There Was Almost An Amazing Homage To Britney Spears On Riverdale

If you're still reeling over Betty Cooper's striptease on Riverdale, you're not alone.

Wednesday's episode of Riverdale "Chapter Twenty-One: House of the Devil" gave us a whole new version of Lili Reinhart's girl next door, and it involved her singing a cover of Gary Gules' "Mad World" in lingerie. The reason for the Coyote Ugly moment? Betty wanted to join the Southside Serpents (or, at least, become "Serpent-adjacent") to protect her boyfriend, Jughead (Cole Sprouse), and had to participate in this (obviously sexist) ritual in order to do so.

However, according to Reinhart, the Serpent dance once looked very different — and a lot more like Britney Spears' 2001 Video Music Awards performance, in which she wore a snake as an accessory. (That snake's name is Banana, by the way; he's an Albino burmese python and as of 2016, he is alive and well, per Vanity Fair.)

"Originally...the serpent dance involved Betty dancing with an actual snake," Reinhart told fans via Twitter. "I was doing research on pythons for a while."

Now, the real question: Would it have been more or less uncomfortable to watch Betty (who, as far as we know, is no older than 16) perform a sexy dance with a snake, or do the very abrupt striptease that ended with her boyfriend's dad handing her a leather jacket to cover up? Something tells me that Alice Cooper (Mädchen Amick) would be appropriately horrified either way.

Here's the dance.

Unfortunately for Betty, it didn't look like Jughead appreciated this musical moment, given that it was intended as Betty's initiation into the Serpents. Still, it was quite a shocking situation for Betty to put herself in — even if she didn't have a literal python hanging from her neck.