49 Wildest Riverdale Plotlines

Since its debut in 2017, Riverdale has proven itself to be one of the most deliciously deranged teen dramas in TV history, an Archie Comics-meets-Twin Peaks fever dream that never takes a breath or a reality check. We’ve rounded up seven plotlines from seven seasons apiece to prove it.

Riverdale seasons 7×7

Season 1 (2017)

1. Archie has a secret affair with his music teacher, Ms. Grundy, who appears to be much younger than him.
2. Veronica arrives in Riverdale from New York, ready to stir up trouble.
3. Local royalty Cheryl is already in Riverdale, stirring up trouble.
4. Josie and the Pussycats are poised for musical stardom as soon as they write a second song.
5. Veronica kisses Betty during a cheerleading routine, setting the stage for Riverdale to become the teen lesbian capital of the Northeast.
6. Archie’s mom turns out to be Molly Ringwald.
7. Jason’s murder is revealed to be tied to a Blossom family maple syrup/heroin transport side business, which we all should have seen coming.

Season 2 (2017–2018)

1. Archie is out for revenge against his father’s (Luke Perry) shooter, who appears to be much younger than him (both the shooter and dad).
2. Betty finds time to become a school newspaper reporter and a black-wigged dominatrix/stripper.
3. Jughead joins the Southside Serpents, a motorcycle cosplay gang that hangs out at the Whyte Wyrm bar.
4. Pop’s Diner faces closure, which would leave Riverdale without its only restaurant. (No one wants to eat at the Whyte Wyrm.)
5. Betty and Jughead become “Bughead,” Veronica and Archie become “Varchie,” and Cheryl and Toni become … “Choni.”
6. Riverdale drops the first of far too many singing episodes, “Carrie: The Musical.”
7. The Black Hood murders Ms. Grundy with a cello bow, which still sounds better than “Carrie: The Musical.”

Season 3 (2018–2019)

1. Archie stands trial for murder as a teenager, even though he now appears to be in his early 40s.
2. The street drug Fizzle Rocks, a carbonated form of LSD, pops up in Riverdale, though the show’s writers have been suspected of using it since season 1.
3. Archie joins a fight club in jail, and the Vixens cheerleaders show up to shake their pom-poms in support.
4. Archie fights a bear in the woods without the aid of cheerleaders.
5. Veronica opens a speakeasy in the basement of Pop’s Diner, serving her own specialty maple rum.
6. It’s revealed that Cheryl keeps the embalmed corpse of her brother Jason around for the occasional chat.
7. The black-market-organ-harvesting Farm and its cult leader (Chad Michael Murray) are introduced during a “Heathers” musical episode.

Season 4 (2019–2020)

1. Archie begins a new year at Riverdale High as a senior citizen—correction, just senior.
2. Kevin and Reggie get into the tickle-fetish internet video business.
3. Jughead fakes his death to smoke out the secret Quill & Skull Society at a prep school.
4. Betty’s mom Alice shoots and kills The Farm’s cult leader before he escapes on a rocket dressed as Evel Knievel.
5. Cheryl learns that the haunted doll vexing her is actually possessed by the spirit of Julian, the brother she absorbed in the womb.
6. Betty discovers that she carries a “serial killer gene,” which explains the tight ponytail.
7. Riverdale’s lone redeeming musical episode arrives in the form of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

Season 5 (2021)

1. Archie loses a boxing match to KO Kelly who, despite technically being 10 years older, looks a decade younger than his opponent.
2. Betty and Jughead sneak into a rave to watch snuff films, like all the best raves show.
3. The gang graduates high school, despite having little time to complete any schoolwork over the past four seasons.
4. After a seven-year time jump, Archie, Betty, Jughead, and Veronica reunite in Riverdale and soon become teachers at their old high school, now privatized by Cheryl.
5. Jughead has an alien encounter, which later leads to him tripping on mushrooms. (Fizzle Rocks are no longer in supply locally.)
6. Veronica kills her ex-husband for trying to kill her new (again) love interest Archie, then breaks up with Archie (again).
7. Just as Archie and Betty are about to have sex, Veronica’s father blows up Archie’s house—season finale cliffhanger!

Season 6 (2021–2022)

1. Riverdale reality is somehow reset, and everything is fine—except for Cheryl cutting out Archie’s arthritic heart to save the season’s maple harvest.
2. Satan and a malicious ghost drop into town for a few episodes. NBD.
3. Riverdale reality is reset again, and now the gang has superpowers.
4. Cheryl and Sabrina Spellman (crossing over from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) transfer Nana’s soul into Cheryl, disproving that old theory about redheads and souls.
5. Betty tracks down and murders the Trash Bag Killer, putting her genes to good use.
6. The gang kills evil Percival, but not before he can redirect the incoming Bailey’s Comet toward Riverdale.
7. The gang, collectively through Cheryl, muster all of their superpowers to destroy Bailey’s Comet before impact, which in turn sends the entire township back to 1955.

Season 7 (2023)

1. The gang is suddenly in 1955 and back in high school, all but Jughead unaware of their future selves—and only Archie still looks too elderly to be there.
2. Jughead lands a job writing graphic horror novels for Pep Comics and soon meets his favorite sci-fi writer, the familiarly-named Brad Rayberry.
3. Cheryl begins an illicit-for-1955 relationship with Toni, and Veronica and Betty fall in love with each other. Archie and Reggie are still a question mark at this moment, however.
4. Veronica buys The Babylonium, a local movie theater, to show B-movies and stag films—Ronnie’s always working a new business angle.
5. “Archie: The Musical” happens, and Archie and Reggie visit a prostitute. Both experiences are extremely uncomfortable for all of us.
6. Cheryl’s parents turn out to be the Milkman Killers and secret Russian agents, so she rats them out to the FBI. So Cheryl.
7. In the present day, 86-year-old Betty finds a way to relive her Riverdale senior year with Jughead and the gang—maybe or not with the aid of Fizzle Rocks.