Every season, “Riverdale” just amps up the absurdity, and most recently, it did this by introducing Percival Pickens (Chris O’Shea), the most recent bad guy. The main characters inexplicably get superpowers at the same time Percival arrives in town. At first appearance, Percival appears to be a clone of Hiram Lodge, the town’s former villain (Mark Consuelos). They are evil businessmen who intend to waste Riverdale’s “heart” by purchasing the area and handing control over to the naughty Ghoulies.
Money and fear are two of Hiram Lodge’s personal superpowers. He is locked up at the start of the series, but that isn’t where he stays for very long. He quickly gains control of Riverdale and even purchases a nearby public school in order to build a private, for-profit prison. He alternates between being astonishingly kind at times, helping his daughter Veronica, and cartoonishly cruel at other times, controlling an underground combat ring of juvenile offenders and repeatedly attempting to kill Archie. The richness gave Percival’s persona, which lacks compassion, a human touch. Consuelos told Recap Rewind that “there’s gotta be some redeeming moments for Hiram like the protection he has for Veronica.”
The mafia bosses from “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas” come to mind when comparing Hiram’s devotion to his family and his network of illicit enterprises. The show’s creator, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, told Decider that Hiram was a fantastic mafia boss and gang leader. Therefore, we definitely didn’t want anyone who was swimming in those seas when we were talking about bringing in a new big bad.
Randall Flagg serves as the model for Percival Pickens
In Season 5 of “Riverdale,” Veronica runs Hiram out of town, but not before he plants a bomb under the Andrews’ home. Unknowingly establishing a link between Riverdale and its parallel realm, Rivervale, the bomb ushers in a brand-new antagonist. Jughead, Betty, and Archie all get through the bombing with new supernatural skills.
The antagonist from Riverdale also owns a store similar to the one in Needful Things
With his silver tongue, Percival can magically sway practically anyone to do what he wants. He definitely has King’s Randall Flagg’s slim, enigmatic wizard look. Percival shares Hiram’s desire to dominate and rule the town. He also took office as mayor fast by persuading everyone who is homeless to board buses and leave the city, finding a temporary solution to the town’s housing shortage, and winning over those residents he was unable to influence directly. In fact, he operates a curious goods store, precisely like the antagonist in “Needful Things.” Like the shop in King’s novel or Charles Dickens’s “The Old Curiosity Shop,” a curiosity shop is frequently linked to malevolent persons and cursed objects.
The otherworldly antagonist marks the beginning of a new era for “Riverdale” that utterly disavows any pretense of realism. In its later seasons, the show is free to indulge in all of its campiness, including a villain straight out of a Stephen King book.