Riverdale :: The Witches of Riverdale

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Let’s Talk About ‘The Witches of Riverdale’:  

• The survivors of Percival’s last plague stage a funeral to throw him off the scent.
• Questions linger as to why Baby Anthony and Kevin survived the death of the first born, while everyone realizes only a certain number of key first born children of Riverdale died.
• Alice reports on the news that a gang war between the Serpents and the Goolies was the reason for the deaths.
• Percival knows Kevin betrayed him and asks Reggie to kill him … in exchange for a new heart for his father.
• Heather explains that the dead are in an afterlife known as the ‘Sweet Hereafter’ and they only have three days to bring them back before their bodies and souls are corrupted.
• Kevin tries to make a break for it.
• Witch and necromancer supreme Sabrina Spellman arrives to bring back the dead before it’s too late, but she may have ulterior motives.
• Betty, Veronica and Tabitha are inducted into the Black Arts.
• Sabrina reveals Cheryl’s pyrokinesis is just the beginning of her powers
• Tabitha comes across an old ‘friend’ and learns some startling new facts.
• Sabrina drops one little tidbit of information on the new coven — the dead may not want to come back. It’s their choice.

Most of the key characters of Riverdale are dead at the start of this episode, and that just won’t do while there’s still a war on the horizon with Percival … and a seventh season still to come. Of course this gives the show a second opportunity to bring Sabrina Spellman back … or introducer Sabrina into the Riverdale timeline since last we saw her it was ‘Rivervale’. Having experienced death and rebirth herself (on her own Netflix series) has made her a powerful, and certified, necromancer who can revive the first borns of Riverdale. A nagging question about Kevin Keller is also answered as I mused in the last post if he had older sibling. Turns out … he does not so why did he not fall to Percival’s final plague? And for that matter, why didn’t Baby Anthony? Kevin can only speculate as to why he survived (which seems to turn out to be fact), and it is revealed that everyone was wrong about why the baby lived, assuming Percival kept him alive for his own purposes. And Reggie finds himself between a rock and a hard place (and I think we have to assume he is also a first born who did not die) when Percival comes calling with a favor, and an offer he can’t refuse.

But with these threads dangling over the story, there is still the matter of bringing Archie, Jughead, Fangs, Toni, Dagwood and Nana Rose back from the dead. As Heather explains it, the deceased are now in a place called the ‘Sweet Hereafter’, sort of their own personal version of Heaven, ‘living’ the life they always desired. Archie is happily in his childhood home, now married to Betty with two kids of their own — Little Fred and Little Polly. Jughead spends all of his time at Pop’s, eating endless hamburgers and being worshipped by the fans of his comic books. And he can hear. Fangs and Toni have successfully arranged a truce with Twyla Twyst and the Goolie, and Baby Anthony is all grown up and has eyes for a Goolie. But, as Heather explains, they only have three days to bring them all back to the real world or their bodies and souls will become corrupt. And they only have twelve hours left so that powerful necromancer she’s engaged to help facilitate the operation needs to hop on her broomstick and get to Riverdale ASAP.

But Kevin is now certain that Percival allowed him to live for one reason — torture for his betrayal — and he needs to get out of town now. Moose has already left, waiting for him in New York, so he says his goodbyes to Betty and packs his things. But before he can even get out of his front door, Kevin’s father ans some of Percival’s goons are there to stop him. With Kevin apprehended, Percival calls in a favor from Reggie, who had just acquired the legendary Daggers of Megiddo from Rome (nice reference to The Omen) — kill Kevin, which is not something Reggie is prepared to do. He’s been spending time with his dad after Percival had Reggie made the new CEO of the Babylonium, but Mr. Mantle’s heart is giving out. Percival ups the stakes and tells Reggie killing Kevin will put his father at the top of the list for a brand new heart. But can Reggie go through with it?

Sabrina finally arrives and goes over all the rules with Cheryl, Betty, Veronica and Tabitha. She can perform the ritual to bring everyone back but she needs six witches and they have just three, so Betty, Veronica and Tabitha must go through their own rituals to become witches themselves. Easy peasy, apparently, because before you know it they are opening a portal to the ‘Sweet Hereafter’, but Sabrina also dropped one little bomb on the coven — the dead may not want to return. At the morgue, Sabrina tries to decide which body and soul to bring back first. She took Jughead because (a) he was cute and (b) had a cool name. As she passes through the portal, she emerges in a sort of 1950s fantasy world where Jughead has taken on the look of his comic book self complete with his signature crown in place. Sabrina also looks like her classic cartoon character. Jughead thinks she’s a fan of his comics but she explains the situation to him and he politely turns her down. Why would he want to leave a place of happiness, or endless hamburgers and no pain or sorrow. Besides, he already knows he’s going to die, again, so what’s the point? ‘Thanks but no thanks, and tell Tabitha I miss her and hope to see her soon … not too soon.’

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Sabrina returns … with Jughead. But it’s not Jughead, it’s her boyfriend Nick Scratch in Jughead’s body. On her show, he gave his life to save hers, to balance things so she decided since Jughead wasn’t going to be using his body then Nick might as well so she can have a little more time with him. Oh, and he’s also a powerful necromancer so they will need his help. The next issue to tackle is that none of the others know who Sabrina is, so she can’t just approach them all and tell them to come back. She also can’t rip them out of the Sweet Hereafter, it has to be their own decision, so the only ones who can do the best convincing to return are their loved ones. Sabrina has already sensed a special power in Betty, but when they reveal that Betty was once compared to the Harlot of Babylon, Sabrina said that the harlot certainly cannot enter Heaven so someone else will have to bring Archie back. And, of course, the only person that falls on is Veronica who keeps getting the short end of the stick, still unsure of what future Tabitha saw for her and Archie. And one more thing: Veronica, Cheryl and Tabitha have to die. Temporarily. It’s the only way they can cross over.

With the help of Charon, who ushers them into the afterlife, Veronica goes to Archie’s house and tries to explain the situation to him. Unfortunately, he has the same reaction as Jughead. Who would want to willingly leave Heaven to fight a losing battle? Sweet Hereafter Betty comes home and invites who she thinks is Sweet Hereafter Veronica to stay for dinner, but feeling a bit defeated she turns down the offer. Tabitha goes to Pop’s but sees that Jughead is enjoying the adoration of his fans so much that she can’t barge in on him. But she does happen to sit next to the angel Raphael at the lunch counter … or rather he sits next to her, welcoming her to Heaven. But he has a few other things to tell her, including that he is her guardian angel. Cheryl makes her first stop at Toni’s apartment. Before her arrival Grown-Up Anthony has some news for them — he’s in love … with Timmy Twyst. And they’re going to get married. His parents are so happy but Cheryl interrupts their joy with the news that none of this is real and they need to come back to the land of the living to take care of their real baby. The couple has a hard time believing her, and Fangs says she always hated that Toni chose him, and she’s trying to break them up just like she tried to break up her brother Jason and Betty’s sister Polly. Wait what? Jason and Polly are … married? (Erm, aren’t they … cousins?) Cheryl leaves them and heads to Thorn Hill where she finds the couple, their child and Nana Rose living in an idyll. Oh, and Polly is expecting. Triplets! (And Nana Rose’s eye isn’t jacked up either.) They tell Cheryl she is more than welcome to stay with them, but can she?

Meanwhile, Reggie is having at attack of conscience with the ventriloquist doll Percival gave him acting as his own personal Jiminy Cricket, berating him for even considering killing Kevin even if it was to save his father, and Reggie knew he was right. So he grabbed his dad and Kevin from the casino and told them they had to make a break for it … but of course Uncle Frank and his goons were at the door, and they took the three into custody. Percival earlier had tried to pry into Kevin’s mind to find out what the others were doing, but he was able to find his anchor and resist, telling Percival to just kill him because he would never give him the information he wanted. Kevin may get his wish. And while all this is going on, Sabrina and Jughead Nick are out on a date with Sabrina also suggesting to him that they just run away. Nick says that will be impossible because Death will come for them (those creepy little birds are already there to snatch Nick’s soul) and in the end she knows she has to say goodbye to him.

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Veronica returns empty-handed, as does Tabitha and Cheryl. There is only one option left and that is on Ceryl’s shoulders. Sabrina also saw a power in her, but not just her pyrokinesis, which was just the top of the iceberg. Cheryl has the power of the Phoenix, rebirth from the ashes. Since they couldn’t convince anyone to leave the Sweet Hereafter, they were going to have to forcibly remove them. Cheryl was kind of pleased with herself and happily agreed to perform the ritual. All they needed was for Cheryl to ignite the bodies with her power and recite the Phoenix spell and that should do the trick. One thing — the dead may not be exactly who they were, some being very angry that they were removed from their own Heaven, but Cheryl begins the ritual. In the Sweet Hereafter, Archie is dressed in his uniform, telling Betty he has to leave to fight the war in Riverdale but as they say their goodbyes, he starts getting very hot. Toni is looking through their wedding photo album and realizes that the photos stop at the wedding. There are no honeymoon photos like she remembered. Fangs asks her is she has the heat cranked up. Jughead also notices it is getting very hot in Pop’s. In the mines where they arranged the bodies, Cheryl has created a blue flame from which flies a fiery bird and out of the flames walks Archie, Jughead, Toni, Fangs, Nana Rose and Dagwood.

When Sabrina leaves, she said she enjoyed seeing Cheryl in action but she hopes she doesn’t get into trouble for what she did. Cheryl acts like she has no idea what Sabrina is talking about but Sabrina warns her to be careful. ‘Death does not like to be cheated.’ Tabitha and Jughead are having a tense reunion. Jughead does not look the least bit happy to be back among the living but while Tabitha is talking to him he realizes he can actually hear her voice. AND he can read her thoughts. Did being dead and revived reboot him? Perhaps but Jughead remembers something else from before his death … there was another Jughead in the bunker. Cheryl tells Heather her experience in the Sweet Hereafter was painful seeing her own family happy without her, but maybe they deserved a second chance also. Heather says they’ve been gone so long but Cheryl said she had to try anyway … and in walks Jason, Polly and their son with Nana Rose. Heather looks concerned. Archie told Betty about their life and their two kids — Betty thought it was funny they couldn’t come up with more original names than Polly and Fred — and Archie said being married to her with their family was like his little part of Heaven. With Veronica the odd man out when it comes to family reunions, Tabitha decided to check up on her. Tabitha admits that, yes, a lot of the futures she saw did show Archie and Betty as endgame but … about half of them shows Archie and Veronica as endgame, so her romantic future is still up for grabs. While Kevin is sure they’re going to die, Reggie actually has a plan to get them out of their predicament: he stole on of the Daggers, hoping it will make a nice weapon to jam in someone’s neck. (Quick history note: the Daggers of Megiddo are from The Omen and are designed to kill the Antichrist, but it will take all six as only one will kill his physical life force so killing Percival’s body will not kill his spiritual existence.) Tabitha also pays a visit to Toni and Fangs and reveals a few secrets. She did learn that Raphael is her guardian angel and he told her that Baby Anthony can’t die, he’s immortal, so that’s why Percival’s plague didn’t take him. He also revealed to Tabitha that she is Riverdale’s guardian angel. Boom!

And, surprise, there is a new episode next week titled … ‘Return to Rivervale’.

Riverdale airs Sundays at 8:00 PM.

What did you think of this episode? Let us know in the comments section below.