After Archie's brutal death in the Season 6 opener of Riverdale, in which our beloved characters were transported to an alternate, folk horror-inspired universe called Rivervale, it seemed clear that the blood sacrifice would not stick. After all, this isn't the town with pep, but the town with heart — a shadow town, in which things, and specifically people, are a lot crueler and more twisted than in Riverdale. (And that is saying quite a lot.)

Yet for those assuming Riverdale will go back to normal after its special event in Rivervale is over — think again. Creator and showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa spoke to Sophia Soto at Nerds of Color, and declared, definitively, "This five episode event is absolutely in canon, it is in continuity. In fact, there’s a line in one of the episodes, that I won’t say who, but one of the characters says, 'This is not an imaginary story.'"

To further drive the point home, Aguirre-Sacasa also added, "I can tell you that after 5+ years, after trying to kill Archie for five years, Archie is finally dead at the end of 6×01. That’s not a spoiler, that’s fact, and he’ll be dead in 6×02. Our characters will talk about Archie being dead and not feel too bad since they all killed him, but I think there’s some regret there for what they did, for sure."