‘Riverdale’ Playing “Archie’s Party” Was the Show’s Most Deliriously Meta Moment

In the midst of several new character introductions on last night’s (October 16) Riverdale, including Dawson’s Creek‘s Kerr Smith as new principal Mr. Honey, and Supergirl guest star Sam Witwer as Jughead’s new mentor Mr. Chipping, the series had a moment so weird, so deliriously meta-textual, it nearly broke my brain. So much so, I can barely wrap my mind around how it worked in the continuity of the show: when they played the 1969 song “Archie’s Party” by The Archies, while characters from Archie Comics were on screen.

Spoilers for Riverdale Season 4, Episode 2, “Chapter Fifty-Nine: Fast Times At Riverdale High,” past this point.

The Archies, for those of you who don’t know, were a band on the 1968 animated TV series The Archie Show. In the show, Archie Andrews was lead singer and guitarist, Reggie Mantle was on bass, Jughead Jones was on drums, Veronica Lodge was on keyboards and vocals, and Betty Cooper, uh, played the tambourine. It was the ’60s folks, what can I say. In real life, the songs were recorded by singers Ron Dante and Toni Wine, with other musicians filling out the band.

Beyond the show, The Archies was a legitimate sensation, with 1969’s single “Sugar, Sugar” off the album “Everything’s Archie” reaching number one in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. In total, various line-ups of The Archies released seven albums, and 11 singles.

Riverdale hasn’t shied away from using The Archies songs before, and in fact had the show’s version of Josie and the Pussycats do a more modern sounding cover titled “Candy Girl (Sugar Sugar)” in the second episode, “Chapter Two: A Touch of Evil.” That said, in this iteration it was a Josie and the Pussycats song, not a The Archies song.

The Archie-verse also has had its fair share of weird Easter eggs, though mostly on Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Though (as of now) Riverdale isn’t connected to its sister show other than a few mentions and familiar faces, Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) was spotted in that show’s first episode carrying a classic The Archies thermos, and later in the series Harvey Kinkle (Ross Lynch) was perusing a copy of “Afterlife With Archie.” And that book features Sabrina Spellman in it, among other Archie Comics characters, so it probably made for a real weird read when Harvey got home later.

Context out of the way, back to the “Archie’s Party” moment. In “Fast Times At Riverdale High,” Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) picks a feud with Mr. Honey after he shuts down the school’s homecoming dance. His logic is sound: every time Riverdale High has an event, someone dies. Cheryl, though, is having none of it…. And in an act of defiance, decides to throw a party at her own house, inviting the whole school. Naturally, she gives out these invites in the only way Cheryl knows how: by marching down the hallway with her entourage, and tossing envelopes everywhere.

As this happens, “Archie’s Party” off the 1969 album “Jingle Jangle” plays in the background. The final track from the record, it was never released as a single, but it’s still pretty catchy:

Archie’s gonna be there
Jughead’s gonna be there
Reggie’s gonna be there too
Betty’s gonna be there
Veronica will be there
You and me will be there too

While this is mostly factually accurate — Archie (KJ Apa), Jughead (Cole Sprouse), Reggie (Charles Melton), Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica (Camila Mendes) all attend the party, and I guess you could say that you and me were there because we were watching the episode — there’s already a weird disconnect because it’s Cheryl’s party, not Archie’s party.

Archie’s parties are out of sight
He’s going to have one on a Friday night
Pick you up about half past eight
Please be ready I don’t want to be late

Side-note: songs were extremely polite in the late ’60s.

Anyway, not that the other songs played on the soundtrack during the show are heard by the characters or anything, otherwise you’d think they’d be remarking on where the music is coming from on a regular basis, there’s still a weird disconnect in hearing the singer on the soundtrack talk about the characters, versus just providing a bed of sound. It’s also different than later in the episode when Veronica inexplicably performs “All That Jazz” for a group of journalists before a press conference; that’s the sort of thing the show does on a regular basis. Hearing “Archie’s Party” as Cheryl marches through the halls, you can almost see the walls of reality breaking down as it happens.

On the positive side, this does work as a nice tease for something that will happen later in the season: The Archies are coming. We got to see an iteration of the band in last season’s flashback episode “The Midnight Club,” as the, uh, Fred Heads, performed “Dream Warriors.” But this year we’ll loop back to the original plan for the show, which was sans murder but plus The Archies entering the Battle of the Bands. Will they sing “Archie’s Party?” At least then, it might make my brain break a little less.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

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