Did Riverdale Just Kill Off Archie And His Impeccable Abs? The Internet Has Doubts

SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for Riverdale Season 3 Episode 9 titled "No Exit" below.


Remember once Riverdale pretended to kill off Jughead and we all collectively sobbed and screamed and melted for an entire week while we waited to learn his fate?


Well, in the January 16 episode, they attempted to do it again, except this time with Archie, and the reaction has been very, shall I mention, 'fool me once...'


To sum up the cliffhanger, Archie, living an isolated life in the woods with his dog Vegas, is brutally attacked by a bear. Immediately after calling for help and dressing his wounds to the perfect of his ability, Archie has a fever dream in which he ultimately realizes he needs perish to create all of the chaos end and begins bashing a second copy of himself. Then we visualize Archie — not the dream iteration, although the real Archie — laying in bed, having lost a lot of blood and looking pretty lifeless.


As in dead. Archie looks dead. He had a dream about dying, and then he dies. Just like that myth about dying in a dream meaning you perish in real life.


Actually, in case you perish in a dream, it resembles inner changes, transformation, self-discovery and positive development," according to the dream scientists at Dream Moods, so this might would be a good thing for Archie! If he's alive — which each person appears to think he is.


Rather than mourning the loss, fans immediately began doubting the plausibility of this storyline. Immediately considering that, they can't kill off their most shirtless cast member!


"Wait what?! I'm not gonna believe for a second that Archie is dead. Nope! No! We're not doing this tonight!" Wrote one fan at the episode's conclusion.


Others sleuthed for clues that Archie couldn't possibly be dead, pointing out that Archie-portrayer KJ Apa was on set long soon after last night's episode finished shooting, his IMDb page indicates that he still has more episodes coming, and that there's still Archie footage in this season's extended promo that we haven't seen yet.


Of course, the most telling sign that he's going to pull through this near-death experience is that he was just cast in Riverdale High's upcoming production of Heathers: The Musical.


I, for one, am looking forward to Riverdale's extraordinary doctors helping Archie through an inevitably speedy recovery. In the meantime, here are more reactions to the episode's wild cliffhanger.