Riverdale: "The Homecoming" Preview Released

Riverdale fans were given a lot to take in with this week's episode, as the hit The CW series jumped forward seven years into the future. The narrative decision has already manifested itself in some creative ways, as tonight's episode, "Chapter Eighty: Purgatorio", visited the new young adult lives of Archie Andrews (KJ Apa), Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart), Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) and more. The first time jump episode definitely teed up a lot of new plotlines for Season 5 -- and now we have our latest look at what that will entail. The CW has released a new preview for "Chapter Eighty-One: The Homecoming", which you can check out below.

"I think I'd known about the time jump pre-pandemic," Drew Ray Tanner, who plays Fangs Fogarty on the series recently explained to ComicBook.com. "So when the pandemic happened, we knew that we would go back to filming and it would sort of pick up on this time jump. So I was given nine months to grow out my hair, and to grow as an individual. I just kind of kept it in the back of my mind each day, as I was going through this life-changing thing. It was such a colossal thing -- I don't think anything has happened that big in my life, since graduation or something like that."

"As [an] actor, the best thing you can do is to learn from everything that's in everyday life. The best characters to learn from are people on the street and everyday interactions," Tanner continued. "You're constantly learning. You're constantly adding things to your tool belt. That's the job of the actor, to take life and to hopefully imitate it in art. So I was extremely blessed that I had [so much time]. As a TV actor, you don't get that much time to do something like this, but we really were given nine months to flesh it out and be aware of "Okay, this is where we're going with this. How do I build this up? And how do I make this character real? And how do I make it sort of a seamless transition?" It was extremely exciting. It was challenging, but I was given more than enough time to prepare."

You can check out the synopsis for "Chapter Eighty-One: The Homecoming" below!

"THE FIGHT FOR RIVERDALE HIGH — Toni (Vanessa Morgan), Alice (Mädchen Amick), Archie (KJ Apa) and Kevin (Casey Cott) fight to keep Riverdale High's doors open after learning that its budget had been cut by Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos). Veronica (Camila Mendes) gets creative when she discovers Chad (guest star Chris Mason) is having her followed. Jughead (Cole Sprouse) starts a new job after debt collectors show up in Riverdale. Lili Reinhart, Madelaine Petsch, Charles Melton, Drew Ray Tanner and Erinn Westbrook also star. Steve Adelson directed the episode written by Michael Grassi."

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW. "Back to School" will air on February 17th.