Riverdale’s Final Season Begins Filming

After years of epic highs and lows, The CW’s Riverdale is about to come to an end. The long-running series, which is inspired by the lore of Archie Comics, has been renewed for a seventh and final season, which is set to debut in early 2023. After the Season 6 finale already confirmed that the show is heading back into the Americana of the 1950s, fans have been eager to see what wild developments that entails — and it looks like we’re one step closer to seeing that. Riverdale writer Ted Sullivan recently took to Instagram to share a look at the slate for production on Season 7.

“First shot, final season,” Sullivan writes. “Can’t believe we’re actually here. But such a great season is coming. Can’t wait for you all to see. Huge props and thanks to the mastermind of our #riverdale universe and head of our #riverdalefamily @writerras for this huge achievement.”

Why is Riverdale‘s final season set in the 1950s?

“At various points in the season, we had talked about what our last season could be, and various people had been very nostalgic about when the kids were in high school,” showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa previously said of the 1950s twist. “KJ Apa said to me at some point, ‘Man, remember when we were in high school, and I was on the football team?’ And Mark Pedowitz at the CW had a conversation with Jon Goldwater and said something like, “Oh remember when the kids were in high school?” We talked about it in the room, and we were sort of like, gosh, could we go back and put everyone back in high school? But we’ve done that. They were in high school for four-plus years. It would feel like a repeat. So, we were in a conundrum.”

He continued, “It felt like all we’re going to do for season 7 is sort of a lesser version of the high school years. But in thinking about nostalgia and then coming off of our big supernatural, mythic, Steven King-like season, we knew we needed to make our last season really, really special. One thing everyone can agree on is that whenever we have our characters in their iconic comic book outfits from the 1950s, people are delighted. Cole [Sprouse] was so happy when he didn’t have to wear the beanie again, but he said to me, ‘But, man, I’ll wear that crown till the day I die.’ So, we thought: What if we go back to high school, but instead of high school in the present, we make it high school in the 1950s which is how a lot of people think of the Archie characters.”

Riverdale‘s seventh and final season will premiere in early 2023 on The CW.