Sabrina The Teenage Witch Made An Appearance On ‘Riverdale’ In A Spooktacular Ep

Sabrina Spellman has made an appearance on the latest episode of Riverdale, in a faithful nod to the Archie Comics universe.

— Warning: Spoilers for ‘Riverdale’ and the ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’. — 

Actor Kiernan Shipka reprised her role as the teenage witch a year and a half after the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (CAOS) wrapped up on Netflix after four seasons.

In Season 6, ‘The Witches of Riverdale’ sets up a crossover between the two shows on Monday AEST, finally reconciling the relationship between Riverdale and neighbouring town Greendale, where CAOS takes place.

Why Was Sabrina On Riverdale?

Shipka’s visit actually marks the second time Sabrina has popped up in Riverdale, but there’s a caveat. In December, the character appeared earlier in the season to help newfound witch Cheryl Blossom help her grandmother pass into the next world — but all in the parallel universe of Rivervale, spelt with a ‘V’.

‘The Witching Hour(s)’ focuses on a once-in-every-65-year comet with celestial powers, and the episode crosses over multiple timelines, where we learn Cheryl’s witchy ancestor Abigail was actually immortal.

Sabrina helps Cheryl transfer Abigail’s soul into Nana Rose, to let her finally die and rest in peace in the old woman’s body — but also revealed that Cheryl was never Cheryl, but Abigail the whole time, and now Nana Rose inhabits her granddaughter’s youthful body.

Anyway, none of this checks out back in the lore of Riverdale with a ‘D’, so feel free to disregard, and just note that Shipka has been in the River/d/v/ale before.

We don’t see Sabrina for another 15 episodes, where she returns during Riverdale’s time of need, as the gang of heroes deal with the impending apocalypse, and need Sabrina’s expertise to bring back all the dead firstborn characters who died during the second coming of the ten plagues of Egypt.

“I think that a Sabrina and Archie moment would look so iconic and cool,” said Shipka after her Riverdale debut in an interview with TV Guide. “I’ve always loved what KJ [Apa] has done with Archie, and the two characters together, it’s such an image.”

“I think that Sabrina could very well find herself in Riverdale,” she foreshadowed. “I would love to see it.”

What Happens In ‘The Witches of Riverdale’

So back to Monday’s episode: at Toni and Fang’s wedding the episode prior, a chunk of main characters have dropped dead thanks to villain Percival who has god-like powers. In the firing line is Archie, Jughead, and the newly wed’s baby Anthony (who doesn’t actually die because he too is immortal).

In a desperate bid to bring the dead back to life, Cheryl and her rekindled Greendale high school girlfriend Heather, call on Sabrina to do her witchy thing and bring them back. Time is rapidly running out — the spells must be completed within a three day period, and it’s now day two and counting.

Sabrina eventually rocks up and offers to go into the Sweet Hereafter — or heaven — to coax the dead back into their frozen, preserved bodies. In this perfect afterlife, Jughead is a successful comic book writer eating all the burgers he can stomach; Archie is happily married to Betty and has two kids in a white picket fence dream; and Toni and Fangs have negotiated a peace treaty with rival gang the Ghoulies with their now-adult son Anthony.

Obviously, she has a hard time prying everyone back from literal heaven, trying her luck first with Jughead, who flat out refuses to come back and deal with all the stress and bother of the world ending back on earth. Understandable. Then, Sabrina asks for his consent to borrow his body to reincarnate her dead boyfriend and fellow warlock Nick Scratch for a hot minute instead.

Returning back to the realm of the living, Sabrina announces her failed luck with Jughead, shows off Nick in Jughead’s body, and then jumps to Plan B, believing the loved ones of the dearly departed would make a more persuasive argument in coaxing the dead back.

But how, you might ask? How can mere mortals Tabitha, Veronica, and newly realised witch Cheryl cross over to the other side? By turning into a coven, of course! Sabrina notes that anyone can be a witch if they want (LOL), and convinces the gang to sign a witchy book, and they all do a cheeky little jive in the living room to seal the deal.

“All powerful, disruptive women, have the potential to become witches,” the girlboss said matter-of-factly. Also, the new witches all have to temporarily die in order to make the pit stop to heaven.

They also all just really let the Nick thing slide way too easily — Sabrina reconciles her choice with the fact that another magical professional could help with the mission at hand, but instead of doing anything productive, Nick and Sabrina then go on a date at a restaurant, before the man admits it’s time to go back to being dead.

With no one being able to convince the heaven dwellers to return, Sabrina whips out a Plan C, and says Cheryl can use her pyrokinesis to Phoenix them back against their will. Cheryl takes all the bodies down to Riverdale’s mines and sets them on fire, with the dead literally emerging from the ashes. She also brings back her dead brother Jason, and his wife/Betty’s dead sister Polly, even though that’s not allowed because they’re long past expired.

Sabrina finally goes back to Greendale, leaving Cheryl’s manor with a warning that “death doesn’t like to be cheated” — so maybe the CAOS star will be back before the show wraps up for good next season to help Cheryl deal with the ramifications of her incredibly selfish actions to revive her deceased family.

What We Learnt About CAOS On The Ep

At this point on the show and in the writers’ room, anything goes — including continuity. At the end of CAOS, Sabrina dies trying to save the world, and is followed by Nick, who controversially killed himself to join her in the Sweet Hereafter. It was a bold move from show runners to commit to a protagonist’s death … or so we thought.

“After I passed away a few years ago, my boyfriend, Nick Scratch, sacrificed himself, to bring me back from the dead as a way to rebalance the scales,” she admits in ‘The Witches of Riverdale’. “Ironically, that experience, being resurrected, is what made me decide to specialise in necromancy,” she said.

So, in the end, CAOS was as cowardly as Stranger Things when it came to axing main characters in the name of drama, and its legacy will never be as ruthless and brutal as shows like Game of Thrones or How to Get Away with Murder.

Will We See Shipka Again In Riverdale?

Sadly, Riverdale has one more season in it before it gets carked, and frees the actors from its deranged shackles. Between now and Season 7, there is ample wriggle room in the plot to see Sabrina’s return — and even if there wasn’t, they could easily shoehorn her back in because it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen on the show.

“Yeah, she has to come back,” said Shipka on Sunday. “I think they’re gonna need her help again. I would say [they should] lean into the chaos — no pun intended — as much as they can, and work hard and have faith that it’s all gonna work out, but at the end of the day, just truly probably call Sabrina again.”

“I think they’re gonna need her, to be quite honest,” she said. More to come.