After several months of being off the air, Riverdale will return for the rest of its fifth season on Wednesday, August 11th and now, The CW has released new photos from “Chapter Eighty-Seven: Strange Bedfellows”, the upcoming eleventh episode of the season giving fans their first look at what to expect when the show comes back from its lengthy pre-planned hiatus.
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As fans of the series will recall, Riverdale is in very different territory this season with the series having jumped five years forward in time and positioning Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Jughead (Cole Sprouse), and Veronica (Camila Mendes) as adults who have all returned to their hometown. Last we saw Riverdale, Hiram Lodge staged an epic prison break and Jughead was apparently abducted by aliens among other wild storylines thus far this season and things aren’t calming down anytime soon.
“On a practical level we really wanted to — I call them still the kids [Laughs] — but for the kids to be playing characters closer to their age,” Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa explained to Entertainment Tonight earlier this year. “And I think one of the hallmarks of Riverdale has been that it isn’t a procedural. Every episode is its own genre and it’s constantly reinventing itself and it felt like if we had stayed in high school, we might run the risk of playing the same beats and the same stories over and over again. So I think the idea was that it would sort of be a creative boost for the writers, a creative boost for the actors, and after four years of very gonzo, intricate, incestuous plotting, it was like, “Oh!” Well, we can just drop everyone into new storylines that feel organic to the characters, but allow us to feel like we can move a little more nimbly. Without the burden of, you know, Bughead dating or the burden of Archie still wrestling with the immediate death of his father. It felt like a way to freshen everything up and I feel like that was the big goal.”
You can check out the synopsis for the episode below and then read on for the photos.
“RETURN TO RIVERDALE — In the aftermath of the prison break at Hiram’s (Mark Consuelos) jail, Archie (KJ Apa) leads the charge to round up the remaining convicts on the loose. Tabitha (Erinn Westbrook) reaches out for Betty’s (Lili Reinhart) help when she realizes Jughead (Cole Sprouse) is missing. When Penelope (guest star Nathalie Boltt) re-enters the fold, Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) becomes suspicious of her true intentions. Camila Mendes, Madchen Amick, Casey Cott, Charles Melton and Drew Ray Tanner also star. Tessa Blake directed the episode written by Aaron Allen.”
Riverdale returns with “Chapter Eighty-Seven: Strange Bedfellows” Wednesday, August 11th, on The CW.
