We're more than halfway through the five-episode event kicking off Riverdale's sixth season, yet we're still not sure where, exactly, our characters are. Sure, we know that they're in someplace called "Rivervale," which narrator Jughead says is the "shadow town" of Riverdale — but what Rivervale is, and whether it's real, remains elusive.

The biggest theory amongst fans was that Rivervale was the result of Archie's dream after he found himself in a bomb-induced coma. In an interview with Variety, however, creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, shut down that theory, and insisted that the events of the Rivervale episodes were "in continuity." A dream, which only one person has, couldn't be in continuity — but there might be a way in which everyone experiences Rivervale, without the events happening in the real town with pep. What if the events of Rivervale are actually from Jughead's latest short story collection, and we're just seeing the stories play out onscreen?

It would make sense: Jughead's muse has long been the town of Riverdale. He was hoping to write a book about the Mothmen, but now that the alien conspiracy theory was debunked to tragic results (RIP, Polly) Jughead may have decided to shift gears, and write about the town of Riverdale without actually writing about the town of Riverdale. That might be why all of the characters are very similar to their Riverdale counterparts, with a few weird exceptions — like, say, the fact that they were totally down to sacrifice Archie to a pagan goddess, or sell their lover's soul to the devil.