Did the creator of Archie's comics die? And the producers bought the rights from his heirs? That's the only reason I can think of that they were able to legally take squeaky clean comics for young kids Archie and the Gang into Twin Peaks territory.
The original artist who drew for Archie Comics, Bob Montana, died over 30 years ago. I believe Archie and Riverdale were pretty much created by committee, and that was over 75 years ago, so I am sure they are mostly all gone by now. Is Vic Bloom still alive? There is no wikipedia page on him, so I am not sure.
That said, Archie has gotten very edgy over the past several years. In the
Life With Archie comic book run they introduced an openly gay character, Kevin Keller, and then they had him get hitched in a gay wedding depicted in the comic. Later they had Keller elected to the US Senate, and to end the most recent
Life With Archie run they killed off Archie by having him take a bullet for the gay couple.
By far the best Archie comic to come out in recent years is
Afterlife With Archie, in which Jughead starts the zombie apocalypse. The writing and artwork on that series are stellar. In addition to the horror theme of that book, the writers present twins Cheryl and Jason Bloom as having had an incestuous relationship. There was also
Archie vs Predator, a limited 4 issue series that did exactly what it sounds like, pitting the Archie crew against a (teen-aged) predator. I only made it half way through that series, it just didn't do it for me, but it got good reviews in general.
In short, Archie comics has not been the squeaky clean comics for young kids that you remember from your childhood for at least a decade now. It really hasn't been the same since the '80s, when they started doing crossovers with rock bands like KISS, and super heroes like The Punisher. The new Riverdale TV show having a Twin Peaks angle to it certainly goes along with what the Archie publishers have been doing recently in the comic books. I haven't seen it yet, but have it set on my DVR, and will probably watch the first episode sometime this week.