Riverdale showrunner says Luke Perry’s death will be addressed in season four

The creator of Riverdale has revealed that Luke Perry's death won't be addressed until season four.

The 52-year-old actor, who played Archie's dad Fred Andrews, passed away in March after being hospitalised following a massive stroke. Late last month, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa confirmed when Perry's final scenes as Fred would air - and now he has spoken about how they're going to "honour" the actor in season four. Fred was last seen in the episode which aired in North America on March 6. Since then, it's been mentioned that he has gone out of town. Aguirre-Sacasa explained to Variety that when they heard that the actor had passed away, most of season three had already been written - and they felt trying to squeeze in a scene would've been "doing him a disservice." He continued:

“That was a decision we made partly because when Luke passed it was such a shock, and we were so sad — we were so bereft — and we knew we had to address it some way, but we didn’t want to get it wrong."

However, he added that Riverdale "absolutely" plans to “honour Luke and explain what’s going on with Fred and why we haven’t seen him” in season 4. Aguirre-Sacasa also recalled how Molly Ringwald, who plays Mary Andrews, had already been confirmed to guest star in an episode towards the end of the season. But with Perry's passing, she asked if they wanted her to stay for a little bit. He added:

“We love Molly; we love having her on the show. I always say to Molly, ‘Come back as often as you want, whenever you want.' “We started to have conversations about [Molly] having a bigger presence on the show next season.”