Riverdale Season 3 Flashback Episode First Look Images Arrive

Screen Rant

Riverdale Kids Play Their Parents in Season 3 Flashback Episode Images

By Sandy Schaefer

Published Oct 16, 2018

Riverdale's young stars play their characters' parents as teenagers from the 1990s in the first look images from season 3's flashback episode.

The young stars of Riverdale bring their onscreen parents to life as teenagers in the first images from season 3's flashback episode. It was announced this summer that The CW's moody Archie Comics TV series would be taking a trip back in time during its third season, via a Breakfast Club-inspired episode titled (fittingly) "The Midnight Club". 1980s high school movie icon and Breakfast Club costar Anthony Michael Hall will even play Riverdale High's former principal in the '90s-set episode.

As it were, the events of "The Midnight Club" are directly connected to the new mystery that was introduced in the Riverdale season 3 premiere. The episode concluded with Jughead stumbling upon two boys (including, Dilton Doiley) left for dead in the woods, having been poisoned and with strange symbols carved into their backs. While it wasn't clear exactly what happened, the implication was that Dilton and his friend had encountered season 3's new villain, The Gargoyle King, after playing Gryphons & Gargoyles, aka. the Riverdale version of Dungeons & Dragons.

Turns out, something virtually identical happened in Riverdale in the early 1990s, back when Archie and his friends' parents were high schoolers themselves. In a fun twist, Riverdale's young cast members are portraying their characters' parents as teenagers in the flashbacks to those events from "The Midnight Club", as you can see from the episode's first look images below (via EW).

In addition to featuring a whole lot of '90s fashion, these images offer a sneak peek at Lili Reinhart as Betty's mom Alice Cooper, back when she was still a rough and tumble member of the Southside Serpents. Also pictured here are Camila Mendes as Veronica's mother Hermione in her mild-mannered Catholic school girl phase and Cole Sprouse channeling '90s-era Skeet Ulrich to portray Judghead's father FP as a rebellious teenaged Serpent himself. Judging by these photos alone, it should be pretty entertaining to watch the young Riverdale cast imitate their adult costars' mannerisms in this episode.

Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has acknowledged that True Detective was a big influence on season 3, making it all the more appropriate that this season is going heavy on the flashbacks (as True Detective is wont to do). However, despite current speculation that Riverdale is going to finally explore the supernatural with its Gargoyle King mystery, Aguirre-Sacasa has suggested that won't be the case and described the storyline as being more of an occult murder mystery. Whichever way things unfold, it will certainly be interesting to learn exactly how playing a simple table-top game leads to kids getting murdered in The Town With Pep.