What Does Promoting This Character To Series Regular Mean For Riverdale?

We're going to be seeing a lot more of Jughead's dad, F.P. Jones, when Riverdale returns for season 2. As reported by TVLine, Skeet Ulrich has been promoted to series regular for the show's sophomore season, meaning that he'll likely be spending a lot more time with his son (played by Cole Sprouse) when the CW show returns on Wednesdays this fall. One thing it could also mean? That Fred Andrews (Luke Perry) doesn't survive that gunshot wound.

If Fred represented the last pure part of the town of Riverdale — and Jughead's narration says as much — then F.P. represents its dark underbelly. Knowing that Jughead's dad will loom large over the show presents the possibility that maybe Fred's time is over, and that the reign of the small-time criminals with dark secrets — of whom F.P. is basically the king of — is just beginning.

Is this a stretch? Possibly — but it should be noted that it's just another piece of evidence suggests Archie's (K.J. Apa) father won't live to see the show's next season. At the end of season 1, Archie — fresh off a hook up with his will-they-won't-they love interest Veronica (Camila Mendes) — joins his dad for a breakfast at Pop's, only to return from the bathroom and find that a robber with a gun pointed right at Fred. The scene then cuts to Fred bleeding out in Archie's arms, looking paler and paler by the moment.

According to showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa interview with Entertainment Tonight, this is the moment in which Archie goes from being basic as hell (sorry, Archiekins) to being a bonafide superhero.

"The way we’re thinking of what happens in Pop’s in the last moments of the finale is really the equivalent of Bruce Wayne seeing his parents gunned down in Crime Alley, or Peter Parker learning that his beloved Uncle Ben was shot by a robber," he told ET. "That really set those two characters on their hero’s journey. For Archie, he is the hero of our show, but before he gets to that heroic journey, it’s going to be a journey more of revenge, and a journey of darkness and violence begetting violence."

Hmm... could F.P. help facilitate the emergence of Dark Archie? It certainly seems possible — and we should prepare ourselves for a whole new Riverdale in the fall.