Riverdale season 7 review: Archie and the gang get a sendoff that's just so Riverdale
The CW show's final round features a total reset to the 1950s and, of course, plenty of dark secrets
There’s never been a better time to get onboard with Riverdale, which returns to The CW for its seventh and final season on March 29. Due to the magical comet MacGuffin in the previous season’s finale, the slate has been wiped completely clean for Archie (KJ Apa) and the gang. Relationships have been reset, diplomas have been rescinded, and some characters have even returned from the grave. It’s like watching the first season again, except the players are all old pros with easy, lived-in chemistries, and the writers are steering the ship with total confidence rather than figuring out what the show will be. And, oh yeah, it’s the 1950s, for some reason.
Outsiders will want to write this time-travel plot off as just another Riverdale head scratcher, but as creator and showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa puts it, the ’50s setting is both improbable and somehow inevitable. For longtime fans of the series, it makes total sense in a delightfully nonsensical way. And for fans of the original Archie Comics, this season is finally a payoff as it leans into the aesthetic of those classic comic books. The costuming and set pieces are just plain fun. And Jughead (Cole Sprouse) is wearing an actual crown!
In point of fact, ’50s Riverdale is the most Riverdale that Riverdale has ever been. The delicate balance of love triangle and best friendship between Archie, Betty (Lili Reinhart), and Veronica (Camila Mendes) is more satisfying than ever. As the prophecy foretold, Jughead is a genuine weirdo, living on the fringes of the friend group (and the fringes of town). Characters formerly relegated to the sidelines like Ethel Muggs (Shannon Purser) are getting their own fleshed out storylines. This is particularly gratifying in the case of Kevin Keller (Casey Cott), whose previous deal, as Jughead points out, was mostly putting on musicals and joining cults. And there’s a lot to look forward to for devoted ’shippers of Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) and Toni (Vanessa Morgan).
Our faithful narrator (and the only character who remembers the present day), Jughead, gets all the timey-wimey exposition out of the way quickly enough, and it’s good thing, too, because life in the ’50s turns out to be much more engaging. Last season made the gang into superheroes; this season requires them to be social-justice warriors. Viewers may cringe at a CW show attempting to earnestly tackle era-appropriate civil rights issues, but those moments of unvarnished sincerity are what make Riverdale truly camp. Concepts like repression and purity culture, on the other hand, lend themselves quite deliciously to the show’s core interpersonal conflicts. Generally speaking, the series is effective (if unsubtle) in proving the point that the good ol’ days weren’t so good after all.