Posted in: CW, Preview, Riverdale, streaming, TV | Tagged: archie, betty, bleeding cool, canle, Cheryl, comic books, Comics, jughead, Kevin, preview, riverdale, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, season 5, streaming, television, the cw, toni, tv, veronica

Riverdale Season 5 EP Aguirre-Sacasa Warns: Beware the Lonely Highway

With The CW's Riverdale set to premiere its fifth season on Wednesday, January 20, production is currently (and safely) grinding away in Vancouver as series creator and executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the cast, and crew look to knock out the season (and possibly more) before breaking bubble. But just because they're hard at work doesn't mean they forgot about Halloween- or offering Riverdale fans a treat for all of their patience. And that treat came in the form of a preview image with text that offers a bit more clarity on what the season's initial key art was all about (see below). While we know there's a time jump coming, it appears there's a psychotic truck-driver who stalks-slash-rides the lines of something called "the Lonely Highway"- and that you don't want to be hitching a ride with it any time soon.

Here's a look at Aguirre-Sacasa Halloween "tweet treat" from earlier today:

Last month, Aguirre-Sacasa announced that pre-production on the fifth season was officially underway, offering viewers a look at the script covers for the episodes being run through table reads. Continuing their effective use of panels from the comics to represent the episode, we learned that Episode 501 "Chapter Seventy-Seven: Climax" is written by Ace Hasan and Greg Murray, and directed by Pamela Romanowsky (with an old-school Betty/Jughead prom image). Episode 502 "Chapter Seventy-Eight: The Preppy Murders" is written by Janine Saline Schoenberg and Devon Turner, and directed by Gabriel Correa (with a newer, depressing Archie/Jughead panel).

Now while the third episode is pretty much in line with wrapping up the senior year, "Purgatory" and the image chosen for the cover have us very curious. Are they going to kill Archie (KJ Apa)? Probably not, but they might do an "Archie went missing overseas and was presumed dead" storyline. The image they're using is from the comic book Archie 1941 (writers: Brian Augustyn, Mark Waid; illustrator: Peter Krause), where our red-headed lead joins the military and ends up MIA, presumed dead (see what we mean?).

Announced on September 29th, Erinn Westbrook (The Resident) is joining the cast for the fifth season as Tabitha Tate, the ambitious, entrepreneurial granddaughter of Pop Tate. Seeing serious business potential in her family's business, Tabitha's come to Riverdale to take over Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe in the hopes of franchising the iconic diner, even as the town around it struggles to survive.

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