Riverdale, the best show on television, is filming again in Vancouver, after a months-long hiatus that stalled the final few episodes of Season 4, which they are now filming. Season 5, which is also in production, will concern a five-year time skip—or seven, if Lili Reinhart is to be believed—placing the traumatized teens of Riverdale well into adulthood. With the entirely apathetic cast sequestered up in Canada, local paparazzi have been blessed with an abundance of satisfying snaps, like this one of star KJ Apa munching on a lollipop and looking slightly worse for wear in an outfit I, unfortunately, want now.
While out and about in Vancouver, Apa wore a Dickies bomber, casual slacks, and a nice linen shirt. It’s the sort of outfit that reads “CW teen drama star” and also “me in a Trader Joe’s buying eggs but it’s cold outside.”
What strikes me most about the photos, besides the very good outfit, is how unlike himself Apa looks these days. On Riverdale, KJ Apa looks like this:
When in real life, he actually looks like this:
It’s a difference I’m having a bit of trouble reconciling, even with the thick suspension of disbelief that envelops the average Riverdale viewer, which requires one to believe a buff teenager would sell his soul to a meth kingpin so that both can build a for-profit prison that will hopefully rekindle their relationship with the buff teenager’s girlfriend, who is also the meth kingpin’s daughter. Or that a series of ritual human sacrifices would take place on school grounds, and parents would think, “I’m actually totally fine with this.”
Still, this is a very good outfit I will wear to Trader Joe’s later today, where I will stock up on eggs and bags of orange chicken, and pretend like I too am an undercover CW actor.