Riverdale’s Flashback Episode Is Perfect Post-Midterm Election TV

This season of Riverdale has been more intense (and more foolish) than the previous two seasons combined. For now, there’s been a courtroom display that could make any attorney cringe, major prison corruption, a questionably sexist pep rally, and numerous teen suicides, to name a couple of recent events, all of which contribute to a growing divide inside the town.


although Riverdale’s campy nature makes it feel like it exists within a political vacuum where only local and social politics matter, this season’s fictionalized issues parallel real issues facing our nation today — a time once activists call for prison reform and girls march to be heard — adding a heaviness to the teen drama that we haven’t experienced up until now.


This all disappears in “The Midnight Club,” the CW show’s flashback episode about the previous generation's Griffins and Gargoyles experience airing Wednesday night (November 7). The rather anticipated trip to 1992 adds a welcomed break from this season’s heightened world and delivers a correctly packaged jaunt back to the town we know and love at a time as soon as we need it the most.


Airing the day soon following the contentious midterm elections — a battle that left the country more divided than it had been, with wild whines of a nefarious caravan barreling toward our southern boarder preparing to pillage our entire nation (it’s not) being met with fears that rights are being stolen from citizens (well…), all punctuated by urgent pleas to vote (it's important!) — the episode respects our necessary for a step back from politicking as we come to terms with our new reality for the next two years.


Draped in flannel and oversized specs and brought to life with the soundtrack of your parents’ younger years — and even featuring a cameo from 80’s teen dream Anthony Michael Hall — the Breakfast Club-inspired flashback episode sheds the real-life drama in favor of coloring the backstories we are already familiar with.


Most notably, we get to be able to see the passion stories that reflect the Core Four's, with FP and Alice and Fred and Hermione, which is, small-town weirdness aside, a very fun experience. Plus, we increase a new understanding of modern-day Penelope Blossom, Sierra McCoy, Tom Keller, and Hiram Lodge through a glimpse into their pasts, and identify that there may be more similarities between the parents and their children than we initially realized.


Seeing these relationships play out is exhilarating in itself, although seeing them portrayed by the actors who right now play their children (or in Hiram’s case, the actor's real-life son, Michael Consuelos) stamps the episode with Riverdale’s signature light-hearted fun. You could just imagine Luke Perry’s chuckle whenever he first saw KJ Apa’s deeply furrowed brow or Skeet Ulrich’s overjoyed smile any time Cole Sprouse showed off his messily slicked hair, and we already know Mädchen Amick wholeheartedly approved of Lili Reinhart’s dramatic makeup application.


All-in-all, “The Midnight Club” doesn’t bring us any closer to finding out who’s beyond the Gargoyle King; it’s an illustration of everything we already know about the town’s repetitive history. Nevertheless it is an apt reminder of why we all fell in love with Riverdale in the opening place, as soon as the town was a simpler place, unburdened by the lunacy of prison fight clubs along with a corrupt local government, and also a dark family member mystery took center stage.


Well, at least up until the episode’s final scene.