Riverdale opened its sixth season by taking us away from the town with pep and dropping us into its shadow town, Rivervale — also known, as "the town with heart." In this alternate universe, things seem more or less the same...until, uh, they really, really don't. In the final moments of the Season 6 premiere, Cheryl and the rest of the townsfolk cut out Archie's heart in a ritualistic sacrifice, seemingly killing him. But if Archie is dead in Rivervale, is he really dead on Riverdale?

While the town of Riverdale has certainly wrestled with its demons — such as the Gargoyle King, the Black Hood, and a cult run by Chad Michael Murray — the residents of Rivervale might be straight-up rotten at their core. After all, Betty, Jughead, Veronica, and the rest of the gang were pretty stoked to sacrifice their dear pal Archie in order to get the things they want — and, in the case of Jughead, that was just living in an apartment not overrun by cockroaches. Then again, it's possible that Cheryl's witchy ways simply have a hold on the gang, and that they're all under some spell that will be broken by the end of the final episode in this event series.

Yet whatever the reason for this sudden shift in character, it's clear we're not in Riverdale any more — so what might that mean for Archie's onscreen death? Could his murder stick outside of this Rivervale universe, and have implications for the rest of the show? Here are three possibilities for how Archie's Rivervale death could carry over into the "real" world of Riverdale.