We’re smack-dab in the middle of Riverdale‘s fifth season, and the hit The CW series has upended its status quo in some pretty significant ways. One of the most buzzed-about new-ish elements of the series has been the development in the relationship between Archie Andrews (K.J. Apa) and Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart), who have begun to hook up as adults in the series’ post-time jump world. While “Barchie” have had some major moments together since the time jump commenced, there’s still a lot of their history from the past seven years and beyond that’s been unexplored — and according to showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, that will soon change.
“I love this week’s episode because — despite all the serial killers and aliens — it puts all of our characters’ relationships front and center,” Aguirre-Sacasa explained to TVLine. “And people start having hard conversations that they’ve mostly been avoiding. Betty and Archie, in particular, are wrestling with what they mean to each other. I mean, they’re childhood friends, it’s not just booty calls with them.”
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This news will surely intrigue fans of the pairing, especially those who have been hoping for some genuinely meaningful moments between the pairing. While the pair were best friends in high school, they were largely caught up in different romantic relationships at that time — something that the time jump did help naturally get away from.
“One of the hallmarks of Riverdale has been that it isn’t a procedural. Every episode is its own genre and it’s constantly reinvent[ing] 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,” Aguirre-Sacasa explained to Entertainment Tonight earlier this season. “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.”
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
