‘Riverdale’ Recap: Season 7 Premiere, Episode 1, 1950s Time Warp

Riverdale returns to the squeaky clean 1950s for its final season… but maybe things weren’t as squeaky clean as they seemed back then.

Wednesday’s Season 7 premiere kicks off with “Rock Around the Clock” playing on the jukebox with Archie and the gang joining in Happy Days-Style intros, so we’re definitely in 1955. Jughead likes that a hamburger and fries are only 30 cents, but he doesn’t like that he’s the only one here who remembers that they were from that meteor were thrown into the past at the end of last season. He and his friends are juniors in high school again, and things get even weirder: Betty is dating Kevin, and Cheryl’s brother is alive and their name is Julian. (Plus, Reggie is nowhere to be found.) Toni and Tabitha have just returned from Mississippi, where Emmett Till’s killers were quickly acquitted — and when Jughead tries to offer his support, Tabitha barely remembers his name.

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Archie’s mother, Mary, is so devastated by James Dean’s death that she demands the keys to Archie’s hot rod and forces him to take his bike to school. However, his mood improves when the school welcomes a new student: Veronica Lodge, a glamor girl fresh from LA, where her parents star in a hit i love lucy-like sitcom. She has a role in a new movie version of Our city, so she wants to get a feel for small town life, and everyone flits and ahhs at her Hollywood stories. (She went skinny dipping with James Dean, and he “plays on both sides of the net.”) A smitten Archie offers to walk her home, but she lets Julian give her a ride instead — meaning Cheryl has to walk after have to go home.

Toni writes a story about the Emmett-Till trial for the school paper and Betty raves about it, but the principal won’t publish it. The school psychiatrist says it’s too violent for the students to read about, and besides, “things like that don’t happen in Riverdale.” Betty’s parents won’t read the story on the local news either; They don’t want to lose their major sponsor, the Blossom family’s maple syrup company. Betty is frustrated that nobody seems to care – and Jughead is frustrated to learn that Bailey’s Comet won’t be back for another two years.

He tries to think of a way to jog everyone’s memory, recalling the time capsule they buried after graduation. He digs it up and it’s still there… and someone is watching him from the shadows too. Jughead lets his friends see what’s inside – but his knit hat is missing – and breaks the news: they’re all 67 years in the future. When he tries to explain smartphones and the internet to him, they look at him like he’s crazy and Archie pulls him aside to reason with him. “We sound miserable,” he says as Jughead describes their future, and life is good now, so why screw things up?

Cheryl gushes about Veronica’s instant popularity and confronts her with a movie magazine saying Natalie Wood got the part Our city. Veronica admits she lied: Actually, her parents just wanted rid of her “because I’m a problem.” They are so busy with their TV show that she felt neglected and started acting. Archie reassures her and admits he’s never had a serious girlfriend because he’s been waiting for the right girl “until now”. However, Mary is furious when she discovers that Archie has snuck out with his hot rod; Archie’s father died in the Korean War and she just can’t lose him. He gets her to agree to let him drive – if he sets his car so it can’t go faster than 20 miles per hour.

Veronica gets a call from her mom in LA, who has heard she has a boy with her, and warns her to “fly right” while she’s out there alone. So when Archie and Julian offer to give her a ride home, she decides to walk home instead. After Betty sees the gruesome photos of Emmett Till’s death, she’s determined to get his story public, so she convinces Cheryl to let Toni read a Langston Hughes poem about the murder during the morning announcements. It’s a powerful poem and the students are clearly affected. (The principal is upset, but they promise to compose any future poems of his first.) The poem opens a dialogue in the class about the murder and what they can do to help, and Tabitha decides to turn to her parents and Emmett Till’s mom join a nationwide tour to advocate for change.

Jughead is in a booth at Pop’s when he is joined by Tabitha – but it’s not the 1950s Tabitha; it is the guardian angel Tabitha! She remembers everything about the future and still loves him, but they can’t go home just yet. The meteor landed and caused “an extinction-level event,” so she used her powers to send everyone to a safe place while she worked to change the future. It will take a while though, and since she doesn’t want Jughead to be tortured by his knowledge or mess up timelines, she wants to make him forget all about the future and start anew. He doesn’t want to forget her, but agrees it’s for the best and they share one last kiss before his mind is wiped. As his memories fade, he rushes to his typewriter to save it, but all he can type is, “Bow to justice.” And hey, his old knit hat is back!

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