Riverdale – Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen: The Witches of Riverdale

As the women of Riverdale prepare for the funerals of Archie (KJ Apa), Jughead (Cole Sprouse), Nana Rose Blossom (Barbara Wallace), Toni (Vanessa Morgan), Fangs (Drew Ray Tanner),and Dagwood (Bentley Storteboom), we see that Percival (Chris O’Shea) has come to pay his respects – despite his hand in their demise. Fortunately for Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica (Camila Mendes) and Tabitha (Erinn Westbrook), the funerals are a ruse to keep Percival off the scent of their real mission: bring their loved ones back from the dead. As the bodies remain in refrigeration in Dr. Curdle Jr.’s (Nikolai Witschl) possession, Heather (Caroline Day) has reached out to a witch in Greendale that is well-versed in necromancy – Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka). But time is running out as they need to perform the resurrection within three days of death before the bodies are past their prime.  

But while Betty, Cheryl, Heather, Tabitha and Veronica anxiously await for Sabrina to arrive, their loved ones are happy and living in their version of heaven in “The Sweet Hereafter.” For Archie, he is happily married to Betty and enjoying a meal with their children L’il Fred (Brock Brown) and L’il Polly (Hannah Bos). Jughead enjoys spending time at Pop’s with an unlimited supply of cheeseburgers as he sketches out his comics. Toni and Fangs have managed to broker a peace treaty between the Serpents and the Ghoulies and celebrate the end of fighting. Their son Anthony (Will Jackson) is now a grown man who harbors a secret relationship with Timmy Twyst (Brendan McRae): the son of the Ghoulies leader Twyla (Alaina Huffman). Luckily, Sabrina arrives before the three days are up and is ready to lend her services. 

In order to protect his friends from the wrath of Percival, it seems Kevin (Casey Cott) decides to leave Riverdale and head to New York City to be with Moose (Cody Kearsley). Unfortunately, Frank (Ryan Robbins) manages to stop Kevin before he leaves and brings him straight to Percival for questioning. But as Percival tries to exert his mind control over Kevin once more, Kevin remembers to think of what matters most to him as a talisman and thwarts Percival’s mind control. Without the ability to control Kevin, Percival now turns to Plan B: kill Kevin Keller. 

When Reggie (Charles Melton) returns from Rome with a set of magical daggers that Percival has requested we see that Percival is pleased. In exchange he has made sure that Veronica is no longer CEO of Babylonium and has transferred that power to Reggie instead. Now in control of the casino Reggie has his father Marty Mantle (Matthew Yang King) come to the casino and enjoy his remaining time within Babylonium. Later when Percival tells Reggie about Kevin’s reluctance to come back aboard, he enlists Reggie’s help to kill Kevin and in turn Reggie can give Kevin’s heart to his father instead. Mulling over this plan, Reggie tries to tell his father the good news, but Marty is not persuaded. Instead, Marty admits his faults as a husband and parent and is ready to die with dignity. After his time with his father Reggie has a conversation with his conscience where he realizes that he wants to be a hero rather than the villain. 

After Sabrina mulls over the situation that Betty, Cheryl, Tabitha and Veronica find themselves in with their loved ones she is ready to help. Sabrina, herself, is no stranger to death as her boyfriend Nick Scratch sacrificed himself to bring her back, which influenced her decision to focus on the art of necromancy. But first Betty, Tabitha and Veronica will need to become witches in order to have a proper number of witches for a coven. All three agree to those terms and complete the ritual to become witches. With a coven in order, Sabrina enlists Betty’s help to go and talk to one of the deceased to see if she can coax them out.  

At Curdle’s mortuary Sabrina decides to try Jughead first and visits him at his booth in Pop’s. Even with Tabitha’s message that she misses him dearly, Jughead refuses to return as he is content with his situation. Seeing an opportunity, Sabrina then asks Jughead for one more favor: bringing her deceased boyfriend Nick Scratch back from the dead in Jughead’s body…at least to help her with the next course of action. When Nick returns in Jughead’s body Tabitha is hurt but still determined to go with the next plan. As the others may feel the same way Jughead did, Sabrina encourages the others to head into “The Sweet Hereafter” to talk to them in an effort to coax them back. Cheryl volunteers for Nane Rose, Dagwood, Toni and Fangs. Tabitha agrees to go get Jughead. Yet when Betty volunteers to get Archie, we see that Sabrina tries to find a reason to keep her from going and has Veronica go instead. With Cheryl, Tabitha and Veronica in place, they briefly take leave of their bodies to go get their loved ones.  

Starting with Archie, we watch Veronica plead for him to return and informs him that the battle has not yet been won. Archie is reluctant to return as his heaven is the version of Riverdale he wants to stay in. Tabitha goes to Pop’s and, upon seeing Jughead happy, decides to not rip him from his happiness. Taking a seat at the counter of Pop’s she runs into Raphael (Hamza Fouad) who has important information to give her. Cheryl also meets the same resistance when she goes to Toni and Fangs first, finding that they don’t believe her and Fangs being rather hostile in his demeanor as he believes Cheryl is only out to create chaos as usual. When Toni and Fangs tell Cheryl that Jason and Polly are married, she immediately heads to Thornhill and finds happiness in getting to spend time with her brother and Polly.  

As Cheryl, Tabitha and Veronica are dealing with the rejections from their loved ones, Sabrina takes the opportunity to spend some time with Nick and they head out on a date. While Nick may be here with her, he knows that he will have to return to hell and Sabrina admits she is still angry at his sacrifice. They try to make the best of the rest of their time before Sabrina brings Nick back to the morgue and his soul leaves Jughead’s body.  

With the failure of their plan, Sabrina’s next move is to have Cheryl use her powers to resurrect their loved ones. While Cheryl has the power of pyrokinesis, this ability is only the beginning of her true power: the power of the Phoenix. If Cheryl performs the ritual to burn the bodies, they will rise from the ashes and return to the mortal realm. As Cheryl begins to perform the ritual, the deceased begin to feel the heat within their versions of heaven…and shortly after return together. The ritual and resurrection are complete, which means Sabrina has done her job and gets ready to leave. But before leaving, she reminds Cheryl that with what she did, “death doesn’t like to be cheated.” 

Everyone returning to their homes, the return is a bit hard to process. Tabitha pleads with Jughead that she needed him to come back and that snaps him out of his funk, as he can finally hear again. Getting over the loss of heaven, Jughead then tells Tabitha that before he died, he saw another version of himself. At Thornhill, Cheryl and Heather talk about Cheryl’s interaction with Jason and Polly and how she needs to process that. Unfortunately, Cheryl brought back more than just her beloved Nana, Dagwood, T.T., and Fangs…she has also resurrected Polly and Jason, which explains Sabrina’s warning.  

Betty and Archie share a sweet moment, especially when Archie explains that his heaven was with Betty and their children. Meanwhile, Tabitha goes to visit Veronica after she was the only one who did not get to spend time with those resurrected. Tabitha shares with her that while Archie is with Betty in this timeline, Veronica’s future is up for grabs as she has also seen Veronica end up with Archie in an equal number of timelines. Tabitha later visits with Toni and Fangs to see how they are holding up as they spend time with Baby Anthony (Ace Rudy Allan Carter). Tabitha then shares the information that Raphael imparted to her in Pop’s: the reason that Baby Anthony did not die is because he is immortal…and that Tabitha herself is Riverdale’s guardian angel. 

Since his moment of clarity, Reggie ultimately decides to break Kevin out of his imprisonment and flee Riverdale with Kevin and his father Marty. Unfortunately, the three men are stopped before they can leave Babylonium and brought to Percival. Now with Kevin, Marty, and Reggie all held hostage by Percival, they need to figure out a new plan. But Reggie is already prepared for that next step, especially when he produces one of the magical daggers from under his pants leg. Reggie is ready to jump to the good side and take out Percival.