As the fourth season of Riverdale gets the characters closer to finishing their senior year, the Archie Comics drama could be preparing viewers for a time jump. The past four years of The CW series has put Archie Andrews and his friends through one murder mystery after another. Starting with the tragic death of Jason Blossom to the conspiracy conducted by Stonewall Prep, season 4 has been an emotional roller coaster for the teen series. After the passing of Fred Andrews actor Luke Perry, Riverdale’s senior year has pushed several characters to grow up significantly while still withstanding the intense adventures of the small town.
While season 4 will not be able to finish with all of its episodes due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 19th episode titled “Chapter Seventy-Six: Killing Mr. Honey” will act as the season finale. It has yet to be clarified what will happen with the three remaining unproduced episodes of season 4 as Riverdale has already been renewed for season 5. Given that other TV productions have yet to solidify their plans post-COVID-19, fans might have to wait longer than expected for the return of Riverdale and other ongoing shows.
Despite the lack of season 5 details, a few updates and teases may suggest that Riverdale is not only ending the high school era of the series but perhaps doing a major time jump. TVLine has reported that producers of “an established series” are considering doing a “massive timeline shift” in its coming season finale. Since Riverdale will be going into its fifth season this fall, it easily qualifies as an “established” show at this point.
At Least Two Parents Are Leaving After Season 4
In the first three seasons of Riverdale, the teenagers weren’t the only focus in the show’s massive cast. Several storylines have been following the parents as well, including Hiram Lodge’s tyranny and a controversial arc following the Farm, of which Alice Smith was a member until she was revealed to be undercover. However, when Perry passed last year, which was followed by the death of Fred in the season 4 premiere, Riverdale has slowly been fazing the parents out in various degrees. While Mary Andrews continues to recur as Archie’s only parent, season 4 has dealt less with the parents overall. The biggest arc revolving any of the kids’ folks is Hiram as he is suffering from a neuromuscular disorder.
As Hiram struggles with the disease, the overall theme of the season is still about the teenage characters' senior year. With several of them heading towards college, the question about the parents’ involvement in the series began to come to light. Despite season 5 plot points being under wraps, two significant changes have already been confirmed. Season 4 will be the last year featuring F.P. Jones and Hermione Lodge as series regulars with Skeet Ulrich and Marisol Nichols officially departing Riverdale ahead of season 5. While there haven’t been any other cast updates since their announcement, this supports the theory of Riverdale’s potential time jump.
If the current season ends with Hiram dying, it could set the stage for Hermione to leave the town in order to figure out what’s next. Even though there haven’t been any hints about Alice leaving, it’d make sense for her to leave with F.P. now they’ve gotten together after all this time. Only time will tell whether or not Alice and Hiram return for season 5, but with their significant others not coming back next season, it makes sense if season 4 marks the end of their regular positions on the series as well. If Riverdale is intending to be set outside of the actual town, it relegates the parents from having any big roles in their children’s lives once they go off for college. If anything, the parents would most likely continue to appear in spread out guest spots, whether it’s through phone calls or them visiting their respective kids wherever they may be at in a potential flashforward.
A Time Jump Makes Katy Keene Crossovers Easier
While Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a spinoff adjacent to Riverdale, the so-called Archieverse officially expanded this season with the arrival of Katy Keene. Set 5 years after the events of Riverdale, the Lucy Hale-led drama has already staged a number of crossovers with its mother series, including the addition of Josie McCoy as a series regular. Katy even appeared as a teenage version in Riverdale season 4 in episode 12, “Chapter Sixty-Nine: Men of Horror,” when she and Veronica were established as being good old friends.
The spinoff has only touched upon life after Riverdale and where some of the main characters are in this timeline. Given that the original show is still set in the present time, Katy Keene obviously can’t reveal too many specifics about what has happened to Archie and his friends. With the New York-based spinoff still settling into its freshman season, The CW has ordered 13 additional scripts, which suggest that Katy Keene season 2 is likely to air.
While crossovers are bound to continue between the two shows, Riverdale characters appearing on Katy Keene would still come in with some ambiguity in order to not spoil things that have yet to happen in season 5 and beyond. By jumping ahead a couple of years, specifically 5 years, Riverdale could line-up perfectly with Katy Keene. Not only does it open up the door for more crossovers, but any Riverdale character can, through exposition, be more specific about where they are now.
Jumping Years Ahead Would Allow For Massive Character Growth
Despite the stories that Riverdale season 4 has delivered in setting up the college years, it comes with its pros and cons. One of the biggest appealing elements of the drama has been its crime mystery and how the kids manage to solve it. Putting an emphasis on their college experience will realistically restrict the characters from being able to pursue their mysteries. By doing a time jump, it makes the storytelling for future mysteries more plausible as well as believable. Even though Riverdale has tended to lean on absurdity, the thrill and suspense of most the crime stories have been consistent for four years.
But what tends to be forgotten is that this is, after all, a show about high school students who somehow manage to solve crimes and get through with their education. In a college setting, it would be demanding too much suspension of disbelief that Archie, Betty, Jughead, and Veronica were able to investigate mysteries without their education being deeply affected. It might be easier to continue that trend if the characters, in a time jump setting, have somehow returned to Riverdale where they’re pursuing their professions after graduating from college. But restricting them to continue living in the small town puts the show at risk of not allowing the characters to grow and evolve. A lot of teen-driven shows that eventually get into college stories have been hit or misses, given that the shows began with the characters as adolescents.
Some teenage-series have progressed better than others when the teenagers move from one phase of their lives to another. With Riverdale, it might be a benefit for them to flashforward and skip the characters’ time in college and begin season 5 with them having progressed as characters mostly off-screen. But by showing them as evolved versions of each other, it increases the chances for Riverdale’s characters to come off as more mature and adult while heading into new storylines, whether they’re driven by new crime mysteries or not. What most time jumps also tend to do is breathe fresh life into the characters' conflicts. Any show that has been on the air for 4 years without any major changes can risk feeling too repetitive. With season 4’s ending approaching and Riverdale season 5 possibly being the series to fit TVLine’s blind item, the Archie Comics-drama will soon have many eyes following its progression for the rest of the year.