Mark Consuelos Exits ‘Riverdale’ After 4 Seasons of Playing Villain Hiram Lodge
Mark Consuelos’ Hiram Lodge will terrorize “Riverdale” no more, as Wednesday’s Season 5 finale marked the actor’s — and his character’s — exit from The CW show, the broadcast network confirmed to TheWrap.
Consuelos had been playing the series regular role of the villainous Hiram Lodge, the father of Camila Mendes’ Veronica Lodge, for four seasons. Hiram first appeared in the Season 2 premiere of The CW series, having been imprisoned during the first season, when his then-wife Hermione Lodge (Marisol Nichols) and daughter Veronica moved to Riverdale.
Consuelos’ exit from “Riverdale” comes at the end of the show’s first season following a seven-year time skip that jumped over the post-high school years for lead characters Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica, Jughead (Cole Sprouse), Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) and Toni (Vanessa Morgan).
Hiram left the show by literally being exiled from Riverdale, something “Riverdale” showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa said was planned so that there is a chance Consuelos could one day return to the show in some form.
“The other thing we considered was killing Hiram off. And we had fun imagining the ways that might happen,” Aguirre-Sacasa said in an interview with Deadline Wednesday. “The two versions of Hiram’s death we were seriously entertaining late into the breaking of the episode were that Archie would take Hiram into the woods…and only Archie would come back, like something out of ‘The Sopranos.’ And the strong implication (never confirmed) would be that Archie had murdered Hiram and buried his body somewhere in Swedlow Swamp. The other thing we talked about is that Veronica and Archie would take Hiram to one of his construction sites and entomb him in wet cement in the building’s foundation. In the end, though, our love of Mark Consuelos and our hope that he’ll always be a part of ‘Riverdale’ won out…by a very narrow margin.”
Earlier during Season 5, an entire episode was dedicated to exploring Hiram’s backstory and what turned him into the coldhearted mogul he is today. In that installment, titled “Citizen Lodge,” Mark Consuelos’ real-life son, Michael Consuelos, played the role of Teen Hiram, a part he originated in a previous flashback episode.
Prior to Season 5, Consuelos’ co-stars Nichols and Skeet Ulrich — who played Hiram’s ex-wife Hermione and Jughead’s father, F.P. Jones, respectively — both announced they were exiting the show as series regulars, though they have since reprised their roles in guest appearances.
“Riverdale” will return with its sixth season Nov. 16 on The CW.
