OK but the way that the Musical itself seems to reflect the comics characterisation more then the show (Re-instating the love triangle, Jughead constantly bringing up food and seemingly having no interest in women, Cheryl supposedly being into Archie) and then the show characters actively reject those characterisations and one by one leave and/or strive to change the Musical (Betty and Veronica change their song from a love song about Archie to a love song about each other and kiss, thus subverting the love triangle and meanwhile Archie, instead of protesting this, decides separately to end the love triangle to focus on himself, Jughead leaves the Musical after the first number deeming it beneath him, Cheryl alongside Toni campaign for a queer love song and leave when it isn't added.) Hell, Archie isn't even in the Musical by the end, literally symbolising that the Archie in the musical isn't Riverdale Archie, thus separating Riverdale further from the comics canon and restating that while on paper the show is based off of the Archie comics it is in name only for the most part and in practice basically none of these characters could (or should, in the eyes of the writer's in all likelyhood) be considered the same as their comic counterparts—
SIGH i want to talk about archie comics to people so bad and i just like wanna see cool fan art but ALMOST MORE THAN HALF THE TAGS ARE RIVERDALE LIKE??? GHR I just wanna talk about silly little shenanigans 💔
Honestly after hearing about the poly love square when i had not interacted with riverdale for literal years made me come around. I think they somehow managed to do the unthinkable. They made it so bad, so absolutely batshit crazy, so cookoo bananas if you will, that it somehow came full circle and now it's fucking iconic. How did this happen. I need to watch it.