In the Archie comics, the titular character was always torn between two girls: Betty and Veronica. The same is true in RIVERDALE, although the show has complicated matters even further by bringing another person into the love triangle (or is it quadrangle?): Miss Grundy. As we learned in the series premiere, high school student Archie Andrews had engaged in an illicit romance with his music teacher over the summer. And even though the pair seem to be split right now, her presence could complicate the already-complicated triangle between Archie, Betty and Veronica. Another factor that seems to be causing problems is the fact that Veronica and Betty seemed to genuinely get along in the pilot and Veronica encouraged Betty to tell Archie about the crush she has on him. That backfired, unfortunately, and now — thanks to some interference by Cheryl Blossom — the trio are all a terrible mess of complicated feelings.
During a visit to the set of RIVERDALE in Vancouver, the cast talked about the love triangle and what’s next in terms of romance.
Suppressing the Attraction. Veronica was interested in Archie from the first moment the two met, but she was happy to step aside once she learned that Betty had a major crush on him. Camila Mendes (Veronica Lodge) said that this behavior will continue: “I think she will start to suppress it a bit, especially for the sake of her friendship with Betty. But we’re always getting a scene here and there, where Veronica and Archie do connect, and you can feel the electricity between them. But they’re doing a really good job of letting that build rather than kind of rushing it. Like, we all know the triangle’s coming, so we’re trying to gradually get there rather than just starting it with the triangle.”
Related: The cast teases the murder mystery, unlikely allies and uncover secrets in season 1 of RIVERDALE
Throwing Another Woman in the Mix. Miss Grundy, Betty and Veronica won’t be the only women in Archie’s life. KJ Apa (Archie Andrews) hinted that “Archie ends up having a girlfriend who is not either Betty or Veronica, which also causes some conflict between him, and Betty and Veronica.” Mendes went on to explain that this new relationship “stalls the triangle [a bit]….So for a few episodes, it’s like, Veronica or Betty can’t really get to Archie, because he’s distracted, and I think that part of what makes Archie Archie is that he wants everyone. It’s not even just Betty and Veronica. He wants Cheryl, he wants whatever, any girl that comes his way that gives him any slight bit of attention, he’s going to want to receive it.”
That’s right, folks, while no one confirmed that Cheryl would actually be Archie’s girlfriend, Madeline Petsch (Cheryl Blossom) did say “you don’t see a lot of [interaction] between Cheryl and Archie in the beginning, and as [the season] unfolds they’re having a couple scenes where you see her kind of flirting with him, testing the waters, seeing if there’s even an interest there. And then I’ve heard whisperings that there will be a lot more of that as the season continues.”
Friends or Foes? Despite the rocky love triangle and the potential it has to wreck Betty and Veronica’s budding friendship, the cast assured us that the girls are trying hard not to let a man come between them. “Episode 2 is entirely about us trying to be friends again, and Veronica desperately trying to apologize, and recognizing her mistake, and Betty trying to come to terms with that as well,” Mendes said. “I think throughout the entire season, they’re always going to be working on their friendship, and whatever rivalry happens, it’s going to happen because of Archie, but it’s never really going to get in the way of the essence of their friendship.”
Lili Reinhart (Betty Cooper) elaborated that “At the end of the day we wanted to make sure they were friends. We don’t want to [pit] these women against each other, that was important to us. We didn’t want to make it seem like these women had nothing better to do than fight over a man, especially one that in the comics picks one one day and the other the next. We’re definitely not falling into that. But at the end of the day Betty and Veronica are friends and very supportive of each other. At the beginning they do have a rift between them as Veronica’s the new girl and she’s kind of attracted to Archie and really interested in him. But she finds out Betty has feelings for him and obviously you guys saw the pilot. Veronica kisses him and it kind of breaks Betty’s heart but at the end of the day Betty is very very forgiving and understanding. She’s such a kind soul and you can’t force someone to love you. She kind of comes to terms with that, definitely. So Betty and Veronica are friends and you’ll see that.”
Don’t miss an all new episode of RIVERDALE on February 2 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.