KJ Apa Has A Serious Message To 'Riverdale' Fans About The Future Of Barchie

Few friendships on TV are more intense than Betty and Archie's on Riverdale. They next-door neighbors have been best friends since they were kids, but when Archie turned into a grade-A hunk, Betty realized that she had serious ~feelings~ for her longtime pal. Luckily for Bughead fans, Betty got over her Archie crush and has since moved on with Jughead, but the question remains: Will Archie and Betty ever date on Riverdale? Betty and Jughead are in a great place after the Season 2 finale, but Riverdale star KJ Apa isn't ruling out the possibility of a Barchie reunion in the seasons to come.

Over the weekend, Apa attended the Oz Comic-Con in Australia, and the discussion quickly turned to the show's many relationships — because as interesting as the Black Hood stuff is, the relationships are what fans really care about. In a shocking turn of events, Apa revealed that even though Betty and Jughead are dating (and even though his character is in a relationship with Veronica), he's hoping that Archie and Betty get together eventually:

I love Barchie. Obviously, from the comics Archie and Betty are endgame. It could be a process, or it may never happen.

Um, what? KJ, are you watching the same show as the rest of us? Betty and Jughead are literal goals — how dare you even think about breaking up that iconic duo.

While I'm going to agree to disagree with Apa on this one, he is right about one thing: In the comics, Archie and Betty do seem like soulmates, despite Archie's constant flirtation with Veronica. I wouldn't exactly go so far as to call Barchie "endgame" — in Issues #600 to #606, Archie imagines marrying both women, but he never ends up actually picking one — but most signs point to him choosing Betty over Veronica. How can you deny Betty's (literal) girl-next-door appeal?

That being said, Riverdale isn't exactly interested in faithfully adapting the stories of the comics, so Apa's "it may never happen" could end up being correct. As fans have seen over the last two seasons, Riverdale looks to the comics for character inspiration rather than specific plot lines. For example, the Black Hood doesn't exist in the Archie comics (he does appear in the Dark Circle Comics, an Archie spin-off, as a vigilante hero), but he's the focal point of Riverdale Season 2. Clearly, Riverdale isn't afraid to deviate from the comics, so let's hope that going forward, all Barchie storylines remain in print, not on TV.

If Betty and Archie do get together over time, as Apa hopes, the show would definitely face some serious criticism. Bughead fans are no joke (myself included), and if a character comes in to destroy their relationship, he or she would not be welcomed — even if that character is Archie, Betty's one-time love. When Toni Topaz (Vanessa Morgan) came onto the scene in the beginning of Season 2, fans were so worried that she would ruin Betty and Jughead's relationship that Morgan began receiving death threats. She told Glamour in August 2017:

I’ve already had some death threats. But the thing is, it's half death threats because they don't want that [actually] happening, and there's half that's just all love. Who knows if [my character coming between Bughead] is even going to happen. People are just jumping to conclusions.

Toni and Jughead did kiss at the beginning of Season 2, but they quickly decided that they were better off as friends, and Betty and Jughead got back together shortly after. And now, fans are loving Toni's new relationship with Cheryl Blossom, who has bravely come out of the closet despite her mother's attempt to send her to conversion therapy.

See, Riverdale? Everyone can be happy — as long as you don't break up Betty and Jughead.