This Character Is Still ‘Riverdale’s Most Iconic Villain

The CW’s Riverdale has been entertaining and confusing viewers in equal parts for over six years now, but we’ll finally be saying goodbye to the show in the coming months when it concludes with its currently airing seventh season. We won’t forget these small-town heroes, or arguably antiheroes, for a long time; the core group of Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica (Camila Mendes), Jughead (Cole Sprouse), and Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) are burned into our long-term memory with their bizarre dialogue and ridiculously inconsistent characterization.

But while our protagonists stay the same in Riverdale, villains come and go; they make up an elite category that ranges from cult members to school principals to just about every single parental figure bar the universally adored Fred Andrews (Luke Perry). We’d be lying if we said we remember most of these — does the name Joan Berkeley (Doralynn Mui) mean anything to you? We didn’t think so, alas, she was allegedly a major antagonist in Riverdale’s fourth season. But one Riverdale villain that certainly made his mark was Veronica’s beloved daddykins, Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos), who is returning in upcoming episodes.

RELATED: It Took Seven Seasons for Archie To Become the Best Part of ‘Riverdale’

Hiram Is ‘Riverdale’s Shadiest, Most Sinister Figure

Even before he stepped foot into town in Season 2, we feared Hiram. The show’s first season is widely regarded as its best, and part of this is due to the way in which they expertly build up anticipation for Hiram’s arrival. From conversations almost solely between Veronica and her mother, Hermione (Marisol Nichols), we find out that he’s the CEO of Lodge Industries, and a corrupt billionaire on trial for fraud and embezzlement — basically, he would feel right at home on Succession. Perhaps more than any other villain on Riverdale, Hiram appears to be a deeply nasty and ruthless person who could actually exist in real life. When he joins us in Season 2 onwards, he doesn’t disappoint, inflicting sheer tyranny on the town for the entire duration of his stay.

Hiram runs a criminal underworld in Riverdale; he dabbles in drug dealing and is unafraid to use his mafia connections. He’s determined to take over — and destroy — the town of Riverdale for his own selfish gain, even though it’s to the detriment of Veronica, her on-off boyfriend Archie, her friends, and pretty much everyone else who lives there. He schemes, threatens his family, and, at his lowest, even tries to have Archie and several other prominent characters killed. And although nobody could accuse Hiram of being a nice guy, he also happens to be a three-dimensional character who’s frequently the highlight of any scene he’s in.

As Veronica’s Father, He’s Much More Developed Than Other Villains

Riverdale antagonists can veer into caricature territory — remember the evil British sorcerer, hilariously named Percival Pickens (Chris O’Shea)? Hiram, though, has layers and complexities that make him much more compelling. He genuinely loves Veronica and Hermione and shows surprising moments of humanity, like when he paid for Fred’s funeral. His relationship with Veronica, in particular, is volatile, but Veronica’s own care and sympathy for her father make it easy for audiences to also have complicated emotions towards him.

In contrast to many other antagonists, we get to see Hiram be vulnerable, such as when he’s diagnosed with a degenerative neuromuscular disease in Season 4. After verifying that no, it’s not just a ploy to win her back to his side, Veronica is truly devastated, and we feel her pain, despite simultaneously praying for Hiram’s downfall in any way, shape, or form. Sure, he later cures his own disease by… being a violent mobster and beating people up, but getting to see Hiram grapple with his own mortality definitely added some depth to his character. Though Hiram is far from a mustache-twirling villain, his more compassionate moments also never negate the fact that he’s a power-hungry, money-driven sociopath at his core.

“Citizen Lodge” Is One of the Show’s Best Episodes

Riverdale is no stranger to episodes that fall outside the show’s usual format, and while these can be big misses (hello musical episodes), the creativity sometimes pays off. The twelfth episode of Season 5, titled “Citizen Lodge,” is arguably one of the show’s best installments — at least from recent seasons. The episode sees Hiram share his backstory with Reggie (Charles Melton), and what we learn fills in a lot of gaps regarding Hiram’s upbringing and motivations; he came from an unprivileged background, and his family were looked down upon for working as lowly shoeshiners. They moved to Riverdale in hopes of mining the palladium believed to be below the town’s surface but were unsuccessful in finding it. Hiram then began shining the shoes of a local gangster, before getting involved in his criminal machinations; when Hiram’s father warns the gangster to leave his son alone, he ends up dead. Hiram then commits his first killings in revenge for his father’s murder and makes it his lifelong mission to get his hands on Riverdale’s palladium.

This episode centers Hiram as its lead, and despite our best judgments, finds us temporarily rooting for him. This is what makes Hiram the best villain — he’s awful, but a hundred times more fleshed out than other Riverdale antagonists. While part of us was always longing for him to reach a bitter end, we also couldn’t help but hope he experienced some sort of redemption and realized that his family matters the most.

And for anyone who needs brushing up on why our favorite baddy businessman disappeared in the first place: Hiram has been absent since the end of Season 5 of Riverdale, when after years of emotional abuse and attempted murder, Veronica eventually has him exiled at gunpoint from the town. She later goes one step further and has a hit put on him, leading to his death in early Season 6 — what can we say, we support women’s rights and women’s wrongs. In case you were wondering, no, Riverdale isn’t going the resurrection route with this return — though that wouldn’t even crack the top ten for wildest Riverdale moments. Since Season 7 of the series is set in an alternative, 1950s reality where the leads are teenagers again and everybody has amnesia, Hiram is alive and kicking. We can’t wait to see him be a menace to the town of Riverdale again, this time with the goofy, 50s lingo to boot.