‘Riverdale’ Season 4 Premiere Will Be a Luke Perry Tribute

Riverdale‘s Season 4 premiere will honor the memory of late star Luke Perry.

Series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa revealed that the premiere episode of the hit CW series will honor the actor, and his character Fred Andrews’ legacy, also sharing the title of the episode.

Written by Aguirre-Sacasa and to be directed by Gabriel Correa, the episode will be titled “In Memoriam” and is set to air Wednesday, Oct. 9.

Fans of the series were quick to celebrate the announcement, responding to the tweet with heartwarming messages for the showrunner.

“:( sending all the love, can’t wait to see it,” one Twitter user commented.

“I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to write this and how hard it will be to film. RIP Luke,” Another fan commented.

“Knowing this must have been such a hard thing for you to write, thank you for honoring Luke in this way,” a third user wrote.

Perry died unexpectedly in March after suffering a massive stroke at the age of 52. His final appearance as Fred Andrews aired in Season 3, and the show addressed his absence in subsequent episodes by saying he was out of town and bringing back Molly Ringwald’s character to take care of Archie (KJ Apa).

The show previously paid tribute to Perry by sharing an In Memoriam note at the end of the episode airing soon after his death, and Aguirre-Sacasa said every episode of the show moving forward would be dedicated to his memory.

He previously addressed honoring Perry’s memory after the season finale, sharing the writers were plotting the episode for early in Season 4.

“We knew we had to honor Luke and address Luke’s death on the show,” Aguirre-Sacasa told Entertainment Weekly in May. “When Luke had passed, we had already pretty much plotted out the end of this season and written the end of this season. Rather than try to squeeze something in and potentially not get it right, we thought let’s take a beat and let’s figure out really what would be the best way to honor Luke and to honor the character of Fred, and let’s do it at the top of Season 4.”

“Luckily, Molly [Ringwald] was already slated to come, so we kind of just reflected and wanted to give ourselves the time to do those things right,” he continued.

At the time he told the outlet he had an “idea” of what would happen during the episode.

“Honestly though, things may change over the next month and I’d rather not say for fear of it changing,” he admitted.

Riverdale will return for Season 4 Wednesday, October 9 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.