like i’m convinced that everyone who thinks riverdale is serious and takes the show at face value has never actually seen it and instead just consumes those “riverdale cringe” compilation videos on youtube
riverdale knows exactly what it’s doing. the show makes fun of its more ridiculous plot points (the serial killer genes, archie fighting a bear, seizures being contagious, jughead being called jughead) and the characters are very aware of the insanity they live in.
the show is designed to make fun of teen dramas and archie comics while also fitting in a bunch of ridiculous homages to everything from gaslight (1944) to swamp thing to the godfather. molly ringwald plays a recurring character, but they also do a breakfast club homage episode guest starring anthony michael hall, but the breakfast club still exists as a film in the riverdale universe. they have an episode called “lynchian” despite madchen amick playing a main character, and skeet ulrich of scream fame talks about using corn syrup for fake blood. a character that goes around her house in long dresses and carrying candelabrums and douses herself in blood a la carrie white and refers to her life as a “dickensian nightmare” is told that she’s a gothic heroine that behaves the way she does to cope with the tragedy in her life. a student is brutally murdered on opening night of the school musical, and there’s several suicides related to cyanide laced blue drinks, and so they decide that the next musical they’ll do is heathers. two of the antagonists of season four are named donna sweett and bret weston wallis, and they attend a school called stonewall prep (riverdale’s showrunner is a gay man), and they attempt to murder jughead after bringing him into their secret society. the other antagonist of season four is their new school principal, who the gang want to murder because he cancelled their senior prom (partially due to three students being killed by a man with a hook for a hand at their junior prom), and it’s only after they get him fired and he tells them that riverdale is not a normal town and they need to prepare for the real world, that he was just trying to help them.
and like any good comedy, it throws in enough heart and warmth to make you care about the characters and their relationships.
just because riverdale doesn’t spoon fed the satirical elements to its viewers doesn’t mean it’s ever tried to hide it. you cannot claim to understand media and the genre of comedy if you watch riverdale and think “wow this show is not even remotely self aware and wants me to take it very seriously.” riverdale is a show that exists solely for entertainment purposes. the dialogue is silly, the plots are ridiculous, and the characters are insane, but all of this is deliberate.
