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The words "musical episode" typically elicit one of two emotional responses from fans: complete enthusiasm or deep, impenetrable skepticism. There is no such thing as indifference when it comes to TV's most polarizing gimmick — you either love it, or you really kind of hate it.

It's not like I blame the nonbelievers. In the years since Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Once More, with Feeling" — by far the gold standard of musical episodes, thanks to Joss Whedon's cunning mix of whimsy and plot-driven wordplay — there have been some truly baffling attempts. I'm not trying to drag Grey's Anatomy here, but the best musical episodes are at least a bit self-aware about the whole thing. And that's what Riverdale's "A Night To Remember" gets right.

With Kevin Keller at the helm of Riverdale High's spring production of Carrie: The Musical, the result is an entertaining and downright shocking musical within a musical. If you can get past the bits of spontaneous singing outside of the auditorium — this is Riverdale at its most ridiculous — then you'll see that the standout episode delivers razzle-dazzle, sincere character moments, and all the horrors we've come to expect from the town with pep.

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You don't want to miss the opening number. "I've never laughed that hard in my life," Casey Cott told MTV News.

A monumental Broadway flop, based on the Stephen King novel, the musical found redemption in its well-received 2012 off-Broadway revival. On a purely superficial level, Carrie fits tonally within the Riverdale universe. It speaks to showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's more macabre sensibilities. But "A Night To Remember" digs even deeper, as Riverdale's finest express their inner turmoil seamlessly through the music of Carrie: The Musical. It's so good that songs like "You Shine" and "Stay Here Instead" sound like they were written for these characters.

For star Lili Reinhart (Betty), it wasn't a coincidence. "There are a lot of parallels between each character and the characters that our characters play," she told MTV News on the Vancouver set of Riverdale in January. "It's works very well in kind of a strange way." So it's no surprise that Betty is cast as Sue Snell, the "good girl"; Archie as Tommy Ross, the "boy next door"; and Veronica as Chris Hargensen, the "vindictive mean girl."

MTV News was there with Reinhart and her castmates while they filmed "the biggest musical episode TV has ever seen," as Casey Cott put it. They gave us all of the behind-the-scenes scoop. Here's what we learned: