This post contains details from the Season 7 premiere ofThe CWsRiverdale.
While many of the students and faculty are ready to ignore the news, the OG crew is not.
The move prompts a larger discussion about racism at Riverdale High, which was recently integrated.
RiverdaleThe CW
And then she wipes his memory.
Before he forgets, Jughead manages to write a reminder for himself to bend toward justice.
ROBERTO AGUIRRE-SACASA:We were towards the end of breaking Season 6.
He and Michael Roberts called me and said, Were going to announce thatRiverdalesseventh season is its final season.
We had been renewed, but we didnt know if it was for our final season.
It felt like the worst thing we wanted to do was have our last season be running on fumes.
And we were all feeling kind of nostalgic for when the characters were in high school.
The problem with going back to high school is weve done high school.
We did four seasons of them in high school.
For whatever reason, the 1950s is the decade most associated withArchie Comics.
We started talking about that, and we started getting really, really excited.
The 50s is a great decade to explore that.
The first episode revolves heavily around the murder of Emmett Till.
Why did you decide to bring up the season with that?
We ended Season 6 going back to the 1950s with the death of James Dean.
Can you explain what that means?
And why was Jughead the only one to remember their past life?
Every season, we introduced a big bad villain.
In Season 6, that big bad was Percival Pickens, the immortal British time-traveling sorcerer.
We played Hiram Lodge up as a villain [for multiple seasons].
Before the sexual revolution of the 1960s and before things like the Vietnam War happened.
We wanted to catch our characters in the throes of American society on the cusp of all these revolutions.
DEADLINE:Riverdaleis often at its best when its self referential and meta.
I imagine that is easier to do when your stories are more fantastical.
AGUIRRE-SACASA:Its funny.
I think weve made a really concerted effort to ground our storylines.
So I think its about the storytelling becoming more grounded.
DEADLINE: The episode ends with Jughead losing his memory of their lives in the future.
But he manages to write the words bend toward justice down before he forgets.
Can you tease a bit about whats in store?
AGUIRRE-SACASA:It is Jughead at the forefront, but really, it is all of our characters.
Theyre all, in their own storylines and separately and together, pushing against that.
Not just for each other but for their friends.
That starts all of our characters having a conversation.
I think as Jughead says in his monologue, [a conversation] that many people werent having.
That conversation will hopefully blossom into actions and then turn into either a quiet or a not-so-quiet revolution.
