Will Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina be in the same universe?

Riverdale, despite its wild premise of "What if Archie was hot and Riverdale was full of murder?" has been a runaway hit for The CW and Archie Comics. It was only a matter of time, then, before more of the Archie universe came to television, so when it was announced last week that Chilling Adventures of Sabrina would be joining Riverdale on air, the news was met with only mild surprise, and quite a bit of excitement.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a horror-focused comic about Sabrina Spellman, Greendale’s favorite teen witch. While her comic appearances and her 1990s television show with Melissa Joan Hart were more lighthearted and fun, Chilling Adventures is more reminiscent of Riverdale's darker tone. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the comic's writer and showrunner on Riverdale, has said the Sabrina show is more in line with Rosemary’s Baby or The Exorcist than the original, lighthearted comic, although it does still focus on Sabrina struggling with her dual nature as a witch and a regular teen girl.

Given the darker tone and connection through Aguirre-Sacasa, it makes sense that Chilling Adventures of Sabrina would be the next Archie property to follow Riverdale to TV. But will it take place in the same universe as its sister show?

There’s been speculation since Riverdale debuted in 2016 that Sabrina Spellman would join Archie and friends on the show. As recently as May this year, Aguirre-Sacasa said that the teen witch could show up in Season 2, along with more supernatural elements. However, the announcement of Chilling Adventures gives no details about how, or if, the two shows will relate to each other. It’s entirely possible that any hints about Sabrina showing up on Riverdale may have been to gauge audience interest in the character, thinking ahead to giving her a show of her own.

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Riverdale featured a few elements of the supernatural in Season 1, but they could all be written off as something more mundane. In the season finale, Cheryl sees a vision of her twin brother Jason as a zombie as she herself is drowning in icy cold water. It could be a hint about things to come but it could also be her traumatized brain playing tricks on her. Archie has had visions of werewolves, but again, they came to him during times of stress. Betty’s locker was vandalized with animal blood and a voodoo doll, but that could just be a cruel joke on the part of her schoolmates rather than anything supernatural or sinister. So far nothing has definitively shown that the supernatural can be found in Riverdale.

Twin Peaks is often cited as an influence for Riverdale. That show does have fairly explicit supernatural elements: the Black Lodge, evil spirits taking control of people’s bodies, prophetic logs. Continuing along the theory that Riverdale is the new Twin Peaks, it wouldn’t be surprising that for it to get spooky and weird, especially considering Aguirre-Sacasa’s experience with supernatural horror in the Archie comics in both Chilling Adventures and Afterlife with Archie.

If Riverdale does share a universe with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Sabrina may show up in Riverdale this season to introduce the character. Fans have raised theories that the foster family who took Jughead in at the end of season 1, after his father F.P. Jones was arrested, might be the Spellmans. Sabrina and her family live in Greendale in the comics, however, while Jughead’s foster family is just in the south side of Riverdale.

If Sabrina’s hometown remains the same in her new show, then Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead may venture across the Sweetwater River to Greendale to investigate something -- after all, Jason had crossed that river the day he went missing. He and Polly had planned to run away together; maybe the meant to raise their baby in Greendale. While Jason’s murder was solved, the legal situation it created is far from over. Jason’s murderer may be dead, but his accomplice F.P. Jones is still in jail. Maybe there’s some evidence over in Greendale that can help him.

Or Riverdale may take clues from showrunner Aguirre-Sacasa’s excellent Afterlife with Archie comic, in which Sabrina attempts to bring Jughead’s dog Hot Dog back from the dead and accidentally starts a zombie apocalypse. There have been hints of zombies in Season 1 of Riverdale with Cheryl’s vision of her dead brother, but it’s unlikely the show would switch gears quite that much in Season 2. Zombies may be popular television and movie fodder, but it would be a radical change from the teen drama of Season 1, as dark as it was.

Other CW shows Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow share a universe (the “Arrowverse”) in much the same way they do in the comics they’re based on. The Arrowverse shows have also featured many crossovers between individual shows as well as all four shows together, in a major crossover event. It’s a great way to create buzz around the shows involved and bring viewers of one show to the other. It would be surprising if the Archie shows didn’t follow suit, especially considering the Arrowverse shows share an executive producer with Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in Greg Berlanti.

However, crossovers or Sabrina's debut on Riverdale would be complicated by the fact that the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comic is firmly set in the 1960s, while Riverdale clearly takes place in modern times -- cell phones and social media have had important roles in the plot of more than a few episodes.

Riverdale has already winked at its history with a dream sequence in which the main characters were dressed as the classic comic versions of themselves, so it may get around the time period issue with a dream sequence.

Whether they share a universe or not, fans are looking forward to season 2 of Riverdale and eagerly awaiting more news about Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Riverdale’s new season starts airing October 11. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is set to air in the 2018-2019 television season.