The world was shocked and saddened by the passing of Riverdale star Luke Perry in March of this year.

The 53-year-old suffered a massive stroke and died several days later. 

The actor, who had played Fred Andrews for three seasons, had three episodes of the season left to film. 

The dilemma then was – how do the creators address it?

Do they write his character out, give an unexplained absence or kill him off?

They decided that for season three, they would just leave it be. 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Luke Perry (@lukeperry1980) on May 15, 2019 at 7:55pm PDT

The show said that Fred was away on business and Molly Ringwald came back as Archie's mother Mary so that the teenager had a parent to take care of him.

So, what's gonna happen in season 4 then?

Showrunner Roberto Aguirre Sacasa revealed what was in store.

He said, ''When Luke passed, it was such a shock, and it was devastating and we kind of have to deal with the emotion of that, and then you have to figure out everything that comes next.''

He continued, ''We will definitely deal with it and address it on the show…we’ll do it at the top of Season 4. We just didn’t want to rush in and do something before we had fully figured it out.''

He added, ''We’d already written basically the end of the season, so rather than try to squeeze in something that’s so monumental and so important, we thought, ‘Let’s take the time to think about what we want to do, and do it right.'”

The good news is that Molly Ringwald looks like she'll be set to step into a series regular role.

Roberto  said, ''[We’ve told her], ‘You’re welcome back anytime, as often as you want and as much as you  want.''

He continued, ''We actually already had her scheduled to come back to Riverdale to visit Archie and Fred. When the tragedy happened, she said, ‘If you need me to stay, I’ll stay.’ And I said, “We’d love you to stay’…We’ve talked about Molly having a bigger presence next year to help her son.''

We'll have to sit tight as we wait for another season – hopefully Fred Andrews will get the send-off he deserves as he was such a beloved character.