Madelaine Petsch Teases Riverdale’s Final Season

Season 6 of The CW’s Riverdale ended with a shocking twist when, after Cheryl Blossom saved the Town With Pep from an apocalyptic collision with Bailey’s Comet, the town appears to have shifted timelines with Archie and the gang not only back in high school, but back in the 1950s as well. It’s a twist that sets the stage for a truly wild Season 7 — one with plenty of mysteries left to unpack. The season will also be the series’ last as it was announced earlier this year that Riverdale would be ending its run and now Madelaine Petsch, who plays Cheryl Blossom on the series, is teasing Season 7 — including whether or not Cheryl survived her efforts to save the town.

“I enjoy it. I love stunts and I love doing work like that, so to me, to have another one under my belt was fun,” Petsch said of some of the more wild turns of Riverdale. “You just go along with the flow on that show and if you lean into it and you find the fun of it, then it’s all gravy and fun.”

Then she teased, “Who knows if Cheryl survived the comet blast? She was real close to that. I guess we’ll find out in Season 7 of Riverdale!”

However, while Riverdale is wrapping up next season, no matter what the final season has in store for Cheryl Blossom, Petsch told ComicBook.com that she’s ready to explore other opportunities.

“I love and adore Cheryl so much. We’ve been on such a ride together. We’ve grown up together. So, the idea of saying goodbye to her really does make me sad, Petsch said in an interview with ComicBook.com about wrapping up her time as the character. “And I can’t imagine a world where I’m not playing her or she’s not in my life. However, I do feel like I’m just excited to explore other opportunities and try new things. And, as an actor, we want variety, and we want to play new characters. So, I think, as much as I love her, I think I have to. love her and leave her.”

Petsch’s co-star, Betty Cooper actor Lili Reinhart, had similar comments about her own goodbye to Riverdale.

“There are a lot of feelings. Bittersweet is the word, because I obviously will miss this group of people that I’ve been through half of my 20s with. We’ll never all be together again working on the same thing, so I recognize that, and I think we all do, and we are all sad about that,” Reinhart said. “It will be a very sad day when it actually wraps, but I do think the show has done so much for all of us and we’re all so ready to show the world what else we’ve got. On that aspect, knowing what’s on the other side is super exciting. I’m incredibly excited for the projects that I’ve been developing with my production company over the last year and a half that we’ll be ready to shoot when Riverdale ends next summer. But going into this final season, I think we’re all like, ‘This is our last hurrah, let’s really try to celebrate each other and spend time with each other because we won’t get this again.’”

Back in May, The CW president Mark Pedowitz spoke about ending Riverdale and why Season 7 was the right time to wrap things up.

“We had a long conversation with Roberto [Aguirre-Sacasa, “Riverdale” executive producer and Archie Comics [chief creative officer] yesterday, who’s thrilled by this news,” he continued. “And we’re going to treat the show in the manner it deserves. It was an iconic pop culture star, and we want to make sure it goes out the right way and that is the decision. I think they choose that seven years is the right amount, and we want to do the right thing. That’s a personal thing. As a fan myself. I do want to do what’s right for the show.”

Pedowitz added, “We have not declared how many episodes yet. But I do not believe it will be a shortened season. It goes back to what I said earlier: I am a big believer in attempting to give series that have had long runs and appropriate send off.”

Riverdale will return for its seventh and final season in 2023.