'Riverdale' Showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa Opens Up About Deciding How To Write Fred's Death

Luke Perry‘s death wasn’t originally going to be covered in the new season of Riverdale.

Showrunner and creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa opened up about making the decision to address his death in the storyline of the season four premiere.

“When Luke passed [last season] we very quickly made the decision that we weren’t going to address it in the current season of Riverdale,” he told EW. “We didn’t want to rush it, we didn’t want to sandwich it into all the other plot lines, and we just wanted to take our time and think about it. We briefly thought that maybe something would happen at the end of the season that would signal it and that felt a little cheap. We thought let’s just hold it so that we can think about it over the hiatus and reflect on it. That was absolutely the right decision and it allowed us to absorb what had happened and really think about what kind of story we wanted to tell.”

“Very early on, we landed on the idea that Fred should have a heroic death and that would be impactful for Archie,” he added. “It felt like that’s a way that Fred could have gone. After that, we said this episode really isn’t going to launch any huge stories for this season. It was really going to be focused on that and the emotional effects of that passing for everyone.”

“There have been sadly a lot of tribute episodes in television — one of my favorites is the Friday Night Lights episode where the football player’s father dies, called ‘The Son,’” Roberto continued. “We wanted to tell a very grounded, truthful story. That became the organizing principle or the marching orders.”