“Riverdale” Spoilers: Is The Zombie Fan Theory True After All? Showrunners Tease Possibility Of “Genre Change” For Season 2

The CW’s teen drama adaptation “Riverdale” is quite a hit on the small screen. Based off from the “Archie” comics series, it’s no doubt a lot of fans identify with the TV characters.

But as “Riverdale” schedules to make a mid-Season 1 return on March 31, a particularly bizaare fan theory is thought to be a possibility by no less than the show’s boss.

Metro UK said the fan theory, of course, is that “Riverdale” is actually a zombie drama, and that Archie and friends will soon be fighting off zombies. Rumors are saying that the show is actually based off a comics spin-off titled “Afterlife with Archie,” of which Sabrina the Teenage Witch had accidentally caused a zombie plague after bringing back Jughead’s dead pet Hot Dog. In the TV version, fans believed that Jason (Trevor Stines) turned into a zombie after heading to Sabrina’s hometown in Greendale. Moreover, Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) had a vision of her undead brother in Episode 5.

Showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who coincidentally wrote the comics spin-off, revealed to Entertainment Weekly that actually, he was shopping this idea to TV execs before creating a more “Dawson’s Creek” version. He explained. “Obviously before I worked on “Riverdale,” my passion project was “Afterlife with Archie.” When we were originally talking about doing a show about the “Archie” comic characters, one of the takes we debated pitching was “Afterlife with Archie” and it being not a descendant of “Dawson’s Creek” as “Riverdale” is, but a descendant of “Buffy.” That was an idea that everyone was passionate about. Ultimately we ended up going for “Riverdale” and starting with a more grounded, less supernatural version of that because we thought we could always go there, but if we started there, it would be hard to take that away.”

Then, in a surprising twist, he added, "There will definitely be a very strong, bold genre statement [in the finale]. If season 1 is a murder mystery, it won’t necessarily be another murder mystery.”

Refinery29 said that although this is uncommon for a mystery drama to solve a crime by using a supernatural element, it is not impossible. “Twin Peaks” famously did it by introducing a demonic force.

We’re telling, for us, kind of the best version of a murder mystery: Who killed Jason Blossom? So whatever twist in genre element that we add in season 2, it’s going to be different from that and probably, I think, it’s going to make people go, ‘They’re not really doing that, are they?,”" Aguirre-Sacasa said.