‘Riverdale’ Showrunner Says Second Half of Season 2 Will Get Back to Basics

Riverdale‘s sophomore season has taken fans on a quite a wild ride, but it sounds like it will soon get back to its roots.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa teased Riverdale’s midseason premiere – and the sort of familiar direction that the remainder of the season will take.

“The second half of season 2 gets back to a little bit of Riverdale basics,” Aguirre-Sacasa hinted, “which is focused on stories at the school, kind of getting back in deep on the relationships and the friendships.”

Fans already got a hint of this in Riverdale‘s midseason premiere promo, with “The Blackboard Jungle” focusing on Southside High’s students transferring over to Riverdale High. Plus, the midseason finale appeared to give fans a new love triangle and other unanswered questions. Still, with the mystery surrounding the Black Hood still seeming unsolved, and the mysterious arrival of Chic Cooper (Hart Denton) coming soon, fans can still expect those darker influences to make their way in.

“There’s still going to be a pulpy noir crime element to the second half, but there will be a resurgence of high school hijinks, and getting back to the roots of what Archie’s all about, which is the kids and the school,” Aguirre-Sacasa teases.

While the Black Hood seemed to be unmasked in Riverdale‘s midseason finale, Aguirre-Sacasa quickly hinted that another shocking reveal related to the villain could be on the way.

“On the one hand, I want to say that the Black Hood saga is over with episode nine,” Aguirre-Sacasa told ComicBook.com. “We kind of bring it to a close, and new stories and new crime and noir story begins in episode 10, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that… People don’t always stay dead in Riverdale, so we’re definitely going to be dealing with the aftermath of the Black Hood, and kind of the events of the last two or three episodes for a long time.”

Riverdale returns from midseason hiatus on January 17th, 2018.