Over the past year, Riverdale has given fans more Easter eggs and pop culture references than they’d probably know what to do with. But according to a new theory, one nod to another fan-favorite show could have deeper meaning than fans had thought.
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SyfyWire recently analyzed one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter egg, which appeared in the episode “Anatomy of a Murder”. In it, Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) bid farewell to his boyfriend Joaquin Desantos (Rob Rano), who had decided to flee town on a bus. The final destination of Joaquin’s bus was pretty specific – San Junipero, a fictional town within an episode of Black Mirror.
If you’re unfamiliar with San Junipero, here’s the (somewhat spoilery) scoop. The award-winning episode of the same name follows Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis), who meet in San Junipero and fall in love. As the episode goes on, it’s revealed that San Junipero is actually a virtual simulation, where people’s consciousnesses can be uploaded to following their death.
At the time, people took this Easter egg in a few different ways, either deciding that it meant that Joaquin was going to meet his happy queer ending, or that he was going to die. But following the more recent season of Black Mirror, another possibility has come about.
The fourth season premiere of Black Mirror, “USS Callister”, saw Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons) turn his spaceflight simulator into a realistic-seeming installment of a Star Trek-esque show. Considering the capabilities that Daly’s mod program had, who’s to say that similar mods – based around different parts of pop culture – couldn’t also be created?
That’s right. As the theory (somewhat seriously) argues, Riverdale is an artificial simulation, created by someone within the Black Mirror universe (or at least, the same universe as “USS Callister”) who is way too into the world of Archie Comics.
After all, “USS Callister” gave fans a pretty subversive take on the Trek world, something that Riverdale has certainly done with its source material as well. And who knows, maybe the Black Mirror-style “message” of Riverdale is not to mess with Jingle Jangle.
Obviously, this is just a unique way of looking at both shows, and probably doesn’t have a chance of actually becoming canon (despite both shows currently being Netflix darlings). But oddly, it wouldn’t be the first case of this happening in pop culture, as the Skrulls from Marvel Comics recently created their own Riverdale–like fake reality.
And in a way, this isn’t the first time that Riverdale‘s sense of reality has been questioned. A recent Easter egg seemed to suggest that the show is part of H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional universe, while some have seemed to suggest that Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) could have a bigger part in things than he’s been letting on.
Season four of Black Mirror is currently streaming on Netflix. Riverdale returns to The CW on Wednesday, January 17th.
