‘Riverdale’ Sets Retro ‘Archie’ Look for 100th Episode

Season 6 of Riverdale began with a 5-episode special event taking place in “Rivervale,” complete with a crossover with The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina‘s Kiernan Shipka. The episodes were insane, even by Riverdale standards, and the 5-episode arc is coming to an end in Dec. 7’s episode. The CW released some photos from episode 5, which Is also the show’s 100th episode, and it throws the gang back to the comic’s roots: the 1950s.

Not only does It look like the Archie – Betty – Veronica love triangle Is rekindled, It also might be a figment of everyone’s imagination. “Unnerved by a series of strange happenings around him, Jughead’s quest for answers leads him to uncover the truth about Rivervale,” reads the cryptic episode description. 

There has been some discussion about what these five episodes add to the show at large, and star Lili Reinhart addressed the fans’ questions on Twitter. “Season 6 starts off with a special 5 episode event, which takes place in a different ‘universe’— RiverVale— while the rest of the season will air in January,” Reinhart tweeted. “I know it’s confusing. But these five episodes are a trip- you’ll see our characters like never before.”

Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa did imply in a new interview that even though the 5-episode special event feels out of the norm of the show, It will still propel the storyline forward. “We thought, of course, it’s fun to have the freedom to do whatever you want to do and not worry about continuity and serialization,” Aguirre-Sacasa told Entertainment Weekly. “But we sort of said, ‘What would be really fun is if we could figure out a way to tell these stories in Rivervale and then figure out some way that they were in continuity and that they affected and informed the rest of season 6.”

“We’re basically picking up in Rivervale with the status quo that was established at the end of Riverdale, even kind of owning the explosion at the end of the season,” Aguirre-Sacasa said. “In our minds, this is in continuity. This is a part of Riverdale.”