Riverdale's Ross Butler won't be around for season 2, with a second season of Netflix's 13 Reasons Why taking a priority spot in his contract, but he almost made it into the finale tonight.

Almost.

Above, you can check out a deleted scene from "The Sweet Hereafter," the season finale of Riverdale, which just finished airing on the East Coast. In the clip, Betty and Veronica take Polly Cooper into school...and she encounters Butler's Reggie Mantle along the way. It's an interaction that may not have made it past network standards and practices.

“We love what Ross did with the role of Reggie [this season], but because of his commitments to other projects, we couldn’t use him nearly as much as we would have liked,” series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa said in a statement. “[Next season], we want more Reggie on our show — he’s Archie’s rival! — and because Ross is unavailable to come back to Riverdale, we’re looking for a new Reggie. Those are big shoes to fill, but we’re confident we can find an actor who is as funny and sexy as Ross. And of course we all wish Ross the best.” The actor is a series regular on Netflix's 13 Reasons Why, which is likely to earn a second-season pickup from the streaming service. While the show is based on a novel that didn't have a sequel, its author has said that he toyed with the idea of writing a follow-up, and that he hoped there would be a second season for the show.

While Reggie is a major character in the comics -- and was actually significant enough to be in the theme song to The Archie Show, an animated series which ran for 17 episodes in 1968 and 1969. He is one of the possible "casualties" of the upcoming "On the Edge" storyline, in which Archie Comics has promised dire consequences for at least one Riverdale Resident.

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