Riverdale won’t be coming to your TV until January, well after the current crop of fall premieres have come and gone, but the CW adaptation of the Archie Comics universe has been making some waves by casting people like Twin Peaks‘s Madchen Amick and Shannon Purser from Stranger Things.
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Next up: ’90s bad-boy Skeet Ulrich, who “will make his Riverdale debut in episode four as the leader of the Southside Serpents, the gang of criminals that lives and operates at the fringes of town,” says E!
What’s more, they make it sound like Ulrich’s character might have a family tie to Jughead Jones.
“While his character will have a history with all of Riverdale’s main residents, he holds a grudge against Fred Andrews (another ’90s bad boy, Luke Perry) and has a special, mysterious connection to Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse).”
The site then goes on to speculate about the physical resemblances between Ulrich and Sprouse. Could he be Jughead’s dad?
In the comics, Jughead’s dad certainly isn’t a gangster: before the “New Riverdale” reboot, he sometimes had trouble with money and at work, but was a steady provider. In the world of New Riverdale, the Jones family was wealthy before something happened to bankrupt them and Jughead had to adjust to his new station in life.
As for the gang itself, Southside High is one of Riverdale’s rival schools in the comics but the Southside Snakes aren’t, to our knowledge, anything of significance.
Ulrich may be new to Riverdale, but this isn’t his first time around comics. He had a minor, uncredited appearance in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles near the beginning of his career, and starred in Jericho, which was adapted to comics after its cancellation on CBS.
Riverdale also stars KJ Apa as Archie Andrews, Lili Reinhart as Betty, Camilla Mendes as Veronica, Madelaine Petsch, Ashleigh Murray, Marisol Nichols, and more.
Riverdale is expected to debut on The CW in January.
