Why ‘Riverdale’ Brought Back Murder Mysteries in the Final Season: “In the DNA” Of The Show

After a season premiere that dealt with some emotional, real-world topics; and a second episode that reset the final season of Riverdale in the more earnest 1950s of the classic Archie Comics… To paraphrase that thing that orc said one time: looks like murder is back on the menu, boys!

Or more specifically, in this week’s episode of Riverdale, titled “Chapter One Hundred And Nineteen: Skip, Hop, and Thump!” Riverdale High’s Sock Hop was broken up by — spoilers past this point — the arrival of Ethel Muggs (Shannon Purser), covered in blood, telling Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) that something terrible has happened.

“We talked about whether we needed some kind of Riverdale-ian murder mystery,” showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa told Decider, “and ultimately when we look back at Season 1, that had the death of Jason Blossom, and that snaked its way through Season 1, and it did feel like maybe we should go back to some mystery, or some genre — and not a huge one, but something that could bubble underneath some of our characters. So we did talk about whether we needed any element like a mystery, [and] ultimately it felt like that was in the DNA of Riverdale so we did go for it.”

As to exactly what the murder mystery involves, fans will have to tune in next week to find out more. But here’s what we know so far… In the episode, Jughead got hired by Pep Comics (the company that predates Archie Comics in the real world, and also somehow exists in Riverdale) to write a seven-page horror story. He convinced the publisher of Pep to hire Ethel to draw the story — though he didn’t take too much convincing since Ethel is apparently very good at drawing zombies.

While Ethel was elated to find her life’s dream fulfilled, and a chance to go to the Sock Hop with her clear — though oblivious — crush Jughead, not everyone was in Ethel’s corner. First, she was confronted by Principal Featherhead (William MacDonald) about using class time to draw her pages. Along for the ride was Dr. Werthers (Malcolm Stewart), the school… Psychologist? Guidance Counselor? It’s unclear at the moment, but he was unhappy both with Ethel’s drawing, and the fact that she skipped detention for a meeting with Pep.

Though we didn’t see it happen, Werthers went to talk to Ethel’s parents, who were already furious that Jughead had been hanging out in her room with the door closed. They forbade her from drawing comics or going to the Sock Hop as punishment… And the next time we saw Ethel was the aforementioned “covered in blood” thing.

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So, things are not looking great for the Muggs parents at the moment. But if you’re looking for an early suspect, look no further than Dr. Werthers. Stewart previously played another antagonist for the Riverdale teens in Season 4, when he was revealed to be the mastermind behind several murders to retain control of a teen mystery novel series. Here, Dr. Werthers’ disapproval of violent comics is less reminiscent of the delicious caramel candies with which he shares his name, and more reminiscent of a similarly named, real-world figure: Fredric Wertham. Around the same time as Riverdale is currently taking place, Wertham began a one-man crusade to stop the influence of comics on kids’ brains. This led to the Comics Code Authority, a series of censorship rules that essentially moved comics to the backburner of American culture for several decades.

Naturally, Riverdale is going to Riverdale, so the show won’t adapt this real history one to one. However, another black mark in our nation’s history when it comes to kids and pop culture comes to mind: the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, which was tackled (wildly) in Riverdale Season 3 with the drug-fueled role-playing game Gryphons & Gargoyles standing in for Dungeons and Dragons.

When asked if there was a parallel there, Aguirre-Sacasa unequivocally agreed.

“Absolutely,” Aguirre-Sacasa said. “The history of Archie Comics is so big in pop culture and comic books are obviously the medium for Archie Comics. That’s where they began and where they still thrive. I am a huge comic book amateur historian, and I’ve long been obsessed with the comic book witch trials that happened in the mid-’50s. And I loved the old EC horror comics, and the fact that they got caught up in both the Red Scare and McCarthyism, and the culture wars of the 1950s. And it’s funny, it’s all sort of relevant to what’s going on now with book bannings and book burnings, but it’s a great storyline to find Jughead in. So yes, Dr, Werthers is definitely cut from the same cloth as Dr. Wertham.”

Whether the cutting stops with cloth, or the blood on Ethel is Werthers’ fault as well, we’ll have to stay tuned. In the meantime, the darkness of classic Riverdale is back, and it’s here to stay.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on The CW.