X-Men: Apocalypse star Karl Walcott and Hadestown star Nicholas Barasch have officially made the casting list as two of the newest additions to season 7 of the CW’s Riverdale. Barasch and Walcott will join fellow Riverdale stars Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart, KJ Apa, and Camila Mendes for the upcoming seventh and final season of the popular drama series.
Premiering on the CW in 2017, Riverdale is centered around a group of high school students turned unlikely friends and even unlikelier detectives after a teenage girl turns up murdered in the small town of Riverdale. Suspecting something bigger is about to unfold, football player Archie Andrews (Apa) teams up with girl-next-door Betty Cooper (Reinhart), former it-girl Veronica Lodge (Mendes), social outcast Jughead Jones (Sprouse), and rich girl Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) are forced to team up and track down the murderer before it’s too late.
And that’s just season one. From there, Riverdale has expanded to include alternate realities, superpowers, time travel, witchcraft, and a seven-year time skip that saw the teenagers grow into adults basically instantaneously. Season 6 of the show, which concluded in July 2022, left off with Archie and the gang trying to harness their superpowers to destroy Bailey’s Comet, which is heading directly for the town. Eventually, they are successful, but their victory backfires as the gang is transported back to 1955 as teenagers again, with only Jughead able to remember the events that lead up to that point.
Nicholas Barasch and Karl Walcott Join the Final Season of ‘Riverdale’
By all accounts, season 7 of Riverdale will pick up where season 6 left off, with the teenagers having to navigate life in the 1950s, as well as being in high school all over again.
Nicholas Barasch will be joining Riverdale season 7 as Julien Blossom, a classic high school bully described “as preppy, rich, and extremely entitled”. Julien is very used to getting his way, and when he doesn’t, he makes it everyone else’s problem. According to Deadline, he mainly butts heads with his twin sister Cheryl, but he’ll prove to be an antagonist to all the teens, and especially Archie.
Nicholas Barasch is best known for his role as Orpheus in the debut tour of the Tony Award-winning musical Hadestown. Some of his other roles include Arpad Lazlo in the Tony-nominated revival of She Loves Me, as well as TV appearances on CBS’s Bull and Nickelodeon’s The Backyardigans.
Karl Walcott will be joining season 7 of Riverdale as Clay Walker, described as “a teen renaissance man” who’s very studious, artistic, well-read, and well-traveled. Deadline reports that Clay, an Army brat, comes from a loving family and is a champion of social justice, open-minded about his art and his sexuality. Clay will reportedly have an “impactful” relationship with Kevin Keller, a fellow queer character.
Karl Walcott is possibly best known for his role as Charles in Le Chalet (2015), but has also appeared as Alex Caron in Cerebrum (2019), Marcus in About Sex (2020), Nesly Bonnet in District 31 (2020), and most recently as Rock Simard in The Night Logan Woke Up (2022).
Riverdale season 7 will be produced by Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios in partnership with Berlanti Productions. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Jon Goldwater will act as executive producers.
Riverdale is currently available to stream on Netflix.