Moving ‘Riverdale’ finale wraps up the show after seven seasons
Camila Mendes is pictured as Veronica Lodge and Lili Reinhart as Betty Cooper in the Riverdale series finale.
By Marianne Garvey, CNN
(CNN) — “Riverdale” saw its ending with a sweet series finale.
Archie and the gang shared one last day of high school together in Wednesday’s finale, “Goodbye Riverdale.” Betty, now 86, played by Michele Scarabelli, sees an obituary for Jughead. She tells her granddaughter Alice that the gang “had such marvelous adventures,” and that she’s the only remaining friend alive. Her wish is to go to Riverdale just one more time to relive her youth.
When she falls asleep with her high school yearbook, she wakes up in a dream with Jughead as an angel telling her they can return to Riverdale one last time.
Upon visiting Riverdale, Betty sees Archie out her window. He’s about to join a construction crew and head to California. Betty sees her mom Alice and her sister Polly in her childhood home. Polly (Tiera Skovbye) is pregnant and Jughead reveals that their mom that Alice became a pilot.
Betty then visits Riverdale High, noting, “Everyone is so young and beautiful. And carefree. They have no idea, do they? How special this time is, how quickly it goes by like the blink of an eye.”
At school. Fangs signs Betty’s yearbook and when he heads out with his band on tour the bus crashes and he dies.
Mary has partnered with Brooke and they “stayed together until the very end.”
Betty sees Veronica and discovers that she lived to run a big studio in Hollywood. Kevin and Clay ended up living together in Harlem, with Clay becoming a professor and starting an off-Broadway theater company.
As for Archie, Betty, and Veronica’s love triangle, they included Jughead. “The four of us realized that we could, and maybe should, just be… together. At the same time,” Betty said. “Some nights Archie would sneak into my bedroom and Veronica would go home with Jughead. Other nights, Archie would spend the night at the Pembrooke and I’d go over to Jughead’s. And sometimes, more often than you’d imagine, I would find my way to Veronica’s.”
Betty said the four friends didn’t keep in touch much after high school.
She and Jughead also visit Pop Tate’s (Alvin Sanders) grave where they find out Jughead ran Jughead’s Madhouse Magazine and Betty started She Says Magazine and adopted a daughter.
Betty then dies in her sleep.
“Riverdale” began in 2017 as an edgier take on the classic Archie Comics.
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