Will Barchie rise again in Riverdale season 5?

Well, Barchies, it looks like I was right to have hope for our favorite pair. Their story isn’t over in Riverdale season 5 after all and the blink and you’ll miss it crumbs we’ve been seeing in recent episodes are going to be leading somewhere.

When we last left off with Barchie they’d parted ways amicably. After finally having a conversation about the direction of their relationship, they’d decided to step back from the ledge and return to being friends without benefits.

Archie went on to pursue another round of romance with Veronica, and Betty focused on finding her sister Polly who’d been nabbed by the Lonely Highway Killer. Since then they’ve been occupying disparate storylines without checking in on one another on-screen like they had at the beginning of season 5‘s time jump.

Spoilers ahead for Riverdale season 5

However, the show does seem to be inching the audience back to Barchie by evidence of the two being visually paired in both episode 14 and 15. In “Chapter Ninety: The Night Gallery,” Cheryl painted three portraits that functioned as a triptych used to focus in on Archie, Betty, and Jughead’s separate arcs this season.

All three tales were similar in the sense that they centered on the darkness the characters have been navigating in themselves. But, while Jughead managed to head toward the light and there’s a hopeful end to his story, Barchie were each still stuck dealing with their PTSD with no real reprieve.

Jughead had found solace in his memory of Betty, seeing her as the light that led him out of the sewers and saved him. Betty, however, has consistently seen Archie as her “window of light in the dark” which is a call back to the pair’s habit of looking at each other from their bedroom windows since season 1.

It stands to reason that Archie feels the same as Betty considering he wrote a song called “Carry the Torch” for her in season 4 which has the following ending lyrics: If you carry the torch, I follow the light. I follow the light.

Now this has yet to bear fruit in season 5 but given the two are still trapped in their own darkness, it might soon come back into play. They’re both struggling with trauma, focused on a mission, and not in communication with each other in any meaningful way.

But, as small as the moment was in “Chapter Ninety-One: The Return of the Pussycats,” the two were next to each other as the gang waited for Toni to give birth to her son, Anthony, and they shared a smile later, too. It was their first real interaction since parting ways and, according to RAS, there’s more to come.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa teases Barchie’s future in Riverdale season 5

In a check-in with TVLine about the season, RAS teased that Barchie would “more than just glance at each other as we head into these last few episodes.”

Could they finally open up to each other about their respective trauma? I sure hope so, especially because RAS had more to say about their relationship.

"In our minds, Betty and Archie’s story didn’t end in Episode 8, when they decided they just were going to be friends. That story isn’t over, and we do pick back with it before the end of the season."

As TVLine pointed out, there are only four more episodes left in season 5. “Chapter Ninety-Two: Band of Brothers” will see Jughead going on an apology tour, so Bughead will likely resolve their conflict over the voice message he left a couple of years ago. The very one where Jughead brought up Betty cheating on him with Archie back in high school.

That’s still a point of tension in the plot which could be the catalyst for Barchie to talk once more about their feelings and how they see one another. I’m hesitant to say that RAS is hinting at a romantic and/or sexual reunion between the two, but I’m not ruling out whatever is set to go down between Barchie playing into season 6 in some way.

Why? TVLine also dropped spoilers for the sixth season of the show which included a hint, hint, wink, wink from RAS on the romances in the season. He said:

"Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, Jughead and Tabitha… all of them are very deep into it with love interests."

Could Barchie, Veggie, and Jabitha be loved up in season 6? With the way season 5 has been going, it’s possible, though RAS didn’t reveal who is paired with whom.

Still, given what we’ve seen so far, I can’t shake the feeling that Barchie will at least find hope in one another and lead each other out of the darkness before the end of season 5 which could push them toward a romance at the top of season 6.

We’ll have to wait and see what the Riverdale writers have in store for us, but it’s good to have confirmation that Barchie will be making a return in some capacity soon.

New episodes of Riverdale season 5 air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.