How Long Will Fans Have to Wait to Return to 'Riverdale'?

When does Riverdale return to our screens? Season 6, Episode 5, titled, "Chapter One-Hundred: The Jughead Paradox," is Riverdale's one-hundredth episode, and it airs on Dec. 14. The same episode will also serve as the conclusion to the five-part Rivervale event.

Will fans have to wait long after the hundredth chapter for new Riverdale episodes? We've got the answers for you here.

Let's start with the bad news. After "Chapter One-Hundred: The Jughead Paradox" airs on Dec. 14, 2021, Riverdale won't return with new episodes until March 6, 2022. However, Season 6, Episode 5 promises to finally answer the truth about Rivervale and how that universe exists in conjuction with the Riverdale universe.

Riverdale star Cole Sprouse, who plays Jughead, teased a few non-spoiler details about "Chapter One-Hundred: The Jughead Paradox" to TV Insider. Cole detailed how Jughead questions his own existence and the paradox of Rivervale.

"This Jughead is grasping a comic book that details outright events that Rivervale Jughead has been living, which then brings in this ... meta question about if his life is actually predetermined, if something is writing [his life], if his decisions actually make sense or they’re pre-constructed," the actor shares. "It initially causes Jughead to spiral, but then it gets him to question like he normally does and investigate what’s actually going on."

Any show hitting one-hundred episodes is a great milestone. While Riverdale's showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa didn't explain the reason for the long mid-season hiatus to Variety, he did explain what he wanted to convey with Season 6, Episode 5.

"OK, maybe we’ll do something that’s a little bit more meta and a little more a celebration, as opposed to a really dark episode, which is what we originally thought was going to happen," he said. "We wanted to celebrate not just the show and where the show began, or how far the show’s gone, but we wanted to do a love letter to Archie Comics and the source material.”

Based off another interview that Cole conducted with Decider, it appears as if the series has to resume filming the rest of Season 6, hence the lengthy hiatus. The Decider report mentions, "As with any marathon, there comes a point when you start thinking less about the sprint than the finish line, and it seems that’s where Sprouse’s mind is heading as the show films the rest of Season 6, which will return to The CW on March 6, 2022."

Could the remaining half of Season 6 be the final series of Riverdale? Cole pondered this during the Decider interview: "I don’t know how much of the show is left ... We’re definitely on the home stretch in terms of, just speaking frankly, contractually. We’re all sort of walking towards the end of those seven years." We certainly hope Season 6 of Riverdale won't be its last, but in the meantime, don't miss the epic conclusion to the Rivervale event tonight at 8 p.m. EST on the CW.