie Stick-shaped party drug that has been terrorizing the town all throughout season two, shares its name with a popular novelty song by The Archies, the fictional garage band formed by Archie and his friends. The psychedelic song ended up being the band's second most popular hit, behind the iconic "Sugar, Sugar".

As fans have seen, Jingle Jangle has had a pretty profound impact on Riverdale, although it's unclear how it will factor into the remainder of the season. Either way, it's made the show's cast members laugh, and caused fans to never look at Trader Joe's the same way again.

'Les Miserables'

This reference is much more of the "blink and you'll miss it" variety, but it brought up a lot for the fans that did catch it.

In "Death Proof", Archie and Jughead went to visit FP in jail, where his prison uniform number was shown to be 24601. For fans of Les Miserables, that certainly raised an eyebrow or two, as its the same number that Jean Valjean is given within the iconic novel.

While the Easter egg definitely is more subtle, it sort of represents something that FP and Jean Valjean have in common. In Les Miserables, Valjean is punished significantly beyond what his crime warranted, as he was thrown into prison for years (and hunted down by Javert) for stealing a loaf of bread for his family. Considering FP's messy ties to Jason Blossom's murder, his motivation for protecting Jughead, and the way he's been punished by the town of Riverdale, that number certainly seems fitting.

Pickens Park

That same episode gave fans another relatively small Easter egg, as the gang was tasked with doing community service by picking up trash in a park. The park had a familiar name for fans of Archie Comics lore - Pickens Park.

While General Pickens himself is generally just referenced as part of local history, Pickens Park has appeared as a setting for some unusual adventures. The park appears in a Jughead's Time Police story -– at least the battlefield version of it -– where a future clone of Jughead goes back into time (alongside regular Jughead and a future descendant of Archie, January McAndrews who are tasked with preserving history) to the Civil War where he takes the alias of Pickens and becomes a hero before returning to his own time.

When he leaves and is presumed dead, Pickens isn't quite yet a general. Maybe he got a posthumous promotion.

"Death of Archie"

Another Archie Comics nod - albeit a much more macabre one - occurred in the season one finale.

As fans will probably remember, season one ended with the tragic - and ambiguous - shooting of Fred Andrews. Archie quickly ran to comfort him on the floor of Pop's Chock-Lit Shoppe, in a shot that looked familiar to those who had read some of Archie's more recent ventures.

The shot almost directly paralleled the cover of "Death of Archie", a highly-publicized storyline that ran a few years back. While Fred ultimately survived the attack, this visual parallel certainly left fans uneasy during the show's summer hiatus.

'Twin Peaks'

By now, it's no secret that Riverdale draws inspiration from Twin Peaks. (Heck, that was how the show essentially got pitched in the first place.) Still, one of season one's earliest Easter eggs - and the placement of it - certainly tickled some fans' fancy.

In the show's second ever episode, Betty and Alice were shown having a conversation in Betty's bedroom. In the background was a subtle nod to the world of Twin Peaks, with two owl bookends on Betty's desk. This of course, is a reference to one of the show's most iconic phrases: "The owls are not what they seem."

This nod felt pretty perfect, especially since it occurred while Alice (played by Twin Peaks alum Madchen Amick) was onscreen. And in the process, it marked the first of several nods back and forth between the two shows.

H.P. Lovecraft

Also in the "blink and you'll miss it" category - so much so that it took some fans a solid week to discover it - was a pretty unique tie to the world of H.P. Lovecraft.

When Jughead and Archie are tasked with delivering a crate of drugs for Penny Peabody, the crate reads "Miskatonic University, via H.P. Lovecraft. Polar Expedition Jan. 13, 1923." This, of course, is a reference to a wide array of the horror writer's stories, including "At the Mountain of Madness" and "Herbert West-Reanimator."

Oddly enough, this does have some link to the Archie Comics lore, with Cthulu appearing in an issue of Afterlife with Archie and essentially linking the two comic universes together. With Sabrina still in development, there's no telling if the live-action Archie world will soon do the same.

The Episode Titles Themselves

And finally, we'd be remissed if we didn't mention the most prominent Easter eggs in Riverdale - the titles of each episode.

As some fans quickly began to notice, each episode takes its title from the name of a movie, ranging from teen dramedies to horror classics and everything in between. This trend has continued in season two, making a few exceptions for titles like the upcoming "The Wicked + The Divine".

Throughout Riverdale, these titles have coordinated pretty perfectly with the plots of each episode, while keeping in line with that timeless aesthetic that the show has. And along the way, it's created a few pretty perfect coincidences, including with "The Watcher in the Woods" and "Tales from the Darkside".