Sabrina the Teenage Witch Easter Egg Revealed in the Riverdale Finale

Next week’s finale for The CW’s Riverdale will feature a Sabrina the Teenage Witch appearance — but maybe not in the way many fans are hoping.

In the trailer for next week’s episode, FP Jones is seen in jail reading a copy of a comic book.

FP, the father of Jughead Jones, is not (as some had suspected going into this week’s episode) the one who murdered Jason Blossom, although a litany of smaller crimes seem likely to keep him in that cell for a while.

After a reader (Michele, a contributor to Archie Digest: A Riverdale Podcast) tweeted the image, we dug around and figured out that the comic in question was in fact Chilling Adventures in Sorcery #1, a comic in which Sabrina Spellman served as a Crypt-keeper like narrator (the cover reads “Chilling Adventures in Sorcery as told by Sabrina”).

Producers have repeatedly teased the idea that Sabrina could appear on Riverdale, and had strongly hinted that she could appear in the pilot, but always stopped short of making promises. Whether or not this comic book is the only time she will appear on camera in the episode remains to be seen. At least one major Archie character has been promised to make a debut in the finale, but that seems likely to be Hiram Lodge, a character whose actor was recently announced and who, we discovered last night, will be home from his own jail sentence soon.

Sabrina is a major player in the Archie Comics pantheon, even if she isn’t necessarily part of the same circles the other Riverdale characters tend to travel in. She has appeared in various TV series over the last 20 years, starting with a long-running live-action adaptation starring Melissa Joan Hart and followed up by a few short-lived animated shows.

Given the fact that the live-action show just turned 20, it wouldn’t be totally unreasonable to guess that The CW might seek out Melissa Joan Hart to play one of Sabrina’s aunts, if indeed she were to make an appearance. She had recently suggested that a reboot of the property was possible.

The character kickstarted the events of the horror spinoff Afterlife With Archie, which showrunners have teased as potential Halloween episodes, “Treehouse of Horror”-style. The comic centers on a version of Riverdale that is overrun by zombies after Sabrina tries to resurrect Hot Dog, Jughead’s dog, when it’s killed by a hit-and-run driver.

As of July, Aguirre-Sacasa told ComicBook.com that the “Afterlife” episodes were still on the table.

Riverdale is influenced by the “New Riverdale” relaunch of Archie’s long-running teen comedy comics, in which Sabrina recently appeared in Jughead story. The two had a date which devolved into a prank war when it didn’t go well.

More Riverdale news:

• Riverdale Season Finale Sneak Preview
• Riverdale: [SPOILERS] Dies in “Anatomy of a Murder”
• Riverdale: [SPOILER] Killed Jason Blossom
• Riverdale’s Ashleigh Murray on Jason Blossom’s Killer: “Our Town Is So F–ed Up”