Riverdale "Dirty Dancing" Preview Released
The CW has released a preview for "Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Four: Dirty Dancing," the seventh episode of Riverdale's seventh and final season. The episode is scheduled to air on Wednesday, May 10th and from the looks of things, Betty Cooper may just do something scandalous. After getting caught putting on a mutual peep show with Archie Andrews in their respective bedroom windows, next week will see Archie and Betty as well as the other Riverdale teens as part of the after-school dance show American Grandstand, but something happens that has Alice wanting them to cut to commercial stat. You can check out the preview below and then read on for the synopsis.
"AMERICAN GRANDSTAND" — Fearing that Betty (Lili Reinhart) is going down the wrong path, Alice (Madchen Amick) forces her to join the after-school dance show, "American Grandstand." Meanwhile, Kevin (Casey Cott) is forced by Tom (guest star Martin Cummins) to join the Riverdale High basketball team, and Veronica (Camila Mendes) finds herself cut off by her parents. KJ Apa, Cole Sprouse, Madelaine Petsch and Drew Ray Tanner also star. Jesse Warn directed the episode written by Aaron Allen.
Who — or what — is the "villain" of Riverdale's final season?
Speaking with ComicBook.com previously, series showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa explained that while previous seasons of Riverdale had very specific "big bads", this final season has a different approach to its villain. This time, the gang is dealing with society itself.
"Usually, when we talk about the season, when we're planning the season, we usually have a big bad or a villain that all of the kids are at some point or other engaging with and fighting against. And in season six, it was Percival Pickens who was an intergalactic time-traveling sorcerer. But when we were talking about this season, we really felt like the villain or what they were fighting against society was the 1950s," he said. "And that the conflict that all of our characters to some extent or other were caught up in was, how do we live honest, authentic lives that are individualistic and that allows us to be exactly who we want to be in a society that represses that and that demands conformity and that punishes anyone who falls outside of the carefully constructed mores of the 1950s, the institutions of the '50s celebrated, which is to say via traditional American family, traditional American gender roles, traditional ... a social order that has since been exploded and broken down and rebuilt time and time again since that time? So, it felt like the villain, if there was one, were the 1950s. And by the way, we have characters that symbolize that... but the big conflict was with society at large and them sort of bristling against that."
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on The CW. "Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Four: Dirty Dancing" airs on May 10th.