5 Biggest Riverdale 'Jump The Shark' Moments (And Why We Loved Them)

"Riverdale" started out on The CW as a teen murder mystery as Archie Andrews (K. J. Apa) and his friends tried to solve the mystery behind Jason Blossom's (Trevor Stines) murder in the titular small town. But what started out like a young adult version of "Twin Peaks" (one of the best 90s horror TV shows) quickly jumped the shark by introducing serial killers, cults, time travel, and much more.

Stick with us here, though — that's why "Riverdale' is weirdly great. It never shies away from how ridiculous the storylines are — it revels in them. Remember Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) filming pay-per-view tickle videos? Of course you do. How about the entire town worshiping a deity called the Gargoyle King in a real-world game of Gryphons & Gargoyles? Once you buy into "Riverdale" as being a larger-than-life comic book world rather than a semi-serious crime drama, it's infinitely more fun. So, here are some of the biggest "Riverdale" jump-the-shark moments, and why we loved them.

Siblings playing with dolls is a fairly standard childhood pastime, but Cheryl Blossom made things weird when she looked after her brother's dead body. The teenager's murder was the crux of the first season, but fast-forward to Season 3, and Jason's body gets exhumed by the Farm cultists as a way of trying to psychologically torture Cheryl.

This doesn't quite have the desired effect, since she winds up getting his body back and keeps it in the Blossom Mansion chapel during Season 4. She talks to him, grooms him, and dresses him up in different outfits. Cheryl essentially treats him like a doll, alongside an actual doll that she believes holds the spirit of their absorbed triplet, Julian Blossom.

While it was all undeniably odd, it works because it explores just how deeply Jason's death traumatized Cheryl. His murder is the thing that completely shattered her world, and it's no wonder that she gets defensive about preserving his body in the chapel and acting as if he's actually returned to life. For a show as barmy as "Riverdale," it's quite fitting that this odd storyline actually gives her some much-needed character development alongside the core gang.

Seasons 3 and 4 were crammed with absurd storylines, including serial killers, the deadly Grrphons & Gargoyles game, and The Farm cult. The group was run by the enigmatic Edgar Evernever (Chad Michael Murray), who quite frankly has one the worst names in "Riverdale." Still, the cult was a fun addition to the show, and it explored how even smart folk could be lured in with the promise of "ascension." Of course it was all a front for Evernever's black market organ harvesting scheme.

It also gets a little messy, because it seems that Evernever drank his own Kool-Aid and believed that he could also "ascend" when trying to evade Betty and the FBI in Season 4, Episode 3. While using the cultists as a distraction, he tries to escape from the roof of his motel on a homemade rocket, while dressed like Evel Knievel in a white leather jumpsuit. Yes, you read that sentence correctly.

Unfortunately, before we could see him try to take off, Alice Cooper (Madchen Amick) shoots Edgar before he can escape. Still, we respect anyone who manages to write a scene involving a shootout with a cult leader, a homemade rocket ship, and a white leather jumpsuit. Word spaghetti? Who cares! For a small town like Riverdale, there's a lot going on.

Here's where things start to get really trippy. The main characters all get superpowers during Season 6 — which is wild in itself, but more on that shortly. Tabitha Tate (Erinn Westbrook) gains the ability to travel through time each time she almost dies, which takes her on an era-hopping adventure in Episode 11. She gets shot by a henchman working for the dastardly Percival Pickens (Chris O'Shea) and finds herself in 1944, then 1968, and finally 1999. But when Tabitha wakes up in the '60s, she discovers that she's arrived the day before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

Naturally, she tries to alter the course of history in the hope of saving MLK and potentially changing the future for the better. However, her guardian angel Raphael, in the form of Toni Topaz (Vanessa Morgan), tells her that his death is a fixed point in time because of how important it is to the universe.

"Riverdale" using time-travel to look at King's assassination sounds like it should be disrespectful to his memory and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Yet somehow, it actually works? If anything, it's an examination of how racism has affected small-town America during the 20th century. It's about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but it's still a refreshing change of pace from all of Archie's brooding.

When Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos) bombed Archie's house at the end of Season 5, the resulting explosion gives the red-haired hero and his friends superpowers in Season 6. Yes, again, you read that right. The show makes the correct decision to forego any costumes, but it's fascinating to see how the gang operates with a little extra juice. Archie gets super strength and invulnerability, which comes in handy when fighting gangsters like the Ghoulies.

Super strength is a fairly straightforward power set compared to the other abilities in the group, though. For starters, Betty develops an aura-reading power which lets her visually see if someone is evil or not, and she gets seriously bad vibes from Percival Pickens when he arrives in town. Meanwhile, Veronica is able to spontaneously create poison in her body, and we've already touched on Tabitha Tate's time-traveling powers. It takes a little longer for Jughead's powers to manifest, because he goes deaf following the explosion, but once he recovers, he's able to read people's minds.

Finally, there's Cheryl Blossom, who gets a pyrokinetic ability — which combined with her witchy heritage basically turns her into a mashup of Scarlet Witch and the X-Men's Jean Grey, and we're not mad about it. Plus, it is pretty useful when Riverdale faces an apocalyptic event.

At the end of "Riverdale" Season 6, Cheryl Blossom uses her magic and pyrokinesis to absorb everyone else's abilities into her body in a last-ditch attempt to stop Bailey's Comet from obliterating the small town from the face of the Earth. Complete with a flowing red jacket, the writers definitely took inspiration from the likes of Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch and "WandaVision," which is unsurprising since it's one of the best Marvel Disney+ shows. 

Honestly, it's impressive that things progressed this far, and Madeleine Petsch delivers a fiery performance as Cheryl saves the entire town. But the spell that she uses to melt the comet in the air creates an immense amount of magical energy, which then throws everybody back to the 1950s for the show's final season. It's a perfect touch to have the show's final outing roll back the clock to the era when the characters originated, in the pages of Archie Comics.

The gang also have no memory of what happened to them in the original timeline, because Tabitha Tate wipes their memories — since she's quite literally the town's guardian angel. Despite the new timeline, things were still suitably wacky for the final season — including a milkman serial killer, and the reveal that Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead were in a polyamorous "quad" relationship. Of all the jump-the-shark moments in "Riverdale," that one just makes perfect sense.