Monday, July 29, 2019

SDCC 2019: The Riverdale Cast Talks All Things Senior Year [Guest Poster: Kay-B]

(Photo credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

My favorite event to cover is San Diego Comic-Con, and this year did not disappoint! I had a chance to talk to the Riverdale seniors: KJ Apa (who plays Archie Andrews), Cole Sprouse (Jughead Jones), Lili Reinhart (Betty Cooper), Camila Mendes (Veronica Lodge), and Madelaine Petsch (Cheryl Blossom) who shared what’s to come in the form of academics, family, murder and mayhem in the cursed town of Riverdale.

Here is some scoop...

On Jughead’s arc for the season:

“Jughead’s only in Riverdale on the weekends now. So his main storyline is the prep school, which is the foundation and building blocks of the flash-forwards that we're doing with season four, ” Sprouse told me.

The locus of the mystery of this season is this very strange elitist prep school. The way it was described was very Gossip Girl prep, like Upper East Side kids. And then Jughead. It's sort of like Dead Poets Society. He got into this school because of the story he submitted to a writing contest about the gargoyle king. So a teacher being fascinated with his voice takes him into this prep school.”

On Veronica’s newfound freedom this season:

“Veronica is focusing on applying for colleges and dealing with the repercussions of her father's actions,” Mendes shared. “Both of her parents are in prison. She put her father, Hiram (Mark Consuelos) in there and she wants him to be there. I don’t think she wanted her mom to be there though.

But Hiram ... is causing hell in her life, making it hard for her to get into college, and reacting to the fact that she put him in prison. So because of the conflict with her parents and their current imprisonment, Smithers is her legal guardian. Mostly the house is unsupervised, which means anyone can come over and sleep over whenever they want.”

On Cheryl’s emotional state:

Petsch added: “Well, season four picks up three months later, and [the characters are] about to start their senior year of high school. And Cheryl is hyper-focused on getting into college and bringing her girlfriend, Toni, with her.

Mentally [though], she’s kind of sinking. She's hiding her brother's dead body in her basement and, after the events from the farm, she still believes she’s speaking with him. She truly feels like he’s back with her again. And I think we’re going to have to address that fairly quickly at the beginning of the season.”

On Betty’s complicated relationship with her father:

“It’s two and a half months after [Betty] saw her dad get killed in front of her, which is not a great thing to have [to] experience,” Reinhart explains. “Betty is sort of struggling with the idea that she feels like she can’t grieve him because of who he was. He was such a bad person, so morally wrong, and he was a murderer. She feels like she can’t fully grieve him or miss him because that would make her a bad person.

So that’s sad because she still has all of these memories of him being a good father to her growing up. It’s a little heartbreaking to see her deal with that. But Jughead is there for her in that situation. She’s going to lean on her friends since she can’t trust too many people, and her circle of friends is getting a little bit smaller. I think the core four is strong this season because they are all each other has.” 

On Archie’s relationship with Veronica and his mom this season: 

“Archie and Veronica both have a lot going on in their lives right now. They need each other more than ever,” Apa mentioned.  “Also, with Archie's dad being absent this season, we get to spend a lot more time with Archie and his mom, Mary (played by Molly Ringwald), which is a relationship we never really got to get to know quite well. Molly and I have already had some amazing scenes together so far. It’s been good getting to know how our characters interact with each other more. I think a lot of the stuff this season is based around relationships, especially between the core four figuring out things that we didn't know beforehand.”

Riverdale has always been so great at complex storytelling and taking the audience on journeys filled with unsuspecting twists and turns. It sounds like season four is no different; not only will we have dynamic mystery stories but also heavy family and relationship arcs as well.

Be ready for it all when Riverdale premieres October 9th, only on The CW!

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