It's time to say goodbye to Archie and the gang.
Because after seven seasons, Riverdale aired its series finale on Aug. 23.
The episode, titled "Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven: Goodbye Riverdale," jumps 67 years into the future to present day. It opens with an 86-year-old Betty Cooper (played by Lili Reinhart) sitting with her granddaughter Alice and reading the obituaries, in which she finds out that Jughead Jones (portrayed by Cole Sprouse) has died.
"Well, that's it," she tells her granddaughter. "That means I'm the last of them."
Betty then expresses her desire to "go back to Riverdale one last time before it's too late," and Alice agrees to take her the next day. But that night, Jughead appears in Betty's room and offers to take her back in time to any day. She decides that she wants to revisit the day they all got their yearbooks senior year, noting that she'd been sick at homes with the mumps and never got to experience it.
So, Jughead tells Betty to walk through a nearby door, and she's immediately transported back.
Throughout the episode, fans learn the fate of the cast members. Betty sees Archie Andrews (K.J. Apa) have a conversation with his mom at home that he wants to move out west to work on a construction team. And once she gets to Riverdale High, she sees Fangs Fogarty (Drew Ray Tanner) getting ready to go on tour, with viewers learning he died after his bus got into an accident. Although, Jughead tells Betty that Fangs' songs helped take care of his love Midge and their daughter.
Betty also grabs lunch with Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) and his boyfriend Clay Walker (Karl Walcott), and Jughead tells her they "lived a very spirited life in the heart of Harlem" in New York, where Clay became a professor at Columbia University and Kevin started an off-Broadway theatre company. He says Kevin died at age 82, with Clay passing away weeks later.
In fact, it's Kevin who tells Betty she's been in a "quad" with Archie, Jughead and Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) for the past year. And Betty later confirms the four of them were in a relationship.
"It started innocently enough with the four of us going on double dates—me and Archie, Jughead and Veronica. And then it kind of naturally evolved from there," she tells Reggie Mantle (Charles Melton). "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."
As for Reggie, Jughead reveals he played basketball for Kansas State before being drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers. Jughead also noted Reggie worked on his family farm during the offseason before his parents died and that he then sold the land and coached at Riverdale High, adding the athlete also married and had two sons.
In addition, Betty learns that Veronica moved to California, where she ran a major Hollywood film studio. She also later attends an art show put on by Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) and Toni Topaz (Vanessa Morgan), and Jughead tells her that the couple stayed together and moved out west, "where they lived as artists and activists" with their son Dale (yes, named after Riverdale). He added that the two lived "full, gorgeous, sexy lives" until the very end.
What's more, Jughead tells Betty that Julian Blossom (Nicholas Barasch) served and died in Vietnam at age 28, and that Nana Rose (Barbara Wallace) was "reincarnated multiple times." He also says that Frank Andrews (Ryan Robbins) and Tom Keller (Martin Cummins) were murdered by a "hustler" named Chic.
Near the end of the episode, Betty and Jughead have one last emotional hangout with their friends. As for their specific fates, he tells her she ran She Says Magazine—"the go-to source for feminist and progressive causes"—and that he launched Jughead Madhouse Magazine. Neither married but she adopted a daughter, Carla.
When Betty returns to present day, she and her granddaughter Alice go for a drive through Riverdale. And while Alice thinks Betty has fallen asleep in the car, her love then tells her, "I don't think she's asleep."
A younger Betty then walks into their famous diner Pop's—where she is reunited with her pals and Archie tells her, "Perfect timing, Betty." And as the diner's light-up sign flickers, Jughead bids viewers farewell.
"If you happen to see that neon sign some lonely night at the end of that long journey—the journey that every one of us is on—pull over," he says. "Come on in. Take a seat. Know that you'll always be among friends and that Riverdale will always be your home. Until then, have a good night."
Miss Riverdale already? Keep reading to find out all the secrets behind the show.
1. Before it landed as a TV series on The CW executive-produced by Greg Berlanti, a studio executive initially envisioned Riverdale as a time-travel movie, according to creator Robert Aguirre-Sacasa.
"We go to the kickoff meeting and he said, 'You know, I've been thinking about this and I think you guys need to do something a little more high concept, a little bigger than a coming-of-age [story],'" Aguirre-Sacasa recounted at the 2017 Winter TCA Press Tour. "I said, 'Yeah, great. We're open to that.' He goes, 'I want you to think about time travel.' I say, 'What do you mean?' 'You know, Archie traveling through time.'"
The unnamed vice president then pitched comedian Louis C.K. to star as Archie Andrews.
2. A fan of the original Archie comics since childhood, Aguirre-Sacasa knew he needed to re-invent the upbeat series for modern audiences. Citing Twin Peaks, Our Town and The Breakfast Club as his inspirations, the writer told EW, "When we added the murder-mystery element to season one, the show unlocked creatively for me."
3. After a six-month search, K.J. Apa, then 18, was cast in the lead role of Archie, despite not having the right hair color.
"I think we literally saw every redheaded young guy in L.A. It certainly felt that way," Aguirre-Sacasa told Vulture of the casting process. "Every time that a redheaded guy came in, my heart swelled a little thinking, Let this be the redheaded boy who is the answer to all our prayers."
4. Apa's casting came down to the wire, with the pilot's production in jeopardy as producers scrambled to find their Archie. "We found K.J. three days before we were supposed to test Archies in front of the studio," Aguirre-Sacasa revealed. "So he was really slotted in at the last minute."
5. But the ultimate test was making sure the brunette New Zealand actor could pull off red hair, with the showrunner saying, "It's the dreaded day, because we have to dye this guy's hair and pray to God that that works, because, you know, some people's dye jobs look weird."
Fortunately, the bright hue suited Apa, though he does have to dye his hair every two weeks.
6. Apa isn't the only actor who had to change his hair color for the show, with Lili Reinhart going blonde to play Betty and Cole Sprouse dyed his naturally blonde locks black to portray Jughead Jones.
7. The Suite Life of Zack and Cody star, who took a five-year break from acting to attend NYU after his Disney days, was originally called in by producers to read for Archie, but Sprouse asked to audition for Jughead instead after he connected more with the outsider character and narrator.
8. While it is hard to imagine Madelaine Petsch as anyone but Cheryl Blossom, the actress revealed in a YouTube Q&A that she first read for Betty even though she was "pretty sure [the producers] always knew they wanted" her for the queen bee cheerleader.
9. Petsch met her ex-boyfriend Travis Mills after the musician also auditioned for the series.
"He messaged me on Facebook in January of season one and congratulated me on the show," she told Cosmopolitan in 2017. "He had auditioned for Jughead. I think we just randomly had mutual friends, so we added each other."
10. Before landing her breakout role in Netflix's 13 Reasons Why, Katherine Langford tested for Betty, with Camila Mendes, who landed the part of Veronica, telling EW, "I remember we went out and we got falafel with a guy who was auditioning for Archie."
11. It wouldn't be the show's only casting loss to 13 Reasons Why as Ross Butler left the show at the end of season one to become a full-time cast member on the Selena Gomez-produced drama. Charles Melton took over the role of Reggie.
12. Years before starring together on Riverdale, Mendes and Sprouse attended NYU at the same time, though he didn't remember they were classmates.
"Cole always laughs when I tell him that because I remember meeting him on certain occasions and he doesn't," Mendes told Office magazine in 2017. "I'm always like, 'Fine! Whatever! Sorry I'm not a child star!'"
She went on to jokingly call him "a weirdo" during their college years, explaining, "He had really long hair down to his butt cheeks. He was really shy too. I would see him at parties sometimes and I always kind of randomly talked to his brother [Dylan] but I never got a chance to talk to him because he was more to himself."
13. While filming the season one finale. Apa broke his hand during an intense scene in which Archie is attempting to save someone drowning in a frozen lake.
"I wasn't really punching the ice, but I got a bit too excited," he later admitted to TV Line. "I was punching a foam mat… [that was] sitting on the ice… it was cold, so I didn't really feel it. It wasn't until 20 minutes after that I realized I broke my hand. I didn't tell anyone."
14. Several Riverdale stars have dated during the show's run, including Sprouse and Reinhart, who were together for three years before they "permanently split" in early 2020, according to a rare statement from Sprouse.
Mendes and Melton also dated on-and-off for two years, with the co-stars sparking reconciliation rumors last summer when they were spotted at dinner.
15. Before Kiernan Shipka was cast as Sabrina Spellman in the Netflix spinoff series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Aguire-Sacasa initially envisioned the Mad Men star as Betty.
The creator of both series also revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that he wrote the role of Ambrose in CAOS with Chance Perdomo in mind after he "was so taken by the actor's audition" for Jughead.