Here’s Why One ‘Riverdale’ Character is Not Singing in the ‘Carrie’ Musical Episode

In just a few months, Riverdale is set to give fans a pretty unique surprise, with a special episode centered around a school production of Carrie: The Musical. But as it turns out, there’s a good reason why one character will not be singing in it.

During a recent press screening (via TVLine), Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa revealed that while Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) will still have a role to play in the episode, it will not involve him breaking out into song, largely because of Sprouse’s own personal preferences.

“Cole and I talked about it a while ago, and I said, ‘How do you feel about musicals?’” Aguirre-Sacasa explained. “At that time, we were going to do Little Shop of Horrors. And he basically said, ‘Listen, I never sang for Disney [on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody]. It would take a lot.’”

As Aguirre-Sacasa revealed, Sprouse’s dislike for singing has actually come about in Riverdale before, with him sitting out a karaoke session during the season one wrap party.

“[The party had] some tiki bar that had a stage, and the bulk of the party was the entire cast and crew [doing] a variety show.” Aguirre-Sacasa shared. “So literally every cast member sang but Cole. Every parent, every kid, every crew member sang… except for Cole. So it was like, ‘OK, got it.’”

But according to Aguirre-Sacasa, having Jughead not sing does make sense within the world of the show, and leads to a pretty creative use of him throughout the episode.

“When we really thought about the character of Jughead, he felt like the one character who probably wouldn’t be in the school musical.” Aguirre-Sacasa added. “When you see the episode, he’s very much an integral part of it, and he’s doing something quintessentially Jughead during the musical. Except he doesn’t sing.”

Judging by the initial news about the musical episode, it appears that Jughead will be filming the entire process as a documentary, which gives the Riverdale installment a pretty unique flair. It’s unclear if Jughead will have some sort of role behind the scenes beyond that, as he is listed amongst the cast bios for the musical episode (something that would happen if he was technically credited as a member of the production’s crew).

So, there you have it. It looks like Riverdale‘s resident weirdo will not be performing in the musical episode. But the installment already has plenty of new details for fans to chew over, which you can check out here.

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