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‘Riverdale’ cast explains why Archie & Jughead aren’t friends
At long last, “Riverdale” has premiered — and nothing will ever be the same again. It’s no secret we’ve been excited about this show for some time, and there are so many questions that need answers.
Who killed Jason Blossom (Trevor Stines) and why? What’s the deal with Archie (KJ Apa) and Miss Grundy (Sarah Habel)? Will Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica (Camila Mendes) end up being friends? And most importantly, what happened to the friendship between Archie and Jughead (Cole Sprouse)?
The relationship between the two is the real bedrock of the “Archie” Comics — and while they were clearly best friends at one point on “Riverdale,” those days seem long gone. When Archie is scared that he’s lost Betty’s friendship, Jughead suggests he be open and honest with her, and claims it could have saved their friendship.
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So what’s going on with “Riverdale’s” former BFFs? To find out, we went straight to the cast.
“There’s obviously something happened between the two of the them, it hasn’t yet been established what that was. I don’t even know yet, but I’m guessing it was something that was really bad,” Apa explained during a visit to the show’s set. “They still haven’t completely gotten over it — it’s episode seven and we still haven’t completely gotten over it — so when that comes out it’s going to be massive.”
Sprouse, on the other hand, offered a bit more insight into their division during an interview at the TCA press tour.
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“I think the way it was described to me was that Archie and Jughead were really good friends as kids, and as young teens, because they were,” he says. “As we’re growing as characters, and this show picks up where we’re 16 or 17, I guess we’re playing with why we’re just friends — because of proximity, and because of so on and so forth.”
Examining that is one major way “Riverdale” is going to differ from the comics. After all, on the page they’ve simply been best friends since the very beginning. But as Sprouse points out, you might often wonder why that happened in the first place.
“Their characters are so different. Even in the digest they could not be more opposing, and they just happen to be friends in the digest,” he continues. “This show is ultimately a more human understanding of those archetypes that were laid out within the comics, and we’d like to tease out what it means, to be friends, between two dramatically different kind of people.”
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While they may not exactly be close at the moment, Sprouse’s words do leave room for hope that they’ll be able to mend the divide. Should that happen, perhaps they’ll finally get to the bottom of what makes them such great friends in the first place.
“Riverdale” airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.