Is The Riverdale Musical Episode Headed For Chaos?

After months of waiting, the Riverdale musical episode is finally here. Yes, “A Night To Remember,” featuring gothic heroine Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) as tortured teen Carrie White and K.J. Apa’s already-infamous dancing skills, will premiere tonight, April 18. While choreographer Heather Laura Gray promised Refinery29 the song-and-dance installment would bring a “light-hearted” vibe to the dark CW drama best known for its many murders, we should all remember this is still Riverdale.

So, that means the episode is likely hiding some disturbing twist between all the jazz hands and 1970s glam costumes. After all, the musical our favorite Riverdale High students are recreating ends with a literal blood bath that soon becomes a full-on massacre. After visiting Riverdale’s Vancouver set during “Night's,” filming, it certainly seems like this production of Carrie: The Musical will follow in its inspiration’s gore-streaked footsteps.

Our first signal “A Night To Remember” might be so memorable precisely because there’s a Carrie prom-type catastrophe comes from the leading ladies of Riverdale. Veronica Lodge’s portrayer Camila Mendes, fresh from set and still in her high-waisted denim, simply promised of the installment, “It has a shocking ending.”

Mendes’ on-screen best friend, Betty Cooper alter-ego Lili Reinhart, echoed her co-star’s sentiment, but in a way that seems even more tense. “You root for these people, and you want to see them happy, and you want to see them cut loose. This is just kind of a fun episode in general to see the kids break away from their real-life trauma,” she said, which sounds delightful... until the entire explanation soon took a very ominous, Riverdale-y turn. Reinhart added with a sense of doom, “But then again… This episode is… The ending is quite a shocker.”

While Reinhart couldn’t comment on whether or not someone would get drenched in blood à la poor Carrie White by the end of the episode, she could offer this portentous tease: “There might be some blood.”

Knowing what we know about the themes of Carrie — a social outcast gets revenge on the people who belittled her — it’s seems one character is primed for that kind of bloody revenge: poor Ethel Muggs (Shannon Purser), who just so happens to be a member of RHS' Carrie cast. “Ethel has been dealt a lot of injustice in her life,” Purser admitted to Refinery29 in between filming, pointing out crises like the time Chuck Clayton (Jordan Calloway) slut-shamed her or the Lodge family’s shady business dealings pushed her father toward suicide. Not to mention that one episode where the Black Hood was seemingly this-close to slaughtering Ethel.

“So I think she feels very powerless,” the Stranger Things alum added. So, we're talking about an emotionally beaten down redhead teen with severe family trauma? Where have we heard that one before? Oh, yeah, it’s Carrie White.

Although Purser is a long way away from saying her character is going to go full murderous telekinetic meltdown on a school dance, or musical extravaganza for that matter, she does promise we’re now in the new era of “feisty and independent” Ethel.

“Season 2 is where we see her — I don’t want to say snap, because she doesn’t go run around with an axe and start killing anybody … But she takes matters into her own hands,” Purser teased. “I think she gets back at the people who have been cruel to her.”

While fans wait to find out if “getting back” at certain individuals means something more extreme than throwing a strawberry milkshake on Veronica Lodge, we can all take solace in one simple fact: Riverdale’s two central couples aren’t headed for a shakeup, at least not due to the dramatics of Carrie: The Musical. This type of romantic stability hasn't always seemed so sure, since on-again, off-again love interests Archie Andrews (Apa) and Betty, who are dating each other's respective best friends, are playing a couple in Carrie.

“You never know how the tables are going to turn. If feelings are going to surface,” Reinhart suggested. “But, to be honest, it’s a part of the musical and doesn’t have any deeper meaning than them playing the roles.”

That should help us all sleep at night following whatever terror will befall Riverdale by the time the lights go off of on Carrie.