Right Back Where We Started

you’ve probably seen the jokes about how archie andrews from riverdale went to war, but the producers refuse to say what war it was

but i’m here to tell you that the reliality is stranger than you could possibly imagine unless you watch the show

this is archie’s dress uniform

(the tepia overlay is present every time he wears it, i have not altered the shot at all)

this is archie and his buddy in the trenches, in their combat uniforms

yes I said trenches. that screenshot is from a flashback archie has to a member of his platoon loosing a leg to enemy shells in no-man’s land. (he specifically calls it no-man’s land)

Okay, so it’s WWI. That’s deeply weird, given Riverdale takes place in more or less the present day (there’s a weird amount of old-timey tech, but everyone also has iphones and laptops, so we can assume the old tech is people being retro), but it’s at least an answer

but it gets weirder.

because we know what country archie was fighting in. his deployment was in uzbekistan.

now despite it being called a world war, not every country was involved in the first world war. uzbekistan did not fight on either side.

because the country didn’t formally exist until 1991

so in whatever parrallel universe riverdale takes place in, new york and the town of riverdale exist essentially in the present day, the soviet union has fallen, but former soviet union countries are still fighting a war which should have ended more than 100 years ago.

so that’s bonkers, but i’m not done

in the episode in which archie decides to join the army, the school digs up a time-capsule from the 1940s and opens it. inside is a picture of four riverdale high students who were shipping out to the army the day after the time capsule was burried

the ghosts of these four WWII soldiers then appear to archie, convincing him that he should join up and fight

so to be clear, archie fought in the first world war, in a country which did not exist during the first world war, because he was told to by the ghosts of soldiers from the second world war, a war which could not have happened yet because the first world war is apparently still ongoing

and also it’s the present day and archie owns an iphone

i’m absolutely on one about mono no aware in Rogue One and The Mandalorian tonight