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‘Riverdale’ has teased major changes for season 5. Find out whether Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe will shut down forever.

‘Riverdale’ season 5: Will Pop’s close down forever?

Riverdale season 5 was supposed to start filming in Vancouver last week, but has been delayed due to COVID-19. To be fair, it’s not just Riverdale that’s been delayed, but most of the shows filming in the area. Due to the COVID-19 regulations in British Columbia, film sets are relatively low priority compared to schools and local businesses.

So until those COVID-19 tests can be run and the actors officially cleared, Riverdale season 5 is on lockdown. It’s just the world that we’re living in right now, folks. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some juicy Riverdale news to share that doesn’t have to do with the pandemic! Oh yes, there’s some new casting to discuss and it promises something new for a mainstay location of the series: Pops.

New casting?

With the seven-year time-skip for Riverdale incoming, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that new characters are joining the cast. The latest new face to be added to the Riverdale roster is Erinn Westbrook. Westbrook is known for her work on Fox’s The Resident, but she previously worked with Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa on Glee’s fifth season, where she played mean girl cheerleader Bree.

Westbrook will play Tabitha Tate, Pop Tate’s granddaughter. Deadline described her as follows: “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.”

It definitely sounds like things aren’t going to go well for the town of Riverdale itself in the fifth season. Unsurprisingly, Riverdale has been working the whole “dying town” aesthetic for the past couple of seasons. It makes sense that all the murder and the drug running would catch up to it sooner or later. Does this mean that Pop’s will close down? We don’t know. 

Any other interesting Riverdale season 5 news? 

Riverdale recently promoted one of its long-standing recurring characters to series regular status. Drew Ray Tanner, who plays Fangs Fogarty, was bumped up to a series regular cast member for season 5. Fangs is Kevin Keller’s (Casey Cott) off-on again boyfriend in the series and a member of the Southside Serpents’ gang. He’s a former member of the Farm and (we think?) he’s got something resembling a tickling fetish.

Yes, Riverdale has gone to some weird places over the years. Just go with it, otherwise it’ll just make you cry. On the promotion, Aguirre-Sacasa said, “We’re all thrilled he’s joining us for season five as a series regular, living with on-again, off-again boyfriend Kevin Keller and Serpent Queen Toni Topaz. Also happy to announce that we’ll see more of Drew singing!”

Now that’s interesting! The news that Kevin, Fangs, and Toni Topaz (Vanessa Morgan) will be living together in season 5. It sounds like the romance between Toni and Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) will have probably fizzled out in the interim of the time skip. Either way, we have some major questions that need answering now, please.

So about this delay…

According to Variety, the series, which stopped filming on Monday of last week, is supposed to only have a temporary delay in filming. In fact, they may even be back to work already. A source told the outlet that reason is “there is a single lab company approved to oversee coronavirus testing, and the company is prioritizing schools, which have reopened in the province, and local businesses.”

Which, you know, fair. The only thing that we can do is keep an eye out and hope that no one gets sick. Safety and health come first before our soapy dramas.

Riverdale season 5 is set to return January 2021 on The CW.

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  • Does anyone know who plays Jessica in Riverdale because they told us who plays Tabitha but we haven’t heard anything about Jessica,I’m just curious on who plays her.

    October 5, 2020

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