The Riverdale Scene Fans Wish They Had Never Filmed

Over the course of its first six seasons, "Riverdale" has had more than its fair share of shocking and ridiculous moments. To be fair, "Riverdale" has actually leaned into the absurdity of its premise, setting, and its cast of characters ever since it premiered on the CW in 2017. However, in its later seasons, "Riverdale" has pushed its level of absurdity to the limit. As a result, there have also been moments when fans think "Riverdale" went too far, and some would even argue that the show has often overestimated its ability to keep its own gothic, campy tone in check.

Of course, "Riverdale" fans received devastating news earlier this year when it was announced that the show's seventh season would also be its last. Now, with its inevitable conclusion officially set, there's no better time for fans to look back on the first six seasons of "Riverdale" and re-evaluate the show's many memorable highs and lows.

With that in mind, it's worth taking a moment to discuss and break down the "Riverdale" scene that many fans of the series wish had never been written or filmed, and which has become famous online for all the wrong reasons.

In the second episode of "Riverdale" Season 3, Archie (KJ Apa) attempts to win over and bond with the other inmates at the Leopold and Loeb Juvenile Detention Center by bringing them together to play a game of recreational football. The scene has become infamous among "Riverdale" fans for the unintentionally hilarious, atrociously cheesy interaction it features between Archie and one of his fellow inmates.

During the moment in question, Archie attempts to tell the detention center's other inhabitants that they'd all be living normal high school lives if they weren't serving time, which prompts one of Archie's fellow inmates to say, "Not me. I dropped out in the fourth grade to run drugs to support my nana." That line is in and of itself pretty cringeworthy, but it's not nearly as bad as Archie's response. After processing his fellow inmate's words, Archie takes a step toward him and says, "That means you haven't known the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of high school football." 

The exchange was quickly and predictably mocked online by both "Riverdale" fans and casual TV viewers alike. In the years since the moment aired, it has even been included in lists detailing the wildest moments in "Riverdale" history (via BuzzFeed), and that's truly saying something considering just how many weird twists the series has delivered over the years.

However, while its infamous status is totally understandable, "Riverdale" fans remain utterly mystified about how Archie's now-iconic detention center conversation even managed to make it on the air in the first place.

The "Riverdale" scene in question has been discussed online by fans of the series for years. The comments section of one YouTube video of the moment is even full of playfully mocking remarks about it. One user, for instance, wrote, "All the lines in this scene are both horrifyingly bad and extremely quotable," while another commented, "It's just amazing to me how a scene like this can happen." In the same comments section, another "Riverdale" fan wrote, "This looks and sounds like a parody, and the fact that it's not is hilarious."

Of course, at the heart of all of these comments is bewilderment over how the scene was ever written or approved by members of the "Riverdale" creative team. Unfortunately, fans may never truly know how Archie's cringeworthy detention center exchange managed to make it into its respective "Riverdale" episode. For what it's worth though, "Riverdale" does seem to have developed a fun sense of self-awareness about the ridiculousness of the moment. 

That's evidenced by a scene in the show's fifth season (via CBR), which sees Jughead (Cole Sprouse) offer to help Archie out with a difficult situation only if he promises to "never bring up the epic highs and lows of high school football again." Additionally, Cole Sprouse also told GQ in March, "I'm not a creative force behind ['Riverdale']. I actually have no creative control. We show up, receive the scripts often the day of, and we're asked to shoot."

In other words, it sounds like the central actors on "Riverdale" don't get to offer much input about the show's scripts or the lines that they're told to say in the series, which could explain how a notoriously bad line about the "epic highs and lows of high school football" managed to survive the editorial chopping block.