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And here we are, the series finale of the off-beat, wacky, heartfelt Riverdale after seven seasons and 137 episodes. A pretty decent run in the television landscape today. The series launched on The CW back in January 2017 with a 13-episode season that became an instant hit for taking the classic Archie Comics characters and depositing them in a far darker world and a shocking murder for the gang to solve. We — and they — went through serial killers, Gargoyle Kings, weird cults, mysterious relatives, a parallel universe, witchcraft, time travel, a battle with the Devil … and the death of one beloved cast member whose spirit remained with the series until the end. I can’t say that it was all good — seriously, the Gargoyle King season pushed me to my limits — but I’m glad I stuck it out. And now I, we, have to say goodbye to these characters who have come into our living rooms, generally speaking, these past seven years … and I’m finding it just a bit emotional after investing so much time into watching and writing about each episode. And as this season took the characters from their present to a 1955 past to save them from total destruction from Bailey’s Comet, I could only hope that knowing this was the end that the writers would craft a satisfying ending. After seven seasons, it would be completely unfair to the viewers, to the actors, to the characters to give them anything less. Did ‘Goodbye, Riverdale’ deliver that satisfying ending?
The episode begins 68 years after the previous episode, with Betty Cooper (played by Michelle Scarabelli) now back in contemporary times. But this Betty is now 86, knowing her days are numbered as she learns that her friend Jughead Jones has just passed away, making her the last survivor of the original group. She asks her granddaughter Alice if she would take her back to Riverdale one more time so she could remember the things that have slipped away, and Alice agrees if Betty is feeling up to it the next day. As Betty drifts off while skimming through her senior year high school yearbook, she hears a little bell (the same bell we’ve heard all season during the show’s opening title) and spies a young Jughead sitting at the foot of her bed, the Angel Jughead as we can tell from his modern knitted crown. She tells him she’d love nothing more than to go back to Riverdale as it was, to see all of her friends again one last time. Jughead tells her she can do that, all she has to do is walk through a door with a sign, ‘Betty’s Bedroom’. She does and Betty is 17 again, seeing her old bedroom as it was, spying Archie through her window again. Jughead notes the times Betty has done that numbers in the thousands. And it’s with this return to her teen years that we begin to understand that this is how we, and Betty, will learn the fates of all of our beloved Riverdale denizens.
Jughead tells Betty that Archie is just about to tell him mom that he’s planning to join a crew that will build highways across the country, connecting people from coast-to-coast, but Mary is concerned that once he gets a look at the Pacific Ocean, he’ll forget about Riverdale. He says he will only be gone for three months, and Riverdale will always be his home. She reminds him that his father always wanted to go west and settle (Archie even talked about this earlier in the season), but she gives Archie her blessing. Betty asks what happened to Mary, and he tells her that she bought the dress shop, a woman named Brooke came in, struck up a conversation and a few weeks later moved into the Andrews home where she and Mary lived out their days until the very end. (Brooke did exist in the original timeline as Mary’s former roommate at Sarah Florence who came back into Mary’s life when Archie was looking to join the Naval Academy, they got married and then divorced, so their second chance had a happier ending.) Betty then hears a commotion downstairs and runs down to find her mother and a very pregnant Polly at the dining room table. Betty is thrilled to see them alive, which puzzles Alice, and she’s also thrilled to see that her mother divorced Hal and did follow her dream to become a stewardess. She didn’t get to travel the world and meet fabulous people, but she was able to land a puddle-jumper to Poughkeepsie after the pilot suffered a heart attack. Alice did eventually meet a wealthy man — one of the passengers she saved that day — who swept her off her feet, married her and traveled with her around the world. Betty remembers that Alice would send her postcards from distant lands until one day … the postcards stopped. We never learn of Alice’s fate so we don’t know if she simply passed away or perhaps it was a plane crash that took her. As for Polly, she gave birth to the twins Dagwood and Juniper, and never returned to her burlesque dancing, living a very happy life.
Now it’s time for Betty to go to school. Angel Jughead had asked her to choose a day and she picked the day the yearbooks came out because she originally missed that day due to a case of the mumps, so she never got her yearbook signed. Arriving at school she first meets up with Veronica and Betty is filled with emotion, still unable to believe she’s reliving this day when she was just 17. She goes to pick up her yearbook from Cheryl, who still thinks Betty has the mumps and does not want her cooties, and she’s too busy to sign the yearbook but she invites Betty to the Dark Room for an art exhibit later that night and she’ll take care of it then. Betty’s first signatures come from Fangs and Midge. Thanks to Josie McCoy’s help, Fangs got a recording contract and his song ‘Little Pixie’ went to Number 8 on the charts, which helped convince Midge’s parents that he was okay after all and allowed them to get married. Sadly, Jughead has to break the news that just four weeks after the wedding, a tire blew on Fangs’ tour bus and the bus went off a bridge, killing everyone on board, making Fangs the first of the group to perish. Luckily the residuals from his music — and his gold record is seen hanging in the school’s music room where Jughead promises it will hang for as long as the school exists — kept Midge and their daughter comfortable for the rest of their lives. (And note that this is a bittersweet ending for Midge who, in the real world timeline, was killed after a performance of Carrie: The Musical … and was played by a different actress.)
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As Betty processes Fangs’ loss, Kevin bursts into the room and asks Betty if she wants to have lunch outside with him and Clay. She says she’d love to and joins them at their favorite table outside. Angel Jughead pops up and tells Betty that Kevin and Clay moved to New York together — with the blessing of Kevin’s mother and Clay’s father (and no mention of the Merchant Marines) — got an apartment in Harlem, with Kevin attending NYU for musical theatre writing and Clay attends Columbia for literature. Eventually Kevin starts an Off-Broadway theatre company and Clay becomes a tenured professor at Columbia. They stay together to the end of their days, Kevin passing in his sleep at 82, and Clay dying just a few weeks later while feeding the pigeons in the park. It’s never mentioned but I’m going to wager that Clay died from a broken heart. This fills Betty with emotion and the boys wonder why she’s crying and she says she was just thinking about how the two of them are soul mates. Kevin then drops a major bomb on us — and Betty — when he asks her about ‘you guys’. Betty isn’t sure to whom he is referring and then he reminds her that she’s been in a ‘quad’ with Archie, Jughead and Veronica their entire senior year. Apparently she had forgotten that little tidbit, but Kevin says that he and Clay are perfectly happy playing along that she’s dating Archie and Veronica is dating Jughead. She sees her three pals across the courtyard and waves.
Next Betty is in the gym with Reggie, who is happy to sign the yearbook of the gal who helped him restore his jalopy Bella. He says they could have had some fun at Lover’s Lane if she hadn’t chosen Archie over him. Betty fills him in on the secret that after Angel Tabitha’s last visit, she remembered what it was like being with Jughead, and with Archie, and Archie and V remembered what it was like being together but she and Jughead had just started a thing so remembering all of that took the pressure off of them making a single choice. So she would spend a night with Archie, and then one with Jughead and the boys would do the same with Veronica, and more frequently than anyone knows, Betty and V spent even more time together (alas, she doesn’t seem to know if Archie and Jughead ever spent time together, and Reggie doesn’t volunteer any information about his night with Archie and Twyla). Reggie is more upset that they never invited him and Betty says she and Veronica did talk about it but he was too busy with basketball. He says he would have made the time, but in the end he goes back to his practice. Angel Jughead reveals that after graduation, Reggie went to play for Kansas State and then was recruited by the Lakers. During the Summer he’d work at the family farm until his parents died, then he sold the land and moved back to Riverdale, got married, had two sons — who still run Mantle Motors — and became the basketball coach at the high school. When he died, he was buried in Duck Creek next to his wife and parents.
Next on Betty’s version of This is Your Life is a visit to Veronica at the Babylonium. And V has some heartstopping news — she’s moving to La La Land to pursue her Hollywood career after having a talk with her great friend Peter Roth (the actual former head of Warner Bros. Television who is partly responsible for Riverdale even getting on the air). Betty shows a bit of heartbreak knowing this is the end of their ‘quad’, but she always knew it would end with graduation and she knows V is making the right decision for herself. Angel Jughead reveals that Veronica did make it to Hollywood, got the studio job and quickly worked her way up the ladder, becoming the studio head and championing several major hit movies (include a ‘The Comet’ trilogy from the looks of the posters on her office wall … but were any of them written by Clay as she had promised?), and won two Oscars. Placing her hands in Veronica’s handprints outside the Babylonium, Jughead tells Betty that when Veronica died she was buried in the Hollywood Forever cemetery. Betty remembers visiting the grave, once, and was sorry that she hadn’t kept in better touch.
But to lighten the mood, everyone attends Cheryl and Toni’s event at the Dark Room and it appears that Cheryl has painted some sexy portraits of all of her friends … and encourages them to all to buy one. Or two. Jughead reveals that the couple moved to Oakland Hills as ‘artists and activists’ with Cheryl becoming an artist of global renown. The two also had a son, Dale (named after Riverdale, of course), and the two died peacefully after living ‘full, gorgeous, sexy lives.’ Take note that the baby’s name is a sly reference to Vanessa Morgan’s real child, River (not named after Riverdale), making a cameo appearance here as Dale. Betty notices Veronica, Jughead and Archie talking and remembers that she missed that conversation. She knows V is hitting the boys with her news and Angel Jughead suggests she join them to lessen the blow. As the boys mope about the finality of it all, Betty says they should celebrate their time together, physically and emotionally, look at how lucky they’ve were to have had the opportunity to know and love each other across not one, but two lifetimes. It’s something to celebrate, not mourn, at least not yet. Veronica says the future can wait, now is the time to appreciate what they’ve been through, and it’s been a lot. Jughead said if he had to live through high school twice — which they did — he’s glad it was with those three yahoos. Betty says she loves them all so much and meeting them was the best thing that could have possibly happened to her. Heartbreaks and all, and she’s so happy to be there to tell them that. Archie says they should all take one last jalopy ride together to Cheryl’s for the big afterparty. You can tell in this scene that the emotion among these four actors was very real.
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At Cheryl’s the core group, including Julian, gather to hear a poem Archie wrote for the occasion, a sort of summation of their lives, past and present, poking fun at some of the more outlandish storylines they’ve gone through — and good on for series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who wrote and directed this episode, for going there, even reminding everyone that Julian was originally a doll that Cheryl kept hidden in the basement — giving everyone a nice laugh at just how goofy this show could get. After everyone left, Archie and Betty were the stragglers and Betty says it’s time for her to go. Archie says this isn’t goodbye, they’ll see each other again, maybe even end up together. This all started with them, and it would be them at the end of the road. Betty tells him that’s a lovely sentiment, but that’s not what happens. She tells him his mom was right. He made it to California and never looked back. He meets a ‘sweet, strong girl who makes you laugh’, they settle down in Modesto, they have a beautiful family, he’s a professional construction worker, an amateur writer, and he is so, so content. And happy. And when he dies he asks to be buried in Riverdale, next to his father. And with that they share one final kiss.
Leaving Thorn Hill, Betty tells Angel Jughead that she remembered there’s one last person she wants to say goodbye to before they leave. She wants to get some flowers and night becomes day as they make their way through the cemetery. They stop at the grave of … Terrance ‘Pop’ Tate, who died in his sleep on September 30, 1956 just as their Senior Year was starting. Jughead said it was a terrible blow to the town. Betty wonders what happens when they die, and Angel Jughead claims to not know but surmises that in Pop’s case he’s doing what he loved, flipping burgers, making people happy, for all eternity. Betty then tells Jughead that she just read his obituary and it was lovely and he had a life well lived. Jughead says ‘it was swell’. He ended up publishing his own magazine, ‘Jughead’s Madhouse’, which is still being published to this day (obviously a reference to ‘MAD Magazine’ and the real Archie Comics’ ‘Jughead’s Mad House’). We learn that neither of them ever got married. Betty went on to have a best seller with her ‘Teenage Mystique’ book, had a long-running advice column, and started her own publication, ‘She Says’, that is also still in publication. Even with all of her accomplishments, Betty says her real legacy is her family and she is so happy she adopted her daughter Carla, and she loved being a mother and a grandmother. She asks Jughead if he ever had any regrets not ‘getting circled’ and he responded with an emotional ‘Sometimes.’ He takes her hand and she says she wished they could stay in Riverdale forever, impossible as it may be, with their friends as they were, ‘young and beautiful, full of hope, bursting with love for each other.’ Jughead confirms it’s not possible and it’s time to get her back. She says she’s ready to face whatever comes next.
Back to the future, Alice and her … boyfriend, husband? … are driving Betty to Riverdale. She sits in the backseat, seeing the Welcome to Riverdale sign and saying goodbye to it. As they pull up to the now abandoned and for sale Pop’s, we hear Betty say goodbye to the town, remarking how wonderful it was to grow up there. Alice turns back to tell her grandma that they are here but she thinks Betty is asleep. The driver says she’s not sleeping. But a car door opens and out steps young Betty, entering Pop’s (with Jason Blossom greeting her at the door!), and seeing all of her friends again. She hugs Pop, Kevin and Clay, Reggie, Fangs and Midge, Cheryl and Toni, greets Dilton, Benjamin, Julian and a few others before taking a seat in a booth with Jughead, Veronica and Archie, who says they’ve been waiting for her. Archie has even has a strawberry shake on the table. Angel Jughead stands outside and says he thinks we’ll leave them here, where they’re forever juniors, forever 17, always having a burger and shake, coming from or going to some dance, talking about school, the big games, who’s dating who, homework, whatever is playing at the Babylonium, the moments that make up a life, where they’ve always been, always will be, in this diner in this town … the Sweet Hereafter. Jughead tell us if we’re ever on that long road, the one we’re all on, and we see that neon sign, stop in, we’ll be among friends, and Riverdale will always be home.
This was a lovely series finale that really gave us complete closure on the lives of these characters we’ve lived with for seven year because they had the opportunity to actually craft a finale instead of just having the show suddenly end. Unlike a lot of series where we’re just left to imagine what happened to the characters after the end credits roll, Riverdale gave us complete histories but didn’t leave us with the sorrow of everyone dying. We know they get to live on in their afterlife together, just as Betty had hoped. It’s a satisfying ending for the characters, for the show, and for the viewers. For all the ups and downs over the last seven years, Riverdale was an enjoyable ride that will be missed. But wait … there’s more!
In an extended version of the episode that is now streaming and online, we learn the fates of some other characters who were conspicuously absent from the broadcast version, and not everyone had a happy ending:
- Julian Blossom became a ‘lost soul’ after high school, enlisted in the army and died in Vietnam at the age of 28.
- Nana Rose … never died. Well, she did but was reincarnated multiple times.
- Principal Weatherbee and Mrs. Thornton did end up getting married but no mention is made of how they died.
- The most shocking of all is Frank Andrews and Tom Keller, the most homophobic characters of the season who were actually hooking up. Some years after we — and Kevin — last saw them, the pair were out cruising and picked up a hustler who stabbed them both to death in a hotel room. The hustler’s name — Chic.
And with that we big a fond farewell to the cast, crew and storytellers who put together 137 episodes of Riverdale for our viewing pleasure. Thank you all. It’s been a wild ride.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.
What did you think of the series finale? Let us know in the comments section below.
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