Why the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina-Riverdale crossover should happen

After Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 3, it’s now the perfect time for the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina-Riverdale crossover.

Whether you’re always channeling the season of the witch in your heart or dying for a twisting mystery, the Archieverse (currently made up of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Riverdale) promises something for those who want a darker, moodier, and wilder teen drama. Yet, it seems, never the two shall meet in a crossover.

Before we get too deep into things, a word of warning: spoilers ahead for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 3.

Part of the reason why it seems so difficult for Chilling Adventure of Sabrina and Riverdale to crossover is because they’re on different places. Riverdale airs on The CW and CAOS streams on Netflix. Cross-network, so to speak, crossovers are extremely difficult to make happen. Though they can happen.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who helms the Archieverse and created both series, loves to tease a possibility of a crossover without actually crossing both series over. The closest both series came is when Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) and the Fright Club went to Riverdale to get a needed magical artifact.

In an interview with The Wrap, Aguirre-Sacasa said:

"“I think what [that scene] speaks to is my deep desire to do a true crossover. I also love Easter eggs and I love sly references to the characters. So it’s funny, when we were trying to figure out where Herod’s crown could be hidden, it was like, what about Riverdale? Sure! And it could be in a maple tree. So I think it’s more a fun Easter egg and more a fun meta-reference.”"

If we can be blunt, there’s only so much teasing of a crossover you can do before you either, one, need to do it or, two, just stop talking about it. Riverdale and Greendale are right next to each other. Yet, without crossing the two series over, they feel worlds away. Sooner rather than later, a crossover either has to happen or you need to stop playing with fans of both series emotions.

With that in mind, here are five reasons why this CAOS and Riverdale crossover should happen.

5. It wouldn’t be that hard to make a crossover happen

Riverdale and CAOS are shows that are not very grounded, to say the least. High school is only an afterthought to Riverdale, at best, as the teens run around solving crimes or play elaborate mind games with their parents. CAOS is a little better in the high school department, but there’s also the whole corralling the forces of Hell in between cheer practice.

Riverdale is a series where a teenager can run a community center without prior experience. It’s so notorious that the characters of CAOS, the ones who battle the forces of Hell, are scared of it. You can’t make for better drama than that. Archie (KJ Apa) and the gang will probably accept whatever Hellish forces as normal Riverdale nonsense without batting an eye.

There’s plenty of ways to get this crossover going. You really expect us to believe that Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos) didn’t sell his soul at some point? Or that Cheryl Blossom’s (Madelaine Petsch) life isn’t enough of a Gothic horror story without adding in some sort of Frankenstein monster or real curse on her family? Maybe Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Jughead (Cole Sprouse) hear rumors of devil worship over in Greendale and go to check it out.

4. Riverdale has flirted with the supernatural for too long

Riverdale has flirted with the idea of the supernatural far too much over the course of four seasons. Season 3, in particular, is the most egregious offender. With floating babies and the menacing form of the Gargoyle King looking like something that Sabrina and her friends would battle. Sure, the Gargoyle King was a guy in a costume and the floating babies were because Hiram spiked the town’s drinking water, but, even so, Riverdale loves brushing up on the supernatural without fully committing to it existing.

Part of the frustration is that fans know that it exists. CAOS takes place in the same universe as Riverdale. Greendale is right there, right on the other bank of Sweetwater River. So, yes, the supernatural exists in the Archieverse. It’s time for the folks over on Riverdale to fully be read into such matters existing. It doesn’t even have to be for long. As the very first episode of CAOS shows, Sabrina and other witches can erase memories.

So, theoretically, the crossover happens. At the end of the crossover, Sabrina and her cover can just erase the memories of it happening, make it seem like a strange dream. Riverdale can still have its own strange status quo without the various characters adjusting to the huge revelation of magic existing.

3. It’s time for the crossover to happen

Riverdale and CAOS have had time to figure out their own unique styles and set their identities. While they take place in the same shared universe, it’s also not like how the Arrowverse is set up.

The Archieverse, both in comics and in series, has its own separate entities that can be blended together as needed. So it allows for individual shows to have their own identities before bringing in a crossover. Granted, Katy Keene and Riverdale’s relationship will be a different story as they air on the same network and former Riverdale series regular (Ashleigh Murray) is one of Katy Keene‘s leads.

For Riverdale and CAOS, they didn’t have to crossover from the get go. Now with Riverdale in its fourth season and CAOS releasing its third part, both shows have their own identities outside of each other. It makes sense for them to come together and crossover to see how those individual identities can blend into one.

It doesn’t have to be now-now, but later in 2020 or 2021? Riverdale will come up on its 100th episode in season five. What better way to celebrate it than to have a crossover with all of its sister series in one weird and wonderful mash-up?

2. We need explanations for all the cameos

While there hasn’t been a massive crossover between Riverdale and CAOS, some actors from Riverdale have appeared on CAOS. Parts 1, 2, and now 3 of CAOS have featured actors from Riverdale in cameo roles.

Part 1 had Ben Button (Moses Thiessen) appear as a delivery boy in the episode “Feast of Feasts”. Granted, the way the episode ends with Lilith (Michelle Gomez) inviting Ben inside and declaring that she’s famished could mean that she ate him. The Feast of Feasts is a cannibalistic celebration, after all. (Although, if we’re trying to tie timelines together, Ben died before CAOS aired Part 1…so…)

Part 2 of CAOS has Nikolai Witschl, who plays coroner Dr. Curdle Jr. on Riverdale, appear in Harvey (Ross Lynch) vision of him going to an art camp. Witschl plays Howard, who is Harvey’s roommate at the camp. Now, as this is a sort of nightmare sequence, it’s possible that Harvey’s mind fills in his roommate with a familiar face. As coroner of Riverdale, we’re sure that Harvey probably saw Dr. Curdle Jr either in a paper or when Tommy’s (Justin Dobies) body had to be sent over to the mortuary in Riverdale. His mind just filled things in for him.

Part 3 had the biggest cameo possible with Nathalie Boltt, who plays Penelope Blossom on Riverdale, appear in “Chapter Twenty-One: The Hellbound Heart”. In the sequence, Prudence (Tati Gabrielle) glamours herself to look like Penelope in order to lure, who she believes to be, Father Blackwood (Richard Coyle) into a trap. In order to use a glamour spell, a witch would have had to spend time with the person that they are glamouring as. So this means that Prudence met Penelope at some point.

Basically, there are connections between CAOS and Riverdale that we need answers to. How does Prudence know Penelope chief amongst them.

1. We’ve waited so long

Before CAOS was made into its own show, the plan was that Sabrina would arrive in Riverdale at the end of season 1, and the series would air on The CW. She would be the main antagonist for the characters to face throughout the second season, making Riverdale more of a supernatural horror drama.

Instead, Riverdale went down a different route and CAOS was made into its own series. Subsequent seasons of Riverdale went strange. CAOS, at least, follows its own rules of magic (most of the time). Either way, there was always a plan to bring the two series together in some way since, probably, the start of Riverdale. Anyone who took a TV pilot writing class will tell you, you need to have an idea for where your series may go. It may go off the rails, but you need to have one at least.

Either way, a crossover should happen. If not for anything else, then for the fans who have been dying for it to happen for a decent amount of time. We sat through nonsensical plots and bad parenting and a literal trip to Hell and back. Let us see that CAOS and Riverdale crossover of our dreams.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 3 is now available on Netflix.