Posted in: CW, Preview, Riverdale, streaming, Trailer, TV, YouTube | Tagged: archie, betty, bleeding cool, Bughead, cable, Cheryl, comic books, Comics, Erinn Westbrook, jughead, Kevin, preview, riverdale, season 5, streaming, teaser, television, the cw, the resident, toni, trailer, tv, veronica

Riverdale Season 5: Erinn Westbrook Cast; Rough Time Jump for Town?

As much fun as we're having reporting on series creator and executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's social media updates regarding production the fifth season of the popular CW series, we do occasionally have to get back to the business at hand. This time, the "business" includes welcoming Erinn Westbrook (The Resident) to the cast as a series regular. Westbrook's Tabitha Tate is the ambitious, entrepreneurial granddaughter of Pop Tate, who has 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 (reported first/exclusive by Deadline Hollywood). So it appears Tate will be a part of the post-time jump storyline- and based on the description, it doesn't sound like Riverdale aged well during the jump.

Earlier this 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?).

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