Riverdale Season 3: 4 Ups & 2 Downs From 'Big Fun'

Contains spoilers from Riverdale Season 3, Episode 16.

Riverdale has spent the better part of its third season convincing us that the supernatural is running wild in the small town, making for more of a bizarre offering than ever before. The focus on the satanic game known as Gryphons & Gargoyles, that has swept across town like an epidemic, has taken the show into uncharted territory, but it has also presented the young protagonists with a rare opportunity to relate to their parents - who also found themselves embroiled in the same madness at high school.

That played a major role in the show's second-annual musical episode, during which the students of Riverdale High put on their own production of Heathers: The Musical. A rather on-the-nose choice perhaps, but it allowed the writers to dig deep in 'Big Fun' and fully explore the psyches of two of the show's richest characters in Cheryl and Jughead.

The result was a surprisingly poignant turn, as the notoriously campy show used the phenomenal musical performances to allow these characters to express themselves in a way that they never have before. If we learned anything from this episode, it's this: Only when Riverdale is at its most ridiculous does it begin to make sense.

First, the positives.