Riverdale Set a New Standard for Comic Book TV Shows

It has been nearly a week since Riverdale aired its series finale, wrapping up a long-running and fascinating tenure on The CW. When the show first premiered on the network in early 2017, it stood out within the landscape of comic book-inspired television. The network had already made DC-inspired superhero shows a permanent staple, first with Smallville and then with an ever-growing number of Arrowverse shows. Nearly every other comic book show on air around that time was either also inspired by a superhero book, or was loosely adapting a comic from a different subgenre. By comparison, the sunny disposition of Archie Comics’ decades of comic digests — and the lens Riverdale initially filtered it through — seemed bizarre. And sure, the seven seasons that spun out of Riverdale were bizarre — but the show used that qualifier to its utmost advantage, earning a legion of fans and a notoriety in the pop culture landscape. 

Now that all seven seasons of Riverdale is said and done, an argument can be made that its grand story not only worked — it just might have been one of the most comic-booky comic book TV shows we’ve ever gotten.

Riverdale‘s early episodes set out to be wildly different from “your grandparent’s Archie Comics” — the entire series was kickstarted by a grisly Twin Peaks-esque murder mystery, Archie Andrews (K.J. Apa) was having a torrid love affair with his adult teacher, and supporting characters were dealing with everything from teen pregnancy to money laundering. As the show went along, its plot concerned (among many other things) incest, long-lost siblings, multiple murder plots, a moral panic over a Dungeons & Dragons knockoff, an organ-harvesting cult, and Archie literally fighting a bear. While these storylines led to moments of pain and heartache, the show regularly relished in its own absurdity. Each season featured a musical episode and at least one horror-tinged bottle episode, and the entire show was littered with pop culture ephemera — either real, or a parody of something real. Countless lines of dialogue, even something as infamous as Jughead Jones’ (Cole Sprouse) “I’m weird” speech, were delivered with an unflinching sincerity.

Stressful season-long storylines on Riverdale would culminate in moments of pure camp, like organ-harvesting cult leader Edgar Evernever (Chad Michael Murray) channeling Evel Knievel while strapped to a rocket-ship, or Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos) nearly killing Archie and Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) with a bomb strapped under their bed. Alternate universes, supernatural battles, and a season-long jump back in time to the 1950s helped the show get even more outlandish in its later seasons. After the first few seasons, a lapsed viewer or someone who only knows Archie on a casual level asking “what the hell is going on on Riverdale?” essentially became a running joke. By the time the series finale rolled around and revealed that Archie, Betty, Jughead, and Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) had cast aside their iconic love triangles in favor of a polycule, it was met equally with bafflement and appreciation by the general public. 

Take a look at any long-running comic character — DC’s Batman and Superman, Marvel’s Spider-Man, or countless pulpy indie protagonists — and you’ll see a similar pattern. The massive tapestries of their stories are filled with highs and lows, and with tales that range from subversive and gritty to whimsical and kid-friendly. But once a comic title runs on for long enough, like a Detective Comics or Action Comics, it is bound to get weirder or more inventive. Sometimes, that’s due to editorial mandates or a new creative team — but sometimes, it’s simply due to a desire to see strongly-developed characters in wildly different new scenarios. Just before Riverdale‘s finale, some of its cast members argued that the show’s absurdity received more backlash than the larger-than-life elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — and honestly, they’re right. The latter franchise’s gray-hued “world outside your window” melodrama eventually made way for extravagant elements, but very of its big swings have come close to Riverdale‘s.

But as those who were watching Riverdale week-to-week knew, amid those big swings, the show was delivering — on characterization and/or on poignant storytelling. Season 4’s premiere episode, “In Memoriam”, memorialized Fred Andrews actor Luke Perry without leaving a dry eye in the house. An argument could be made that Riverdale only got more culturally-profound in its later seasons, providing the space for its characters to grapple with elements like racism, homophobia, and women’s liberation. The show’s final two episodes (and particularly, the very last scene of the finale) also used metaphor to capture what Archie Comics represents as a piece of cultural ephemera — a timeless, good-hearted universe of storytelling that (in the words of Archie himself) is “connecting people and places.” Even as the show got weirder, and even as its characters were put through the proverbial wringer, the show still strived to leave a lasting and emotional impression.

The same can be said of the legendary comics of the past few decades. Some of the best moments in the years-long runs of Action, Detective, or even Justice League of America aren’t the ones introducing flashy new villains or world-ending stakes, they’re the ones where a protagonist or a piece of lore gets to shine in some heightened version of reality. While Riverdale certainly isn’t the only comic book TV show to operate under that mentality, its tenure feels extra special amid the new norm of the sub-genre: six-issue miniseries with underwhelming finales and teases that very rarely go somewhere. 

It is perfectly fine to adapt a television show into a comic book and focus on making it a perfectly-serviceable procedural, or making it a piece of a larger franchise’s puzzle. In fact, countless comic book TV shows have found success and praise by doing exactly that. But Riverdale illustrated a way to use the storytelling conventions of comics and television to their utmost advantage, making a narrative that’s as unpredictable and ever-changing as it is emotional and profound. Riverdale not only represents the end of an era for teen dramas on television, but it might be the last comic book television show of its kind as well.