Riverdale season 5 spoilers: KJ Apa on big time jump (and consequences)
For the sake of this article, though, we don’t want to spend time reminding you over and over again that these events are coming. You know. They were promoted as early as a full year ago, back when they were planned as a part of season 4. What we’re most intrigued with this season comes a few episodes in — the great unknown for Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and the rest of the gang. A massive time jump looms around the corner. On the other side of it graduation is far in the rear-view mirror, relationships are questions marks, and there’s no clear sense as to where anyone is professionally. From a viewer perspective, this is fun! It’s like opening a brand new book, one with established characters but still endless possibilities.
We imagine that for the actors and writers, it has to feel relatively similar. They’ve spent the better part of four years operating in a limited frame and now, they have a chance to change gears. There’s still familiarity, but also fear. You don’t know what’s going to happen next; you don’t have the friendly plot device of high school binding people together. Riverdale is still there, but these characters haven’t all lived there since graduation. Times have very much changed.
You can feel the joy and the excitement through the actors, who teasing the post time-jump world in some of the pre-season press. A great example is what Archie himself in KJ Apa had to say to Entertainment Weekly:
Although we are still in Riverdale and we are still tied into the school in certain ways, in the time jump I feel like we had to refresh our audience with a new theme, which is the fact that we’re all a lot older. And I feel like that in itself, the fact that we’re all older and a lot of time has passed, no one’s really kept in touch over that six years, it adds a lot more things to play with.
As for further specifics, it’s hard to give them! That is exactly the point! We know that there’s been rumors of Archie’s death and/or something terrible happening to him, but Riverdale without Archie just feels empty and lost. He’s gotta make it … right? Remember that he can be alive and still very much changed…
Related News – Want to get some premiere scoop for Riverdale season 5?
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This article was written by Jessica Carter. Be sure to follow her on Twitter.