PAYING RESPECTS
WHEN RIVERDALE RETURNS FOR ITS FOURTH SEASON, IT WILL TAKE TIME TO HONOUR THE LATE LUKE PERRY
The first table read of Riverdale Season 4 was a sombre affair. “I’d never really experienced the power and the emotion of a group of people gathered,” showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa reflects of assembling the cast to read Episode 401 (streams Thu., Oct. 10; Netflix), which serves as a tribute to co-star Luke Perry, who died in March after suffering a stroke. “Even the actors who didn’t have lines in the episode came to be a part of that. We were all crying. At a certain point, KJ [Apa] started, then Cami [Mendes] started and I started, and we just didn’t stop. I’m really, really proud of the way everyone came together in terms of honouring the memory of Luke and honouring the character of [Archie’s dad,] Fred.”
The majority of the emotional hour takes place on July 4. “It’s the immediate aftermath of what happened to Fred, and the story is really set around Archie [Apa] wrestling with this huge tragedy and his friends being there for him and helping him through it,” says the writer-producer, who doesn’t specify how Fred dies. “Veronica’s kind of prepared,” Mendes says of how her character reacts. “She had to step up in the beginning of Season 3 and be this girlfriend she didn’t know how to be that was very supportive and kind of a rock. She’s older now and she’s more experienced and she’s ready to help Archie through this tragic time in his life.”
Perry’s Beverly Hills, 90210 co-star Shannen Doherty also makes a special appearance in the episode. “Shannen plays the person who tells us what happened to Fred,” explains Aguirre-Sacasa. “She was there and she’s an unexpected source of comfort to Archie. The scene is so heartbreaking because you really feel Shannen’s love for Luke.”
While the premiere will focus solely on Fred’s passing, AguirreSacasa says the rest of the season will follow the gang’s senior year as well as the Season 3 finale flash-forward that saw Archie, Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica covered in blood, burning Jughead’s (Cole Sprouse) beanie during spring break. “We had to pitch this story line before the end of Season 3 so that [US network The CW] would let us do it,” he says of the time jump. “Things always shift, but we have a pretty strong idea about what happens.”
The cast, though, still has no idea why they end up half naked in the woods. “He has definitely kept that a surprise for us,” says Mendes. “We never know anything, really, especially the big mystery and how it unfolds.” And what will happen if the teens do indeed graduate at the end of Season 4? “We’ve definitely had preliminary conversations, and there are some very different paths ahead of us,” says Aguirre-Sacasa. “I know what I’m leaning towards, but I don’t think I’m allowed to say.” Surely there’s a Riverdale Community College?