Riverdale was fated to have a musical episode sooner or later. Archie Comics characters have a surprisingly strong pop music history — with The Archies being the only comic book band to have a massive hit — and half the residents of Riverdale are musically inclined anyway. Similarly, with Kevin reading Clive Barker and hints of Lovecraft lingering around the town, a bit of horror was inevitable. Now it appears the show will be combining the two with a musical tribute to Stephen King. Really.
According to Variety, the Riverdale gang will be staging the notorious Carrie: The Musical, setting to music the classic story of teenage cruelty and social isolation that ends with most of a Maine high school dead by the hand of a telekinetic social outcast. Yes, that’s a real show, a Broadway flop from the ’80s that has in recent years found a second life as an off-Broadway and immersive theater piece in London and LA. So of course, Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) had to make it the school musical, because there’s nothing that screams high school theater like biting off more than you can chew. Needless to say, like all school plays, some of it is hilariously miscast, starting with Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) as Carrie, although casting Betty’s mom (Madchen Amick) as Carrie’s mother in the play is pretty inspired on Kevin’s part.
It’s an amusing bit of business in of itself, but it gets even funnier if you know the career of Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. He wrote the screenplay for Kimberly Pierce’s 2012 remake of Carrie, so it seems likely the show will be having an in-joke or two at the boss’ expense. And in case you were wondering if anybody might pull it off, sticking with Riverdale‘s tendency to title its episodes after movies relevant to the plot, this episode is named after the classic Titanic drama “A Night To Remember.” We’ll see just how poorly this all goes April 18th.
(via Variety)