‘Riverdale’: That Insane Season 3 Premiere Ending, Explained

If you tuned in for the Riverdale Season 3 premiere “Labor Day,” you were probably expecting the regular assortment of crazy hijinks from Archie (KJ Apa) and the gang. You know: murder trials, daring rescues of Hot Dog, giant stick and bone monsters called The Gargoyle King. The usual. But you might not have been expecting what happened in the last scene, and need Riverdale Season 3, Episode 1 explained… Or at least that jaw-dropping final scene.

Spoilers for the season premiere, obviously.

All episode long, Betty (Lili Reinhart) has been struggling with the fact that her sister Polly (Tiera Skovbye) and mother Alice (Mädchen Amick) have joined what seems to be a cult called The Farm. On the other side of things is Betty, who makes up a therapist she pretends to visit, and has been taking Adderall so quickly she’s run out the prescription she doesn’t seem to be legally obtaining. Basically, the whole Cooper family isn’t dealing well with last season’s revelation that the patriarch of the family, Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Munro) was secretly a serial killer called The Black Hood.

So that’s the set up, and it’s all pretty understandable. Then the end of the episode hits… Betty sees something strange, a weird light outside her house. She wanders out to the back porch, and sees her mother and sister all dressed in white, holding Polly’s twin babies over a fire. Then the drop the babies. Then the babies start floating in the air.

And then (totally reasonable reaction, IMHO), Betty has a seizure, falls down, and her mother rushes to her side. Cut to Riverdale logo, and the screams of millions of fans around the country confused about the batshit insane thing they just witnessed. So what happened, exactly? Let’s break it down.

Is Riverdale going supernatural?

Nope. Despite the inclusion of floating babies and woods monsters, Riverdale is sticking decidedly in the realm of the real. Or, as real as you get in a town with multiple gangs, murders, and people named Sweet Pea. Showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has been very clear that everything that happens on Riverdale has a non-supernatural explanation… They almost went in that direction in Season 2, but decided early in writing Season 1 that wasn’t the way to go.

So is Riverdale crossing over with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina?

Again, no. Though it does seem like the perfect intro, with the latter show premiering later this month on Netflix, they’re two different properties on two different networks. Even with Betty getting her Adderall from Sabrina’s hometown of Greendale, there will be no crossover.

Okay, then what the heck is going on with Betty in Riverdale?

It’s the Adderall. Seizures and hallucinations aren’t a regular side-effect of the medication. But withdrawal can cause seizures, potentially, and Betty has clearly been abusing the drug rather than using it. Mixing Adderall with another substance (perhaps the milk oolong tea Alice and Polly were pushing on her throughout the episode?) can potentially cause hallucinations. So that last scene is most likely us seeing things from Betty’s perspective, not reality.

What about The Farm? Are they supernatural?

We won’t really know until next episode (or perhaps even later), but it certainly seems like even if the Farm has rituals that involve white robes and large fires, they are not, in fact, supernatural in any way. And I’d argue that they may even be a force for good, working against the clearly negative element of The Gargoyle King. But that’s just a theory.

Is Betty going to be okay?

She’s definitely got a lot of recovery ahead of her. And with a new threat to the town of the loose, she may not get the time she needs…

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

Where to stream Riverdale