Entertainment
A 'Riverdale' Season 5 photo teases a truck will be important in the new story.

Um, 'Riverdale' Season 5 Might Have A Killer Truck As Its Villain

by Dylan Kickham
The CW

From organ-harvesting cult leaders to board game-controlling monsters, Riverdale has had some of the most wild and unexpected villains on television... but Season 5 might just take the cake. New shots from the upcoming season seem to be teasing a gnarly-looking truck will be terrorizing the Core Four after their big time jump. So, what's really going on with this Riverdale Season 5 photo of a truck? If the theories are true, it looks like the new big bad is going to be hell on wheels.

Unlike in past seasons, the main story for Riverdale Season 5 is being kept totally hush-hush ahead of its premiere, and there are a couple of reasons for the secrecy. For one, fans already know a ton about the first three episodes of the new season, since they were supposed to be the final three episodes of Season 4 before the coronavirus pandemic cut that season short. With the first few episodes centering on the prom, graduation, and finally solving the video tapes mystery, fans have been primarily focused on these major milestones, and less so on what's to come after.

The other reason everything's super mysterious has to do with the big time jump, which will age everyone up seven years after Episode 3's graduation. Nobody is really sure how much the Core Four will change after college and a few postgrad years, much less what new evil could possibly have brought them all back to Riverdale.

However, showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa may have revealed the new villain in a Halloween post on Instagram, sharing a photo of a large truck with a skeleton chained to the front. The image gives off a very Mad Max vibe, and Aguirre-Sacasa's caption teased this vehicle will spell trouble for everyone in Riverdale: "Beware the Lonely Highway, and the truck that cruises its byways at night."

Fans are pretty convinced this truck will be central to the deadly Season 5 story, especially since Aguirre-Sacasa posted a promo image showing a truck chasing a woman a few months ago.

The big question now is: Who could be driving this truck? Or even better: Is anyone driving this truck? Some fans on Reddit think Season 5 will feature a killer truck with a mind of its own, noting murderous cars actually are a pretty major horror trope, and Riverdale loves to play around with the genre.

Riverdale has even flirted with the supernatural before, but it's always managed to find some convoluted, earthly rationale to explain all the strange goings-on. If Season 5 does feature a living truck, it will signal a deep dive into supernatural territory akin to its sister series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Fans will have to find out more about this mysterious truck when Season 5 of Riverdale premieres Jan. 20 on The CW.