Welcome to the sweet hereafter. Following seven seasons of alien abductions, “endgame” debates, and complicated timelines, Riverdale has come to a close. The series finale, which was also the Season 7 finale, ended on a bittersweet note, revealing the ultimate fates of protagonists Archie (K.J. Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Jughead (Cole Sprouse), and Veronica (Camila Mendes) — along with everyone else in the Town with Pep. With the final season now streaming on Netflix in the US, let’s break down everything that happened:
In a world as dangerous as Riverdale, it’s no surprise: Everyone dies. But the shock is just how emotional (and sweet) some of these tragedies are. As Ritchie Valens sings in the final scene of the YA mystery, “You’re mine. And we belong together... For eternity.” The constraints of time, space, mortality, and heteronormativity can’t keep this crew apart. (Have you heard the Core Four were in a quad relationship?) So let’s get like Jason Blossom (Trevor Stines) and open the door on explaining Riverdale’s big farewell.
Two, technically. The first time jump occurs in Season 5, Episode 4 and takes the cast seven years forward after high school graduation. The subsequent season — along with Season 6 — follows the former River-teens into an often brutal adulthood.
The bigger (and stranger) time jump arrives in the Season 6 finale, which sees its heroes face off against the villain Percival Pickens (Chris O’Shea) and a deadly comet. At this point in the series, most of its heroes have developed supernatural abilities. In the finale, they transfer their powers to Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) in the hopes she can deflect the comet away from Riverdale.
However, once Cheryl finishes her vanquishing spell, we don’t pick up in the Riverdale we all know. Instead, the entire cast is rocketed back in time to 1955, on the morning after movie star and teen avatar James Dean’s death. By the time the Season 6 finale initially aired, the Riverdale team knew the following seventh season would be the series’ last.
In Riverdale Season 7, the series goes back to basics. Or at least as basic as a sudsy plot-fest filled with serial killers and musical numbers can be. In the process of the 1950s time jump, the entire main cast is turned back into teenagers — just like in the beginning of Riverdale. We find out Tabitha Tate (Erinn Westbrook), guardian angel of Riverdale and girlfriend to Jughead, enacts this plan as a last-ditch effort to save her loved ones. She also wipes their memories, because… the comet did still land, and it was an extinction-level event.
Now Tabitha must go try to fix the timeline, as the remaining crew (without their original timeline memories) try to bend the future toward justice.
The rest of Season 7 follows the reminted teens as they tackle the pitfalls of the era. Cheryl, Toni (Vanessa Morgan), Kevin (Casey Cott), and Kevin’s new boyfriend Clay (Karl Walcott) deal with the stress of being in queer, interracial relationships in the racist, homophobic 1950s. Betty yearns for freedom under the controlling thumb of her mom, Alice Cooper (Mädchen Amick). Veronica, now the daughter of a Los Angeles celebrity couple, runs a classic movie theater. And Jughead fights the good fight for the freedom of (comic book) speech.
But, because this is Riverdale, there’s also deadly hijinks to be had. Season 7 revolves around the emergence of a serial killer milkman, who’s actually the henchman of Cheryl’s dad, Clifford Blossom (Barclay Hope). As we learn in Episode 18, Clifford is running a palladium scheme with his wife, Penelope Blossom (Nathalie Boltt), who’s revealed to be a Russian spy. Clifford and Penelope plan to help Russia build a bomb more powerful than the H-bomb with the palladium in the Blossom mines. Then, they would flee to Russia and Clifford would enjoy a high-powered position in the government. This plan is titled Project Moloch and is inspired by an ancient pagan deity appeased by child sacrifice.
By the series finale, all of Riverdale’s hanging mysteries and problems are solved. In the penultimate episode, Tabitha returns and gives everyone their good memories back, while withholding the most painful moments. She also confirms she’s stabilized the multiverse, and it is officially bending toward good, staving off the darkness of the original timeline.
So, the series finale is free to reveal everyone’s fate. We learn 86-year-old Betty (Michele Scarabelli) is the last of the gang to survive. Before she dies, a version of Jughead appears and offers to let her relive the last day of school at Riverdale High. Apparently, Betty was sick with mumps that day and had to miss out on all the fun. Now, she can fix that old regret.
For the remainder of the episode, Betty walks through Riverdale, connecting with her old friends and favorite places. As she sees people, Jughead informs Betty of how their lives went, including their deaths. This sequence takes place about a year after the events of the previous episode. Betty is reminded fairly quickly that she’s been in a “quad” relationship with Archie, Jughead, and Veronica for all of senior year. They’re all very happy.
Following a day of yearbook signing, Betty spends the night at Cheryl and Toni’s Beefcake Meets Cheesecake art exhibit, which showcases boudoir oil paintings of the River-teens. Then the core characters say their final farewell during an after-party at Thornhill Manor. Everyone cries. Betty’s final stop is Pop’s grave — he died at the start of the school year.
Back in the “present” day of 2023, Betty’s granddaughter, Alice (Cecilia Grace Deacon), drives Betty to Riverdale to see it one last time. She dies outside of Pop’s and is transported to heaven, where all of her friends have been waiting for her. As narrator Jughead (who is also Betty’s finale tour guide through time) says to end the series, this is where we should leave them: forever juniors. Forever 17.
Archie Andrews: He proved his mother right. Archie got to California and never looked back. He married a sweet girl and and settled down in Modesto. They built a family from there. When Archie died, he asked to be buried alongside his father, Fred Andrews (Luke Perry), back in Riverdale.
Betty Cooper: She followed her passion for writing after publishing Season 7’s Teenage Mystique. Betty went on to become a freelancer in New York, and then created feminist magazine She Says. She never married, but she did adopt a daughter, Carla, who gave her a granddaughter named Alice.
Jughead Jones: He went on to be the creator of Madhouse Magazine, a comic institution beloved by fans for generations. He died at 84, and also never married.
Veronica Lodge: She became an assistant at Silver Shield Studios in Hollywood right after graduation. In a few years, she was running the place. She won two Oscars and is buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Reggie Mantle (Charles Melton): He went to Kansas State to play basketball, got drafted by the Lakers, and then started coaching at Riverdale High. His two sons run Mantle Motors to this day.
Cheryl Blossom and Toni Topaz: Cheryl had an incredible career as a painter, with work shown in galleries and museums around the world. Toni became an artist and activist. The pair stayed together and settled into a craftsman house in Oakland Hills. They died peacefully after living “full, gorgeous, sexy” lives, and were survived by their son, Dale. He was named after Riverdale, of course.
Kevin Keller and Clay Walker: They moved to New York and lived happily above the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Clay became a professor at Columbia University and Kevin opened an off-Broadway theater company. Kevin died at 82, and Clay followed a few weeks later.
Fangs Fogarty (Drew Ray Tanner): He gets his wish, becoming a successful rock star and marrying Midge (Abby Ross). His song “Pixie Girl” even makes it to No. 8 on the charts. But, like the aforementioned real-life rock star Ritchie Valens, Fangs’ life is cut tragically short. He dies during a bus accident four weeks into his domestic tour — there are no survivors. Midge and their daughter, however, live off of the residuals of Fangs’ music.
Alice Cooper: She divorces husband Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Munro) — a serial killer in the OG timeline, and a controlling philanderer in the ’50s — and becomes a flight attendant. After performing a miracle plane landing, she falls in love with a passenger. They wed and send Betty postcards from their travels until Alice’s death.
Polly Cooper (Tiera Skovbye): She gives birth to her twins, Juniper and Dagwood. She’s a happy mom but doesn’t go back to performing as her burlesque alter-ego, Polly Amorous.
Mary Andrews (Molly Ringwald): She met a nice woman named Brooke (Luvia Petersen) — who was Mary’s wife in the original timeline — one day at her dress shop. Brooke moved into the Andrews house soon after, and they spent the rest of their lives together.
Tom Keller (Martin Cummins) and Frank Andrews (Ryan Robbins): They were murdered by Chic (Hart Denton), a hustler in this timeline.
Julian Blossom (Nicholas Barasch): He died in Vietnam at 28.
Principal Waldo Weatherbee (Peter Bryant) and Mrs. Thornton (Frances Flanagan): The pair of educators married.
Rose Blossom (Barbara Wallace): She was reincarnated multiple times, naturally.
You can relive all the twists and turns of Riverdale — and catch all the surprises that didn’t make it into this recap — now that Season 7 is available to stream on Netflix in the US.
