What Is HAPPENING on ‘Riverdale’? An ‘American Psycho: The Musical’ Episode!?

All I have wanted out of The CW’s Riverdale (and one of the reasons that I have kept up with the show at all) is for them to tackle American Psycho: The Musical. You might be thinking to yourself “Now Rachel, why would they do that?” Well, friends, it’s because Riverdale creator and writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was responsible for the book of American Psycho: The Musical, and so I just had a hope that he’d one day bring the musical to the absolutely absurd town.

Thankfully, it’s finally happening. The musical (which has music by Duncan Sheik) is season 6’s musical episode and includes the return of Kiernan Shipka’s Sabrina! But if you haven’t been keeping up with the show (I don’t fully blame you), you might be wondering how you’re going to understand what’s going on, and so I am here to help you understand what has happened to Riverdale to the best of my ability.

So what’s happening on Riverdale?

If you didn’t know, there’s been a time jump, so our favorite teens are no longer teenagers, but actually closer to the ages of the actors playing them. The town of Riverdale now has all of the high schoolers back as teachers in some way or another (despite none of them having degrees), which includes Betty teaching shop (I think?) while also being an FBI agent, and Jughead being a writer, waiter, and English teacher—oh, not to mention Veronica teaching at the school and owning a casino, as well as having her own Uncut Gems-esque story back in New York.

All of that is happening while the crew also went into an alternate universe where Archie was sacrificed so that Betty could have his baby (which vanished), and slowly, everyone began dying until they realized that this universe happened because a bomb was going to go off in their original timeline.

Got all that?

You’d think that after a bomb went off in Archie’s house, with our main cast nearby, we’d say goodbye to some of our favorite characters, right? Wrong! Now they have superpowers. Jughead was in the garage at the time, and while he lost his hearing, he can now read minds, so it works out. Betty can read auras and knows when someone is up to no good, and Archie is invincible. You may have seen this scene of him eating a poisoned scone going around …

The town is currently being terrorized by Percival Pickens, a man who can control minds who is using his power to disrupt everyone’s lives (including Kevin Keller, forcing him to try and steal his baby away from Toni Topaz). Pair that with the death of Hiram Lodge, Veronica’s mother being on The Real Housewives of New York, and Alice Cooper having a single-episode arc of Next to Normal to get over the death of Polly (honestly, that might have been in the alternate universe—it’s really hard to remember at this point) and the town of Riverdale is…well, a mess.

At least Jughead has a seemingly health relationship with Pop’s granddaughter, Tabitha Tate. There are other stories that are important but probably won’t play into your understanding of an American Psycho inspired episode, but I’m here if you have questions.

I want it all (wooh-ohhhhh)

Now, tying all of this into American Psycho: The Musical might not be as easy as it once would have been (looking at the inclusion of Brett Weston Wallis), but still, it should work for the story given Percival Pickens and the mind control aspect of the show. And this is Riverdale, after all. It will surely be far from the most absurd thing that’s happened.

Is this going to be bad? Probably, but I don’t really care. I’m just excited to have another recorded version of American Psycho: The Musical to go back to since they never did a Broadway cast recording. This does mean that I must keep watching Riverdale to know what’s happening and, to be honest, it’s fun.

(image: Netflix)