Riverdale Killed Off a Major Character (Kind of)

Oh, Riverdale, please by no means change. Your ridiculousness is all the time a delight, and also you in some way handle to maintain getting extra ridiculous. However, final evening’s season six premiere on the CW set a bar so excessive I truthfully don’t understand how you’ll prime it. It was additionally the start of a five-part Riverdale “event” and it kicked issues off with a bang.

Archie.

Archie Andrews (Okay.J. Apa)—the guts of the present, which might be a pun in just some sentences—died on the climax of “Welcome to Rivervale.” But quite than getting shot by one of many city’s many criminals or stabbed by one in every of its many serial killers, Riverdale determined to make it particular. After being tricked into going to the Blossom property in the dark, he’s knocked unconscious, tied to a stone altar, after which Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) sacrifices him by chopping out his goddamned coronary heart and holding it aloft, Temple of Doom-style, in entrance of your complete city. And I imply your complete city—Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica (Camila Mendes), Jughead (Cole Sprouse), Kevin (Casey Cott), Toni (Vanessa Morgan), Betty’s mother (Mädchen Amick), Archie’s personal uncle (Ryan Robbins)—who encompass Archie because it occurs, standing round serenely realizing the dying of Rivervale’s most pure-hearted soul will carry an amazing bounty to the city.

You would possibly suppose Riverdale isn’t wild sufficient to kill off its primary character, to which I’d reply: yeah, I feel it is perhaps. But it’s extra possible he’ll simply be lifeless for the remainder of the five-part occasion as a result of that is clearly not taking place within the actual Riverdale; the at the start clue clearly being that the city is known as Rivervale. There are others, together with Jughead’s Rod-Serling-in-Twilight-Zone-style opening introduction to the episode. There’s additionally the truth that on the finish of season 5, Archie and Betty discover a bomb below Archie’s mattress, which is seen blowing his home to kingdom come. In the season six premiere, Archie wakes up with a begin when he goals of an explosion, telling Betty he dreamed of a city known as Riverdale.

Honestly, at first look, Rivervale appears precisely like Riverdale, assuming you consider that Cheryl would sacrifice a deer in the course of her maple tree forest and use its blood to attract historic runes. (I actually do, even when she weren’t at present main her personal faith/cult in the mean time.) The first actual signal that Rivervale is a spot of supernatural horror is when Toni and Fangs go to a physician as a result of their new child gained’t cease crying and he suggests placing a tiny frog within the toddler’s mouth. So it makes good sense that The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s chief witch, Sabrina Spellman, might be stopping by later within the occasion.

It’s unclear what precisely goes right here—it might be a dream Archie is having whereas he’s in a coma after the explosion, or possibly one in every of Jughead’s books seen in live-action—however showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa instructed TV Line that it’s in some way in-continuity, “meaning that things that happen in Rivervale would continue or echo or speak to the events of Riverdale.” He additionally stated that Archie wouldn’t be the one dying in the course of the five-episode particular, so there’s extra to look ahead to.

Rivervale—er, Riverdale airs on the CW on Wednesday nights. After the remaining 4 episodes of the occasion come out, the remainder of season six will debut someday in 2022.

Wondering the place our RSS feed went? You can choose the brand new up one right here.