Riverdale Season 7 Episode 20 constitutes the series finale, a closure moment for a hit show that began airing on The CW back in 2017 and catapulted its cast to fame and stardom.
This episode was full of emotion and gave closure to the story arcs of each of the core and supporting characters of the Riverdale world.
As all good things come to an end, so did Riverdale; right at the moment when The CW as a network is going through a process of reorganization after that big WarnerMedia and Discovery Networks deal, Riverdale will be remembered as a great show, and today, we’re taking a look at how it concluded.
Riverdale Season 7 Episode 20 Recap
Riverdale’s series finale is a bit of a time jump. We begin with Betty, now an 84-year-old woman reading Jughead’s obituary and commenting to her granddaughter Alice that she’d like to go back to Riverdale to reminisce.
Betty wakes up in the middle of the night and sees Jughead, who offers her the chance to travel back in time to the last day of Senior year at high school. After that, the episode becomes an epilogue of each main and supporting cast character.
Betty’s Family
Betty discovers that Mary bought her dress and married Brooke, among other things; Alice is divorced, she’s a pilot, and is traveling around the world. Polly is now a mom.
The Supporting Casts Characters Conclusions
Toni is the class president. Cheryl and she moved out of town, had a kid, and lived a peaceful life. Fangs marries Midge and dies in a car crash. Kevin is studying musical theater at New York University, lived in Harlem with Clay, and died at age 82.
Reggie went to play for Kansas State, then the Lakers, and then worked on his family’s farm until his folks died and became the coach of the Riverdale High School Basketball Team. As for the teachers, Mr Weatherbee and Mrs Thornton got married.
The Core Characters
As Betty keeps finding out about everyone, she finds out that she, Archie, Betty, and Jughead are in a polyamorous entanglement. Veronica Lodge became a Hollywood superstar.
Betty goes to Thornhill and meets up with Archie, who tells her that he and Betty might end up together, but he moved to another part of California, had a family, became a construction contractor, and died.
When Betty leaves Riverdale, she goes to Pop Tate’s grave, who passed when they were beginning their senior year, and tells us that Jughead became a comic book editor and publisher; he never married but adopted a daughter.
Back in the present, Riverdale is nothing but a ghost town, and in an ending scene, Teen Betty walks into Pop Chock’lit Shoppe, greets her friends, and sits with Archie, Jug, and Veronica for one last milkshake as Jughead bids us farewell.
Riverdale Season 7 Episode 20 Ending Explained
This series finale is a creative one because it puts us in Betty’s POV; she’s nostalgic, wishing to relive her days of thunder at Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe with her friends.
The ending is a symbol of timelessness, of how Archie Comics paints a vision of the white picket fence America of the 1950s, where diversity and inclusion quotas were not a thing.
We hear typewriter sounds in the closing moments, hinting at us that this ending came out of Jughead’s mind, who was always the omniscient narrator; in a combination of emotion, nostalgia, and inventive storytelling, we come to a finale of a series that was fun and entertaining to watch.
Riverdale Season 7 Episode 20 Review
I enjoyed Riverdale and every minute of it. This series finale ends a seven-season period full of fun that was inventive and added a fresh approach to a comic book classic, which is Archie Comics.
The casting and acting were superb; Cami Mendes, Lili Reinhart, and Madelaine Petsch are not only extremely pretty but also fit perfectly into their roles. KJ Apa’s Archie role was a pivotal moment in his career, and Cole Sprouse’s Jughead as a narrator and voice adds another layer of depth and intensity to the show.
This finale is set in 1955 and tells us the character’s futures and their relationships. In the comics, Archie never decided to make up his mind about Betty or Veronica. We saw a tad of that in this series, but I always thought that he wanted them both from reading the comics.
In the next-to-last episode, each character chooses whether to keep their memories of the previous seasons or restore their happy ones.
We see an older Betty wanting to relive her days of thunder. Jughead helps her, and she reconnects with her past. This episode sets a heartwarming tone, a goodbye tone, with Betty, Jug, Archie, and Veronica all together.
We see how each of the lives of these characters is after high school: Veronica Lodge skips town, Archie becomes a construction contractor, and they each go their separate ways because that’s just how life after high school is.
Betty choosing to relive her days of thunder, looking at her old bedroom and her gossiping with her girlfriends in high school, makes the viewer emotional, a reminder that those days will always live in our memory. It was a perfect way to conclude this series.
Also Read: How Many Seasons Are There In Riverdale? Is It Worth Watching?
