‘Riverdale’: Let’s Stop Making Fun of Archie, Now That He’s Dead

Spoilers for Riverdale “Chapter Forty-Four: No Exit” past this point.

Archie is not dead on Riverdale. KJ Apa is not leaving the show. Neither of those things are true. But let’s play a little game for a moment, and pretend that the shocking end of “Chapter Forty-Four: No Exit” is our last glimpse of Riverdale’s favorite son. Mainly because in a sense, it probably is. Archie Andrews will return, but the real Archie Andrews can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Because he’s dead.

And thanks to some nuanced writing from the episode’s scribe Arabella Anderson and a heartbreaking performance from Apa, it’s clearly time to put to rest all our jokes about dumb Archie, for good.

A bit of recap, first. After being mauled by a bear (no, I’m not joking), Archie was unable to get help and lay feverishly in his bed, hallucinating that he was finally taking down his old enemies The Black Hood and Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos). And then, he confronted his greatest enemy of all. In a clear shout-out to Empire Strikes Back (narration at the top of the episode teased that Archie is the Luke Skywalker of the story), Archie confronted his greatest fear, and struck him down… Only, of course, his greatest enemy is himself.

His dad Fred (Luke Perry) is there in the dream, too, and they have a pretty rough conversation — even if it is just Archie imagining the whole thing.

“You don’t have to do this, son,” Fred says.

“He’s the one who got me into this trouble,” Archie replies, looking at his own, sleeping body in his bed at home. “Not The Black Hood. Not The Gargoyle King, not Hiram Lodge. Him. It’s the only way.”

Fred tries other tactics, telling Archie that he could forgive himself, and he’s not the villain he thinks he is. He even offers, like Yoda before him, that there is another way home. The path of the light side, instead of the dark. But Archie isn’t hearing any of it.

“If I ever want to go back to Riverdale again,” Archie says as tears stream down his face, “I have to destroy that part of me that’s weak… That’s bad… That’s stupid.”

And then as Dream Daddy implores him to stop, Archie picks up his bat and smashes himself over and over again, until there’s nothing left. When we get back to the real world, Archie is discovered by two park rangers lying, covered in blood on his bed, still. He’s seemingly dead.

Look, there have been plenty of jokes about Archie’s intelligence on this show. He’s acted like a dumb puppy, jumping around and causing more problems that he solves. That’s part and parcel with the character from the comics, who often bungles his way into crazy mix-ups; though on Riverdale, that manifests as murder and mayhem.

This scene undercuts all of that. Through the writing and performance, you can see Archie struggling against his own limitations, particularly the ones imposed by his intelligence (or lack thereof). He’s not necessarily Lennie from “Of Mice and Men” level, but giving a peek inside Archie’s psyche and realizing he’s just smart enough to realize how dumb he is, is a punch in the gut. He wants to be better, he wants to be stronger, but right now, he can’t break through that wall in his brain that allows him to act like a normal, intelligent person. While Jughead (Cole Sprouse) and Betty (Lili Reinhart) crack cases, and Veronica (Camila Mendes) runs two businesses, Archie can barely hold a gang of shirtless boy vigilantes together.

The worst part? He knows it. We’ve complained about his behavior for three seasons, but Archie’s whole life has been living up to this moment. It’s enjoyable to poke fun at a TV character who acts like an idiot. It’s a lot less fun to do that with a TV character who is aware they’re being stupid, and just can’t change their behavior. With one phrase, mockery turns to pathos.

So yeah, the old Archie is dead; but the new one will hopefully come back different, and maybe smarter. You could certainly make arguments about how much a person can actually change, even with the monumental events someone like Archie has gone through. But for now, the Archie that’s weak, that’s bad, that’s stupid… Is gone. Long live the new Archie.