Riverdale season 8 won't ever be produced, and there's a good reason for that. Find out why the show ended after 7 seasons and why we probably won't be getting any spin-offs either.
Remember back in 2017 when Riverdale started out as a light-hearted teen mystery-drama show where Jughead and his group of friends from the Archie Comics got together and tried to solve the murder of Cheryl Blossom's twin brother? Yeah... Riverdale kind of fell off of that path since then.
But, even though the show continued to become weirder and weirder, The CW continued to produce the show up until season 7. Since Riverdale doesn't really have a coherent plot line anymore, does that mean that we might still get season 8 of Riverdale, or is that door closed for good?
If you, like many others, stopped watching Riverdale after season 2 or 3, here's a short summary of what followed in the later seasons (warning, spoilers, if you're actually planing on still watching the show):
After Jughead, Betty, Veronica and KJ Apa, I mean Archie (can't believe I just forgot what his character is called), caught the serial killer known as "the Black Hood" in season 2, they uncovered the Fizzle Rock drug scheme led by nuns for Hiram Lodge, Veronica’s dad, and then later the gang got caught up in the cult activities of the organ-harvesters known as The Farm.If season 6 confused you while watching, then take a look at season 7, which introduces yet another time skip, but this time to the past.
That's right, Riverdale season 7 takes place in the 1950s, and it seems as though basically the plot of the other seasons are retconned, to introduced new character plotlines and bring the group back to high school.
After all the up's and downs of different plotlines and relationships, the series ends in the present day, showing Archie and his gang in their old age.
Riverdale Season 8 Will Never Happen
If that summary of Riverdale wasn't proof enough to you, that the show just got weirder and weirder over time, then I don't know what can sway you. Since the plot just became so confusing and hard to follow, Riverdale lost quite a few of its viewers on Netflix over time.
Back when season 7 was released, The CW announced that it would also be the final season of the show. That means we won't be seeing more Riverdale in the future.
Riverdale's finale also proves to be a good ending to the ups and downs of the show. Having the show end with the gang in their old age reminiscing about their past shenanigans seems fitting. Although, to be fair, it also wouldn't have shocked me if there was a season 8 with yet another time skip.
But besides that, honestly, it's not too surprising that the show wasn't renewed for another season. From the looks of it, the main cast was contract bound to film seven seasons of Riverdale, which KJ Apa revealed in an interview with the LA Times.
That's probably one of the only reasons why the show went on for so long. I mean, let's face it, while the show definitely had its entertaining moments, every new season of Riverdale seemed like the writers were running out of ideas.
Even if the show had been greenlit for yet another season, we don't know if the main cast would actually agree to film yet another season, rather than moving on to new projects.
Riverdale: Why There Probably Won't Be Any Spin-offs
Of course, the fact the Riverdale was all over the place story-wise, doesn't mean it wasn't a successful series. Archie and his friends may have finished their journey, but what about the many other characters that we met throughout Riverdale? Is their story over as well?
To be frank, that's what it seems like at the moment. Previously, the CW had released a spin-off series of Riverdale called Katy Keene, but the show was dropped after one season, since it didn't really prove successful.
Additionally, there were plans to create a spin-off focusing on a different character from the Archie Comics, a young private investigator named Jake Chang. While this idea seemed promising at first, the series was scrapped in May 2023 according to the CW's president Brad Schwartz.
This doesn't really bode well for other future spin-offs of Riverdale, which makes it seem as though we have already seen everything that Riverdale has to offer. Of course, The CW could always change their mind in the future and pull another character out of their Archie-Comics-hat and release a whole new series, but it doesn't seem likely that we will be seeing Archie and his pals again.
If we hear any news about Riverdale or a spin-off series, then we'll be sure to update you!