‘Riverdale’ Season 5 Is Coming to Netflix, Here’s When

Riverdale is taking some major swings during the fifth season already, between breaking up both Bughead and Varchie and propelling the plot seven years ahead in a time jump bypassing their college years completely. This allows the actors to play characters their own age after years of playing teens, and there are sure to be some insane twists because this is, after all, Riverdale.

Creator and executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa got cryptic talking about the new season with Entertainment Tonight. “I think we want to drop you in the middle of something crazy,” he promised. “It’s so funny, one of the things that I’ve been doing during the quarantine is watching episodes of teen shows that have graduated from high school to stories after high school. And you know, they’re pretty split evenly — some of them go to college and some of them jump over college and kind of pick up on the other side of it.”

“And, you know, to me high school was better than college,” he continued. “And since all of our characters would be going to different colleges, my instinct has been to leapfrog over four years, and kind of pick up with everyone there.

While some people like keeping up with Riverdale drama week to week, some fans prefer to binge it all at once when it hits Netflix. Luckily, they won’t have to wait that long after the season ends. The CW and Netflix have a longstanding deal where their complete seasons end up on the streaming service 8 days after the finale airs. The filming schedule was disrupted due to COVID-19, but the fifth season will air as planned and hit Netflix in July or August.

The safety restrictions placed on the cast and crew in order to make the fifth season were quite strict, and star Lili Reinhart chafed against the regulations when filming resumed in August. “I genuinely feel like a prisoner, going back to work, because I cannot leave Canada,” she said. “That doesn’t feel good. You can’t go home for Thanksgiving, can’t visit your family. No one can come visit you unless they quarantine for two weeks. It just feels f—ed.” Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.

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