After several years of being on the air, Riverdale crossed a major milestone on Wednesday night, airing its 100th overall episode. From its inception, the series has always taken a unique approach to Archie Comics lore, weaving in characters and elements that fans might not have been prepared for. That proved to be the case all the way through the 100th episode — with one guest star appearance that fans had to see to believe. Spoilers for Season 6, Episode 5 of Riverdale, “Chapter One-Hundred: The Jughead Paradox” below! Only look if you want to know!
The episode saw the Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) of “Rivervale” becoming aware of the alternate Riverdale universe, thanks to a stack of comic books chronicling each episode of the series. As Jughead and some of the other characters in Rivervale began to read the books and become self aware to their condition, they noticed some odd patterns — including the fact that Reggie Mantle (Charles Melton) looked completely different in some of the issues. Eventually, various anomalies began to pop up in the real world — including that another Reggie Mantle (Ross Butler), showed up at Reggie and Veronica Lodge’s (Camila Mendes) doorstep.
The trio began to get to know each other, and both Reggies began to fight each other for dominance. This ultimately culminated in a literal duel, with both Reggies shooting and killing themselves (which ultimately was retconned anyway, when Jughead helped prevent both of the universes from exploding out of existence.
This whole storyline is, of course, a wink and a nod to Reggie being recast between Seasons 1 and 2, after Butler began to have scheduling conflicts due to his role on the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. Melton was cast in the part soon after, and debuted in the Season 2 premiere.
“We love what Ross did with the role of Reggie [this season], but because of his commitments to other projects, we couldn’t use him nearly as much as we would have liked,” series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa said in a statement to TVLine at the time. “[Next season], we want more Reggie on our show — he’s Archie’s rival! — and because Ross is unavailable to come back to Riverdale, we’re looking for a new Reggie. Those are big shoes to fill, but we’re confident we can find an actor who is as funny and sexy as Ross. And of course we all wish Ross the best.”
What do you think of Ross Butler‘s Reggie returning in Riverdale‘s 100th episode? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
Riverdale will return with new episodes on Sunday, March 6th at 8/7c on The CW.