The 7-Year Time Jump in Riverdale, Explained

Greetings reader, we are back with an update on the wildest show in the west, Riverdale. The latest episode of season 5 saw a huge seven-year time jump take place and it has us wondering, did this somehow make Riverdale... better?

Well, let’s not make bold claims, but if you dropped off from watching Riverdale, here’s what you need to know before diving back in.

7 Years Later…

The last time we saw the gang (one week ago) they were graduating high school and moving off to a land of promising futures.

Archie was joining the army, Betty, Veronica and Jughead went off to college and Cheryl stayed in Riverdale to clean up her family’s image.

Sounds like a pretty nice place to wrap up the series right? Wrong.

Who knows if it was due to the pandemic shutdown or not, but Riverdale returned to production with an ambitious 7-year time jump. Yes, it’s true, the cast members are now acting their age.

Leaving the high school arena behind, Riverdale has a whole new feel. So if you’d fallen off the Riverdale bandwagon, now is a good a time to jump back on.

Where are they now?

Here’s what all the characters are doing in season 5 now:

• Archie spent his seven years in the army and is deployed to Riverdale to restart the town’s reserve officers training facility.
• Betty took her serial killer catching skills to the FBI where she’s training to become an agent – shown in a montage that is totally not a rip-off of Silence of the Lambs.
• Veronica got married to some boring jealous guy who she met while working as a stockbroker on Wall Steet. She then quit her job because he was boring and jealous and has since taken up a job selling jewellery. She’s making plans for her big return as the ‘She-Wolf of Wall Street’.
• Jughead leaned even further into the writer stereotype and is now a novelist in New York City. He has an agent, suffers aggressively from writer’s block and is dead broke.
• Toni is now actually a fully-fledged character on the show, about time. Toni is the counsellor at Riverdale High, but like the queen she is, also runs La Bonne Nuit and the South Side Serpents in her own time. She’s also pregnant which seems to be a nice integration of actress Vanessa Morgan’s real-life pregnancy into the show.
• Cheryl skipped college and moved back to her family’s mansion to renovate it and paint the days away, it seems. She basically thinks she’s cursed and so, as goes the natural order of things, has become a recluse.
• Kevin and Fangs are pretty much the only couple that stayed together post-high school. Kevin is the drama teacher at Riverdale and Fangs is still doing Serpent related things.
• Reggie is now the muscle for Hiram Lodge. Traitor.
• Hiram, speaking of, is still around doing nefarious things like running Riverdale into the ground. Good thing 24-year old Archie is back now to keep him in line.
• Hermione has had a great 7 years on the Real Housewives of New York, apparently.

Just in case you were wondering, which I know you were, everyone’s favourite character Pop is still around, he’s just retired.

What’s new in Riverdale?

After 7-years there’s some fresh blood in town. To save you frantically searching the internet for actor filmographies, allow me to introduce these new cast members.

Veronica’s husband Chad Gekko is played by Chris Mason. You may recognise him from Broadchurch or Dirty John. Betty’s new love interest and boss, known only as ‘Glen’ is played by Greyston Holt who you’ll know from The 100, Batwoman or basically any other CW show. Lastly, Erinn Westbrook (Glee) plays Tabitha Tate, Pop Tate’s granddaughter who is working at the family diner.

Now, I know you’re probably worried that the show is done with its random musical numbers, over the top murder mysteries or cringe-worthy teen angst. But you have nothing to fear because there is still unnecessary singing and everyone broke up so there is still angst. Plus a whole new serial killer is on the loose who may just have the best stupid name in history: the Trash Bag Killer (TBK).

So, the bottom line is that Riverdale is back on its bullshit but all grown up and you should absolutely tune in for it.