‘Survivor’ Vet Wyatt Nash Joins ‘Riverdale’ in Surprise Role

If there’s one person who might know how to survive the night, it’s a former cast-member of the long-running reality show Survivor. And as revealed during the Riverdale Season 3 finale “Chapter Fifty-Seven: Survive The Night,” the teen drama got just the right man for the job: Survivor: Redemption Island‘s Wyatt Nash, a.k.a. Matt Elrod.

But as for who Nash is playing on the show? That’s a huge shocker that promises big things for the next season of Riverdale.

Spoilers for the Riverdale Season 3 finale “Chapter Fifty-Seven: Survive The Night” past this point.

Wyatt Nash is Charles Smith! Which might not mean a lot to the Riverdale newbie, but to fans of the series this is an introduction they’ve been waiting for, for a long time. Here’s the short version, if you’re curious. Back in 1992, Alice Smith (Mädchen Amick) and FP Jones (Skeet Ulrich) were hooking up, and accidentally got pregnant. In order to find a steadier father for her baby than gang member FP, she started dating Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Munro), who later turned out to be a serial killer but hey, we all make poor choices, right?

In any case, Hal found out about the pregnancy, got angry, and Alice went to a nunnery to have the kid, who was named Charles Smith. Charles was raised at the, uh, evil nunnery, eventually running away, which is where things get murky. This was around 2009 or so, and according to what we’ve been told, Charles became friends with Chic (Hart Denton). Chic and Charles’ relationship became violent, and Chic then murdered him accidentally during one of those fights. Later, Chic pretended to be Charles and moved in with Alice and Betty, because why not?

Turns out, a lot of that probably wasn’t accurate — down to a photograph of Charles that the nuns at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy showed Betty of him as a young boy with curly red hair and green eyes. Because as revealed at the end of the episode, Charles is very much alive, and an FBI agent working with his mother Alice to take down The Farm, an evil cult that infiltrated the town of Riverdale. He also has blonde hair, just like his Mom, and blue eyes like… Well nobody, since FP has brown eyes, and Alice’s eyes (and Betty’s eyes) are both blueish-green.

Oh, and after recruiting (or floating the idea of recruiting) Betty and her boyfriend Jughead (Cole Sprouse) into tracking down the whereabouts of Alice and some other missing Farm members, Jughead shows off his detection skills by realizing that Charles isn’t just Betty’s half-brother… He’s also his. Which weirdly almost (but not exactly) makes Betty and Jughead related.

Hey, who needs Game of Thrones, right? Just kidding, it’s really not a big deal.

What this all means for Season 4 — which we saw a little of in a shocking flash-forward to Spring Break as Betty, Veronica (Camila Mendes) and Archie (KJ Apa) all covered in blood burned their clothes, including the missing Jughead’s hat — we’ll have to wait a while to find out.

But if you’re wondering where you recognize Nash from if you’re not a Survivor fan, that’s probably because he’s built a prolific acting career for himself since leaving the island. After nabbing a role in Nick at Nite’s Hollywood Heights, Nash did a few guest turns before taking a two episode arc as Nigel Wright, Jenna’s friend on Season 4 of Pretty Little Liars.

Nash has also appeared in a few Hallmark movies (including the Petals in the Attic sequel Petals in the Wind, opposite Rose McIver, so he’s got cred when it comes to weird family dynamics), before joining the ensemble of Netflix’s excellent Dear White People as Kurt, the editor of the incredibly white “humor” magazine Pastiche.

So there you go: Wyatt Nash is Charles Smith on Riverdale. His being alive would impact nearly every member of the cast, even if he wasn’t an FBI Agent investigating weird goings on in the murder capital of the United States. Now let’s hope he survives to see Season 5.

Where to stream Riverdale