Riverdale Boss Previews Season 4’s ‘Powerful’ Luke Perry Tribute
Riverdale‘s tribute to late cast member Luke Perry is unlike any episode the show has done before. In fact, they even changed the format for it.
The Season 4 premiere of The CW‘s teen drama — airing Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 8/7c — is dedicated to Perry and his character Fred Andrews in the wake of Perry’s sudden death in March, and is “very much a standalone episode,” executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa tells TVLine. So much so that they ditched the standard “previously on” recap that precedes every episode of Riverdale: “After we finished the episode, everyone said, ‘You know what? You don’t really need that.'” The producers “also wanted a little bit of extra time, so we took out the ‘previously on’… We wanted to let the episode breathe a little.”
Perry’s 90210 co-star Shannen Doherty guest-stars in the premiere, and though Aguirre-Sacasa won’t reveal her character’s connection to Fred just yet, he will say that “Shannen is wonderful in” the episode. “The role would not nearly have the resonance it does if not for Shannen. She’s just great in it, because I think it’s very real for her.” Doherty’s character does share a scene with Riverdale‘s teen characters, the EP confirms, adding that the scene serves as “a powerful moment of catharsis.”
Riverdale fans, drop your thoughts on Fred’s fate — and Season 4 predictions — in a comment below.
A stand-alone episode in a tv drama. That’s VERY rare these days with EVERY drama having cliffhanger endings.
It’s not a rare as you’d think. I mean most bottleneck episodes are stand alones. Plus, I doubt this one will be that much of a stand alone episode considering how episodic Riverdale is and the fact that Luke Perry was a permanent presence on the show.
The main concern is have they writed something watchable for the new season? I mean last season was tough to watch, terrible writing just utterly crazy.
I just mentioned this maybe their only decent written episode. Every other episode present and future will remain hot garbage.
Yearh, but this episode is the most important one for them, so i’m pretty sure that they will do their abselout best.
writed? abselout? maybe that’s why riverdale eps are such trash, because they know their viewers are too uneducated to tell the difference!
Luke will see this and be pleased.Rest in Peace.
I gotta say this is incredibly classy of them to do. My TV viewing hours are almost non existent these days, but I’ll make sure to catch this episode.
In addition to being a tribute episode to Luke, by necessity it has to be a reset for the core characters and hopefully they’ll have more success than Glee did after Cory Monteith died.
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Cory’s death essentially took the main story and ruined the end game of the show. Say if Booth died on Bones. They were the main couple people were invested in. Once he died Rachel who had been a central focus didn’t have anything to fall back on. The love story turned an unbearable character into someone you wanted to see succeed.
The show was on borrowed time at that point. The last couple seasons would’ve been stronger and probably more authentic had Cory not passed away.
The writing for Glee was never that good. Season 1 was the only season with decent writing. Plus Corey was the show. He was the heart and soul of glee.
Cory’s death definitely affected Glee, but they were already suffering from a lackluster new group of kids that were brought in to replace everyone that was leaving after graduation, so that went hand in hand.
I’m glad they waited to give it the attention it deserves.
👍agreed
Is Molly Ringwald being upped to regular?
She said she wants to be more involved, and for Mary to be there for Archie. RAS confirmed we will see more of her.
👍
RIP 90210 OG dude
RD is one of the worst written shows on television. This maybe their best written episode of the entire series and will it will remain that way until the series leaves the air. S1 was pretty good and that will remain.
Muffy, why don’t you take your negativity and get the hell out of here? You hate Riverdale, great. No one cares about your worthless opinion.
I’m hoping they don’t kill off Fred Andrews’ character, even though Luke Perry passed away. Fred Andrews was mostly on Riverdale in a very limited capacity on most episodes, but it was always nice to see Archie’s dad.
@Di, clearly they don’t intend to recast the character with another actor. Therefore, Fred’s departure has to be explained in some way.
I wouldn’t want a recast at all, but would like the character to stay alive off camera, somewhere, but I know they won’t do that. I just really liked Luke Perry and the character he played. Sad.
I did not know Luke Perry was dead. I love the idea to make this a unique && special episode! I ❤ Riverdale