Season four of Riverdale is only a couple of weeks away and the anticipation is mounting for the premiere on October 10. The new series will be picking up after the events of the last run which suggested something very bad had befallen fan-favourite Jughead Jones (played by Cole Sprouse). This year the show will be set in the final year of high school of Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) and Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) as they prepare to get ready for the real world. But could the show see the characters going off to college?
Will Riverdale season 5 see Jughead and Betty at college?
The CW is yet to announced whether Riverdale season five has been given the green light with any renewal dependent on how well the show does in the ratings.
However, if the show does get another series then it would make sense to see the characters take the next step in their lives: college.
The season four trailer starts with Veronica commenting that things are going to be changing very soon.
“In just nine months, life as we know it will be over,” she remarks.
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Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has previously spoken about the future of the show and where it could go.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, he said this “could be the last year this group of friends, this group of people, might be together.”
Aguirre-Sacasa went on to expand: “It’s a huge step to go from high school to college.
“You say goodbye to your high school friends, you become more of a young adult, and I think that’s what season four’s really gonna be about.”
READ MORE: Riverdale season 4: How many episodes will be in the new series?
His words suggest that the show could go either way with Riverdale coming to an end or continuing into college.
This wouldn’t be the first show to do this, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Dawson’s Creek all followed the characters when they went off to college.
Nevertheless, the transition from high school to college will fundamentally change the identity of Riverdale – particularly if some of the characters leave the small American town.
But this is no bad thing, instead, it could reinvigorate the show with fresh characters and new settings which would allow for the story to expand.
Then again, the world of Archie Comics is quite expansive with the likes of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Katy Keene which all exist in the same universe.
READ MORE: Riverdale season 4: Shannen Doherty character revealed
So Riverdale could expand into the locations inhabited by these shows with possibly Betty going to college in Greendale or Jughead going off to an arty institution in New York where he can hone his writing skills.
Teasing the direction of season four, Aguirre-Sacasa told E! Online that the show would be starting on American Independence Day and futher hinted at college.
The television executive explained: “I think some of the fun of season four and flashing to that is understanding and figuring out how we get to that point in the story.
“So it’s not something that is immediately going to happen, but we’re goin to start sort of seeing threads pulled in that direction.
“We’re going to see what leads up to it and then we’re going to see the fallout to that scene, and that’s sort of the general shape of season four.”
He later said: “I think the biggest thing is that the Archie characters have always been defined by being high school students, and this year is potentially their last year as high school students, and we’re really going to play that and we’re going to play with school in a way we haven’t really done since season one, and we haven’t really ever done, so we’re excited about that.”
Riverdale season 4 starts October 10 on The CW and October 11 on Netflix