I started watching "Riverdale" after the first few seasons had aired, and I made it through maybe half of season 3 before I realized my brain simply could not keep up with the plot twists, the comical names, the love triangles (quadrangles?) and more. But the timeline has been bursting with reactions to the latest season finale (season 6 has just wrapped), and I couldn't help myself: I dug in to find out what the hell happened on the show since I stopped watching.

Folks: it's incredible. It's perfect. It's art.

I sated my need to follow every plot point with a combination of Wikipedia synopses and various episode recaps, but then I found a thread from @levgarrity that very comically covers the major plot points and most unbelievable moments of the show's entire run, and was compelled to share some of the high points.

It should go without saying that the below tweets constitute myriad spoilers, but just to state it officially: SPOILERS AHEAD. If you're cool with that, then please: enjoy.

Season 1

cheryl is arrested on suspicion of her brother’s murder but she’s cleared. betty puts on a wig and lingerie and waterboards a male student with maple syrup. meanwhile, archie has to make a difficult choice: football or music? these subplots are all treated with equal importance.

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

betty, who is now dating jughead, throws him a birthday party even though he hates birthdays, which results in this pic.twitter.com/JHrvoAlMgN

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

cheryl tries to drown herself but archie saves her, then she sets her house on fire. archie/veronica and betty/jughead have simultaneous sex scenes while imagine dragons blasts in the background. B&J are interrupted by the serpents, who recruit jughead. imagine dragons continues pic.twitter.com/R6M4LCA45q

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

Season 2

archie’s dad is shot by a man in a black hood. he’s rushed to the hospital. cheryl is already there with her mom, who is in critical condition after the fire. archie and veronica have sex again. jughead eats a burger and monologues about it. another imagine dragons song plays

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

sidenote can i take a moment to appreciate the names of the side characters in this series. im skimming 2x21 while writing this and so far have heard: poppa poutine, small fry, fangs fogarty, sweet pea, mrs. klump, & great-grandpappy cooper. all mentioned in very serious contexts

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

meanwhile VERONICA’S dad has been busy framing archie for murder and he gets arrested. in the season 2 finale, jughead is crowned king of the serpents. i can’t tell if the song that plays here is more imagine dragons, but it certainly sounds like it

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

Season 3

archie goes to juvie and surely you’ve seen this pic.twitter.com/fdCQW4v2FD

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

as archie flees to canada, betty is sent away to live at “the farm”, which is a boarding school now i guess, where they drug her with fizzle rocks (not to be confused with jingle jangle, the drug the serpents are involved with)

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

anyway cheryl helps betty infiltrate the farm and it turns out it’s actually an ORGAN HARVESTING farm and they’re also keeping jason’s body in the basement. the season culminates in a final real life game of G&G.

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

Season 4

as a result the students make betty believe she kiIIed jughead. B, V, & A discuss at length how they’re going to cover this up. then they immediately return home in their underwear with blood on them, all get caught, and give 3 wildly different alibis for no reason

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

turns out the creator was jughead’s little sister, jellybean. i don’t remember why she did this pic.twitter.com/prAyqrI9md

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

Season 5

archie is back from the war. choni are broken up. betty is an FBI agent. veronica is married and calls herself “the she-wolf of wall street” every 5 secs. jughead is a published writer. but eventually they all return to riverdale and become teachers with zero qualifications

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

archie is dealing with PTSD hallucinations which means actors dressed as soldiers stand silently behind him all the time and it’s very funny. oh and this whole time betty has been investigating her sister polly’s disappearance

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

everyone runs veronica’s dad out of town but he retaliates by putting a bomb under the bed where archie and betty are boinking and it explodes at the very end.

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

Season 6

this town is similar to riverdale but a little darker, and magic/supernatural occurrences are more common. cheryl runs a school for girls out of her mansion where, i shit you not, they all wear neon genesis evangelion cosplay uniforms pic.twitter.com/cNcKg94I9n

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

now we switch to following riverDale jughead (we will dub him Jughead Classic) who wakes up in archie’s garage, assuming he sleepwalked there. he shakes it off and goes to school but slowly starts noticing things seem ..... off

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

luckily betty stops him, oh she’s in a wedding dress bcs her and archie were about to get married don’t worry about it pic.twitter.com/vYYYRYchki

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

but it turns out this explosion, along with rendering jughead partially deaf, gave the gang superpowers. betty can read auras, archie has super strength, veronica can generate poison from her body, jughead can read minds, and tabitha can time travel, which she does

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 26, 2022

- cheryl being possessed by her lesbian ancestor who was burned at the stake
- reggie being recast & the original actor returning as alt-dimension reggie
- the writers coming up with increasingly ridiculous excuses for archie to be shirtless at all times (see “mauled by a bear”)

— f: richie (@levgarrity) July 27, 2022

also big shoutout to @nocontextrvd if you want more unhinged out of context riverdale content https://t.co/krmAcAIAYP

— f: richie (@levgarrity) August 1, 2022

And just for fun, a snippet of a scene from the season 6 finale:

if you told me in 2018 that cheryl was going to save riverdale by the power of lesbianism and being literally scarlet witch i would have laughed in your face pic.twitter.com/PmZnVaMzqc

— ria. tea’s wife (REAL) (@lgbtzenin) August 1, 2022

Read @levgarrity's full, beautifully executed thread.