The multiverse collapsing in on itself, an immortal villain coming back to exact his revenge after hundreds of years away, and a comet set to annihilate the planet — those are just a few of the major plotlines from the sixth season of The CW’s Riverdale. As magic wormed its way into the world, the universe gave our heroes supernatural abilities, like Archie (KJ Apa) being invulnerable and Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) having pyrokinesis, to control and use to save the day from the nefarious Percival Pickens (Chris O’Shea).
More magical phenomena occurred, as well. At one point later in the season, Percival casts a curse that kills about half of our beloved characters, and those that remain bring in Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) from Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina to help resurrect the dead, only for Cheryl to discover and use her Phoenix abilities to do bring everyone (and more) back single-handedly. Despite the stories going off of the rails and becoming wilder than ever, which is saying something for Riverdale, the series changed things up in the one particular way that truly allowed this story and this season to shine.
Something the series has always been disappointingly lacking is involving all of the main characters in the overarching story of the season. From the very beginning, this became the Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Jughead (Cole Sprouse) show, as those two characters investigated mysteries, often together, that kept the town fearful and in danger. At first, this was an interesting approach to Riverdale. Betty and Jughead were quite the pair, both in the mysteries and their romance. But, around the third season, this grew tired, as we were seeing the same thing play out and the other stars — namely, Archie, Veronica, and Cheryl, who the series primarily focused on alongside Betty and Jughead at the time — left out of the season’s driving force. In comparison, their stories were often not as interesting and weren’t written to keep viewers on the edge of their seats and theorizing about what would be uncovered/how things would progress in the coming episodes. And, despite this becoming tired so early on and subsequently earning the show a fair amount of criticism, it continued for two more seasons.
The recently-ended sixth season changed things up beyond the introduction of magic. The top players in the season-long story changed… or, rather, there were no top players, as everyone was given a chance to help build and take part in the battle with Percival Pickens. For example, Season 5 newcomer Tabitha Tate (Erinn Westbrook) becomes one of the keys to fighting the final battle and figuring out the best way to move forward at every turn after she is revealed to literally be an angel with the power to manipulate time. Likewise, Toni Topaz (Vanessa Morgan) finally gets her time in the spotlight as Percival tries to subtly attack her baby, who it’s later revealed he is terrified of because her baby, Anthony, is also immortal. The entire point of the battle in Riverdale Season 6 is for the characters to finally come together, consistently work together, and use their collective talents and knowledge to save their town.
For the first (long overdue) time, every character has a part to play in stopping the villain and saving the day, something that the series has desperately been missing since the very beginning. In fact, it’s characters that haven’t ever had this time in the spotlight that are finally allowed to be the hero of the story. To stop Percival, there’s a fight outside of Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe where Percival takes down several Riverdale residents before Jughead transports him to Rivervale, his home dimension. Then, Tabitha takes over and uses her angelic abilities to take Percival back in time to before he made a deal for immortality and offers him up to Mr. Cypher for soul collection.
Unfortunately, before he’s fully stopped, Percival uses magic to set Bailey’s Comet on a collision course with Riverdale in the season finale, threatening an extinction-level crash. Then, Veronica is given her shining moment by coming up with the idea to use her power to absorb the others’ powers and transfer them to Cheryl, who can use her heightened pyrokinesis and Phoenix abilities to melt the icy comet without putting the lives of everyone Cheryl resurrected at risk again. Though the result of melting the comet — being put in the 1950s as teenagers once again — is unexpected, it’s a beautiful moment to see three women that Riverdale has historically overlooked become the ultimate heroes. And, it doesn’t come at the expense of Betty and Jughead whatsoever.
In fact, Betty and Jughead not running the entire season-long story by themselves actually proved to be a good thing for both characters. It offered an opportunity to show what we’ve been missing over the years as their character development was pushed to the background in favor of another mystery. With their friends leading the charge against Percival, they’re finally allowed to focus on other things. Betty’s hunt for the Trash Bag Killer over the sixth season ends somewhat unexpectedly and allows Betty to then begin doing some long-awaited soul-searching. She digs into her childhood and how her serial killer father groomed her to allow the darkness inside of her to take over, and by the season’s end, she finally puts this darkness behind her that has been at the forefront of her mind since the second season of the show.
She decides to move forward in the light, giving Betty a dramatically different future for the final season of the show. (You know, if they return from the 1950s before the series finale.) If Betty had been given another mystery that absorbed all of her focus, this would have never happened. As for Jughead, he was inarguably more involved in Percival’s story than Betty throughout the season, though most of his involvement corresponded with Tabitha’s. This allowed for us to watch these two grow individually and together, showcasing what a powerful romantic duo they are. Plus, Jughead focused much more on his writing, opening up his world to us more so than before.
For far too long, everything has revolved around Betty and Jughead and their sleuthing skills. As entertaining as those stories and characters have been, for the most part, it’s undeniable that everyone else on Riverdale suffered because of it. The writers never treated the others’ stories as though they were just as important as Betty and/or Jughead’s mysteries. The decision to bring everyone together to stop Percival and save Riverdale in the sixth season brought something to the show that would have made it so much better if done long ago, showcasing how important the town is to everyone and how much everyone has to offer. But, better late than never, right?
Riverdale returns for its final season in 2023. Catch up now on Netflix.