An image from Riverdale season 5 teases the fate of Kevin Keller. Based on the Archie Comics, Riverdale has been a hit since its debut in 2017 for giving a dark edge to familiar characters. Keller, portrayed by Casey Cott, is among those characters. Cott recurred in the drama’s first season, before getting upped to regular cast member status starting with season 2.
Considering that the show went off the air abruptly earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Riverdale season 5 has been eagerly-anticipated among fans. The upcoming batch of episodes are also significant because they’ll feature a major time skip, taking the protagonists through college before they return to their old stomping grounds. The CW has been leaning into this fact heavily in order to promote the season’s premiere on January 20. And now, viewers have a glimpse of what Kevin has been up to.
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the showrunner of Riverdale, shared a steamy photo of Cott on social media. Captioning his post, Aguirre-Sacasa praised the actor for his performance in the season. He also teased that episode 8, in particular, would be significant for Kevin. You can check out the photo below.
Kevin had a fair amount of involvement in the previous season, reconciling with Betty and butting heads with the school principal. The character has always had a following, with series star KJ Apa even naming Kevin as his favorite. From his earliest appearances, Cott was able to leave a good impression in the role by zeroing in on Kevin’s kindness and charisma. Those positive traits helped to accentuate the character’s struggles, as Kevin occasionally ended up with unsavory men because of his discomfort with his sexuality. While many fans have convincingly argued that such a meaningful storyline was never carefully examined in the previous four installments of Riverdale, a time jump offers the show something close to a clean slate. Riverdale has the option of starting over, with Kevin becoming surer of himself and less prone to past mistakes. Or, on the other hand, Aguirre-Sacasa and his team of writers could commit to revisiting old threads and exploring them with more depth.
Kevin is hardly the only supporting player in the CW series who could do with a bit of extra shading. On one level, this is by design since the foursome of Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead provide the main fuel for the plot. Still, over the summer, many of the show’s Black actors spoke out about feeling marginalized. As it commits to a time skip, which many fans are excited to watch unfold, Riverdale would be wise to genuinely broaden its scope beyond the usual protagonists. If the adaptation is to remain a success, and if attempts at spin-offs are expected to garner the same level of buzz, popular characters have to be placed at the forefront more consistently. It seems like Kevin, at least, will finally be getting his chance.