Riverdale Showrunner Addresses if SPOILER Is Really Dead

Tonight's Season 3 finale of Riverdale had a lot of shocking moments, but perhaps one of the largest came at the very end of the episode where a flash forward teased the shocking and apparently pretty gruesome potential death of one specific character. However, on Riverdale not everything is quite as it seems and now series showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is addressing just how real that death may or may not be.

Spoilers for tonight's Season 3 finale of Riverdale, "Survive the Night", below.

In the flash-forward, we see Archie, Betty, and Veronica in their underwear, covered in blood, standing around a fire with Betty urging Archie to burn Jughead's blood-soaked beanie. Jughead himself is nowhere to be seen, hinting that it's Jughead who is dead -- potentially murdered. Considering that Jughead is a central character of the series -- and is even its narrator -- it was a shocking moment for fans and according to Aguirre-Sacasa, it's all just part of centering next season's mystery around the Core Four.

"Next season is the kids' senior year. It's their last year in high school, and we really want to locate their stories in the high school world," Aguirre-Sacasa told Entertainment Weekly. "We started talking about what the big mystery could be, and we said it would be great if we kind of kept it in the high school kind of world. The other thing that we wanted to do is, this year Archie and Veronica weren't that involved in the Gargoyle King mystery — it was more Betty and Jughead. We loved the core four together in the finale. We wanted to do something that tied them all together for the core mystery and for a big secret, and it felt like having them all around that bonfire, minus Jughead, would be a way to tie them all together so that when we get to the central mystery of what happened that night and what led to the events of burning their clothes, it would be all of our foursome and not the kids split off again."

Seeing the Core Four together again for a central mystery is something that fans will no doubt enjoy, but is Jughead actually going to be dead at some point next season? The showrunner didn't answer directly but did tease a "dire" situation for the fan-favorite character.

"I can't say anything specifically to that," Aguirre-Sacasa said. "All I can say is, I guess things look very dire for Jughead in that scene, for sure."

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

Do you think Jughead will die in Season 4? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.