WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 3, streaming now on Netflix.
Riverdale is the undisputed murder capital of the world, but at least they don’t have bloodthirsty pagans to worry about like their neighbors, Greendale. While Betty and Veronica practice magic in the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comics, we don't yet have confirmed witches on Riverdale. However, Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 3 hints that members of a prominent Riverdale family could be witches, or at the very least, have a history with the occult.
The hint comes during Sabrina Spellman's first Quest of Unholy Regalia, in which she has must find Herod’s crown before her rival for the Throne of Hell does. According to cousin Ambrose’s research, the last person to have the unholy artifact was an American soldier named Benjamin Blossom, who in World World II took the crown from Hitler’s bunker and brought it back to Riverdale. Benjamin was then murdered by occultists, but the crown was never found.
The Blossoms are an institution in Riverdale. Like the Coopers and the Andrews, the Blossoms planted their roots in Riverdale generations ago. The Blossom we know best is Cheryl, the cheerleader with a penchant for exaggeration. As Sabrina and Ambrose soon find, Herod’s crown is on the Blossoms' property, in one of their maple trees.
When the compass leads Ambrose and Sabrina to a tree, Ambrose says, “Clever Blossoms,” which suggests he admires their work or ingenuity. Herod’s crown is spectacularly powerful, to the point that Ambrose thinks it could recover the coven’s waning power. It stands to reason the Blossoms couldn't have gotten that relic easily — how do you steal from the literal worst person in history? — and it could not have been easy to figure out what to do with it. Indeed, not even a clever warlock like Ambrose expected Herod’s spirit to be attached to the crown.
Herod bursts out of the same maple tree shortly after Sabrina and Ambrose leave with their prize, and follows them back to Greendale. It takes the work of Sabrina, Nick Scratch and Ambrose to destroy Herod. So, how did a family of mere mortals, albeit persuasive ones, if Cheryl is any indication, convince King Herod to rest in a maple tree in the first place?
We can speculate that the Blossoms are witches, because they were able to trap a powerful being like Herod, or else they had knowledge of the occult and connections to witches who could’ve helped them. That isn’t to say the Blossoms only gained from their possession of this artifact. Just from what we’ve learned on the four seasons of the show so far, the Blossoms have a history of tragedy.
Obviously, that isn’t going to get explored on Riverdale, but it makes for a fun connection as well as an extra layer to the tragedies that have befallen the Blossoms. It could be that the family’s possession of Herod’s crown cursed them. If the crown played a part in building the family’s wealth, tragedy could have been the price paid for it. The crown is found, after all, in the symbol of what brought the Blossoms wealth, the maple tree.
Even the current season has hinted there’s something wrong with the Blossom bloodline. Uncle Bedford, who arrives with Aunt Cricket to convince Cheryl to sell the maple business, tells her upon finding Jason’s body in the chapel, “I always knew that there was a certain sickness in our bloodline. But this. This is monstrous.” That this revelation comes from a Blossom family member is telling of the twisted history to which he must be privy, in addition to what we already know from watching the show.
The whole vibe of Thistlehouse, the name of the family’s great house, is Gothic-inspired and kind of looks like the stereotype of a witchy abode. There’s a lot of dark decor and dark lighting; in fact, Cheryl is known to walk around the house at night using a candle. However, let’s just focus on the characters themselves. If anyone is a witch on that show, it’s Cheryl Blossom.
Cheryl is a driven teenager, with an otherworldly charisma. She walks down the hallway and everything else seems to slow down (when she’s not pushing anyone out of the way). For the most part, when she asks someone to do something for her, they do it. Now, is this just because she’s a deadly combination of beautiful and forceful, or could there be more at work here?
A lot of practicing witches incorporate intention setting and the manifestation of said intentions in their practice. Cheryl generally achieves what she sets out to do, such as convincing her girlfriend that it’s totally okay to have her dead brother’s corpse hanging out with them, or that the town should have a parade to honor Fred Andrews. Additionally, Cheryl’s entire attitude would fit right in with the Greendale witches — we would love to see her flirt with Ambrose or tell one of the Weird Sisters to go to heaven. However, even if Cheryl isn’t a witch, she has a magical presence and a unique way with words that witches could at least admire. And she would absolutely march down to Hell if it meant saving Toni.
Let’s also consider that in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Part 3, Prudence somehow created a glamour that looks exactly like Penelope Blossom, Cheryl’s mother, in New Orleans, who was played by Riverdale actress Nathalie Boltt. Maybe Prudence caught a glimpse of Penelope Blossom at some point, or maybe it’s just a fun Easter egg. Or, maybe it’s even more proof that the Blossoms are witches.
Could the Spellmans, like the Coopers, be long-lost cousins of the Blossoms? Stranger things have happened on both shows.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina stars Kiernan Shipka as Sabrina Spellman, Ross Lynch as Harvey Kinkle, Michelle Gomez as Mary Wardwell/Madam Satan, Jaz Sinclair as Rosalind Walker, Lachlan Watson as Theo Putnam, Gavin Leatherwood as Nicholas Scratch, Tati Gabrielle as Prudence Blackwood, Chance Perdomo as Ambrose Spellman, Lucy Davis as Hilda Spellman, Richard Coyle as Faustus Blackwood and Miranda Otto as Zelda Spellman. Part 3 is streaming now on Netflix.