‘Riverdale’ Promotes Vanessa Morgan & Charles Melton to Series Regulars for Season 3

Riverdale‘s second season might be reaching its final act, but it looks like the series is already looking to the future.

According to TV Insider, Riverdale has promoted Vanessa Morgan and Charles Melton to series regulars for the show’s upcoming third season. Both actors entered the series early on in this season, with Morgan playing Toni Topaz and Melton playing the second evolution of Reggie Mantle.

For fans of both characters, this news is sure to be a positive thing, as it seems to assure that both Toni and Reggie will survive the increasingly-violent events of Season 2. And for both characters, there’s certainly a lot of potential for storytelling, with Toni recently entering a romantic relationship with Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch), and Reggie making his way into a dire situation with Fangs Fogarty (Drew Ray Tanner).

“Toni Topaz has been a break-out character for us since Jughead met her at Southside High — and that’s thanks to Vanessa Morgan’s fearless, winning performance.” executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa said in a statement. “We’re thrilled that the adventures of this fan-favorite will continue into Season 3. Long live Choni!”

“Charles stepped into the iconic role of Reggie this season and completely made it his own,” Aguirre-Sacasa added about Melton. “[His take on the character] is sexy and funny as hell. He’s a terrific addition to the gang and in Season 3, we’ll be seeing A LOT more of him. All hail Mantle the Magnificent!”

But before we see what Season 3 has planned for Toni and Reggie, it looks like things could get pretty dire — especially with the threat of the Black Hood getting worse and worse.

“When we started, we had three likely suspects, so for the first half of the season, we were always dropping red herrings, so we could pick [one of the three],” Aguirre-Sacasa said during the Riverdale panel at PaleyFest. “As we moved into the second half, and we get back to the Black Hood for the last few episodes, we always knew it wasn’t Svenson, but for the last 10 episodes or so, we’ve had a pretty clear idea and have been writing toward that.”

Are you excited to see more of Toni and Reggie in Riverdale season three? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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