Riverdale Season 4 Trailer Launches at New York Comic Con

Riverdale's fourth season kicks off on Wednesday with Archie and his friends heading into their senior year. Fans already know that the Core Four's final year at Riverdale High is going to be an eventful one -- the Season 3 finale did call into question Jughead's (Cole Sprouse) fate -- but thanks to a new trailer for the popular The CW series released at New York Comic Con this weekend fans are getting what maybe the best look yet at the upcoming season, complete with some shocking twists, turns, and new mysteries to unpack.

Shared by TV Insider, the trailer opens up with what may be the most heartbreaking sequence in Riverdale's history: Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) getting the call that his father, Fred (Luke Perry) has died. With Perry's tragic passing in real life earlier this year, Riverdale's season premiere this week will deal with Fred's passing and serve as a tribute to both Fred the character and Perry the actor. There's a taste of that tribute in the trailer, but there's also a lot of other things to unpack -- including Archie becoming some sort of masked crime fighter, the mystery of where Alice (Madchen Amick) and the Farm disappeared to, who exactly is Charles Cooper, and what is Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos) up to now.

The trailer also gives fan a taste of the new threats Jughead will encounter when he heads off to a fancy prep school, something that may lead up to that mysterious night in the woods that ended Season 3. That mystery is one that Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa teased last month when speaking with TVLine.

"Throughout the season, we'll be tracking how we get into that night in the woods," he explained. "It's a different kind of mystery than we've done [before]."

It's a doozy of a mystery to be certain. Season 3 ended with Archie, Betty (Lili Reinhart), and Veronica (Camila Mendes) burning their clothes as well as Jughead's hat and vowing never to speak of the events that had transpired previously. It was shocking for fans of the series and Sprouse revealed at San Diego Comic-Con earlier this year that it was shocking for the cast as well.

"They gave [the scene] to us right before we shot it, which is kind of normal." Sprouse told us. "You don't want people to know the ending until it's the end of the filming schedule, because it reduces the potential for spoilers. But I think it's interesting, and I think the idea of him burning his beanie is visually stimulating, and a good little hook. I'm excited. I think that they had had that plan for a little bit, and I'm hard-pressed to think that they would ever change the entire narrative of the storyline because someone's cold."

Riverdale Season 4 kicks off Wednesday, October 9th at 8 pm ET on The CW.

Are you excited for Riverdale to return? Let us know in the comments below!