SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Chapter Fifty-Seven: Survive the Night,” the third season finale of “Riverdale.” The Gargoyle King was finally unmasked on “Riverdale’s” third season finale, but like everything within that show, things were not as simple as they first appeared to be. While it was Chic (Hart Denton) who was running around town doing most of the dirty work, such as getting the Griffins & Gargoyles game into the hands of the town’s youth in the first place, it was Penelope Blossom (Nathalie Boltt) who was really pulling the strings. “Penelope’s a master manipulator,” says showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. “She suffered two core wounds in her life: One was she was basically bought by the Blossom family to marry Clifford, and then she lost her son Jason. When we were talking about who would want to take such an epic revenge on our families, on our town, it really felt like Penelope.” The decision to put Penelope and Chic behind the Gargoyle King threat, and to bring back Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Munro) as the Black Hood, came early in the writers’ room breaking story for the third season, Aguirre-Sacasa says, because they wanted to use the season to “conclude the stories we had begun in the pilot.” Bringing the three together as one ultimate threat to the core four characters of Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica (Camila Mendes) and Jughead (Cole Sprouse) was a way to create “one big, uber-mystery that snaked its way through the years and through the seasons.” Paying off how Jason’s death connected to these later threats made room to push the characters forward into a completely new mystery that also takes place slightly in the future, during spring break of their senior year. The end of the third season finale saw Archie, Betty, and Veronica alone in the woods at night, streaked with blood and burning their clothes — and Jughead’s beanie. “We often have bad things happening to our peripheral characters, but we wanted to see what someone struck down amongst our core group of characters [looked like],” Aguirre-Sacasa says. Going forward, Aguirre-Sacasa reveals that the “fun and challenge” of the show will be answering the question of what happened to Jughead. “The Riverdale universe is a dark universe; it’s a universe where bad things happen, and no one is truly safe there,” he reminds. But that was far from the only Season 4 seed planted in the episode. It was also revealed that Betty’s mother, Alice (Mädchen Amick), was working with law enforcement to bring down organ-harvesting cult The Farm and that her older brother Charles was not only alive but one of those law enforcement members with whom Alice was working. While Aguirre-Sacasa shares that he “pretty much told the story of The Farm” in Season 3, the last piece of that is how to get Alice out after the members disappeared. “That is something that we’ll resolve at the top of Season 4,” he confirms.<doc-sep>The CW’s hit show Riverdale is airing its Season 3 finale tonight. Fans in the U.S. who haven’t seen the season yet will be able to watch it soon on Netflix, while many fans outside the U.S. have had access to the show on Netflix for quite some time. Riverdale airs on The CW every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Read on to learn more. Details about Riverdale on Netflix in the U.S. Viewers in the United States will be able to see Season 3 of Riverdale on Netflix about a week after tonight’s finale airs. Season 3 of Riverdale will be released on Netflix in the U.S. on May 23, 2019. Netflix follows the same pattern it’s used with other shows on The CW, releasing a new season on Netflix in the U.S. about a week after the finale airs on The CW. This is earlier than other broadcasters release their shows on Netflix because Netflix and The CW have an agreement in place. In 2016, Netflix and The CW reached an agreement that in the United States, Netflix could stream full seasons for all of The CW’s shows starting eight days after each show’s finale. For example, The 100 Season 4 aired its finale on The CW on May 24, 2017, and Season 4 was released on Netflix on June 1, 2017. Similarly, The Flash Season 3 released on Netflix on May 31, and the final episode for the season premiered on The CW on May 23. This past year, Riverdale Season 2 premiered on Netflix in the U.S. on May 24, about a week after the season ended on The CW. They’re following the same pattern this year. Details about Riverdale on Hulu If you’re wanting to watch Riverdale on Hulu, you can only do so if you have Hulu Live. Regular Hulu users don’t have access to Riverdale or even earlier seasons. But if you have Hulu with Live TV, then you can watch Riverdale. You can sign up for “Hulu with Live TV” right here, and you can then watch a live stream of CW on your computer via the Hulu website, or on your phone (Android and iPhone supported), tablet, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Echo Show or other streaming device via the Hulu app. If you can’t watch live, “Hulu with Live TV” comes with both its extensive on-demand library (which has most new episodes available after they air) and 50 hours of Cloud DVR storage (with the ability to upgrade to “Enhanced Cloud DVR,” which gives you 200 hours of DVR space and the ability to fast forward through commercials). Details about Riverdale on Netflix outside the U.S. Outside of the United States, Riverdale is released on Netflix much sooner than that. In the UK, each new episode is released every Thursday, after it airs in the United States, at 8 a.m. In Canada, new episodes typically premiere around 2 a.m.-3 a.m. on Thursday morning, according to fans in the region. In Australia, new episodes are online on Thursday nights, but the time varies depending on your region. Here’s a video explaining when the episode premieres depending on where you live: So if you’re in the U.S. and want to watch on Netflix, you won’t have to wait much longer.<doc-sep>Riverdale season 3 starring Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart, and Camila Mendes is coming to Netflix on Thursday, May 23, 2019. The full season will be available to stream. Riverdale season 3 arrives on Netflix next week! Riverdale season 3 ends tonight, May 15, 2019, with the season finale. There’s been so much happening this season, and it has all been leading up to this moment. Fortunately, if you are behind with this series, you don’t have to wait too long to watch season 3 on Netflix. UPDATE: Riverdale season 3 is coming to Netflix TONIGHT! Riverdale season 3, the full season, will be added to Netflix on Thursday, May 23. The new season arrives exactly eight days after the season finale airs on The CW. This is the usual deal with seasons of The CW shows coming to the streaming service. The first two seasons of the series are available to stream on Netflix right now. We highly recommend watching both seasons as soon as possible to get caught up before the new season hits the streaming service next Thursday. Spoilers ahead! Riverdale season 3 kicks off with the trial of Archie Andrews, who was arrested on a murder charge at the end of season 2. In addition, there’s a new threat in Riverdale, and it’s sweeping the town. A game, Gryphons and Gargoyles, which is similar to D&D, is causing quite a few problems, thanks to the Gargoyle King. This season we also get to go back in time to the early days of the Riverdale adults. It’s a very Breakfast Club-like episode and features the show’s young characters playing their parents in their high school days. It’s an awesome kick off to what’s been an intense, drama-filled season of the series based on the Archie Comics characters and stories. There’s a chance Riverdale could be leaving Netflix in the near future. We don’t know when exactly, but WarnerMedia, which owns Warner Bros. TV, which is the producer and distributor of Riverdale, is starting their own streaming service later this year. And, we just learned that all the major WarnerMedia shows will be making their way to the streaming service eventually. That means, unless Netflix is able to secure a deal to keep this show on the streaming service, Riverdale will probably leave Netflix. Netflix could already have a deal for the series for the length of the series plus a few years. That’s how it works with some shows, but it’s impossible for us to know that right now.<doc-sep>
Tonight, Riverdale‘s third season officially comes to an end with an episode titled “Chapter Fifty-Seven: Survive The Night.” And as you might imagine, things don’t go easily for the folks living in the Town With Pep. Yep, Archie (KJ Apa), Jughead (Cole Sprouse), Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica (Camila Mendes) are forced to run for their lives on tonight’s episode… Though as it turns out, that wasn’t always the plan. “We were breaking around [episode] four or five and we started talking in the room about doing a version of Most Dangerous Game which is, you know, our lead characters being hunted through the woods,” Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa told Decider. Once they started breaking down the story, though, the Riverdale writers realized that it was too early in the season, and had too many references to what would eventually happen in the finale. So Episode 5 became Episode 22. “Six episodes out [from the finale], we took a pause, looked at all our stuff we had to answer, then made sure we were solving when those cliffhangers would be,” Aguirre-Sacasa continued. In fact, this sort of finale is a big departure for the show. Season 1’s mystery, the death of teen Jason Blossom (Trevor Stines) was solved in the second to last episode. So was Season 2’s mystery, the identity of serial killer The Black Hood. Then the final episodes of the season have been left to wrap things up, focus in on the fallout of the season’s mystery, and set up a cliffhanger for the following year. “You know, it’s funny, after the second year, the network basically said, ‘Your next-to-last episodes are always huge and then your finales are kind of quiet,’ Aguirre-Sacasa noted. “That was actually something [executive producer] Greg Berlanti had said, write your big stuff in the penultimate so now you get to actually do your character stuff. So basically, we were like, okay, let’s see if we can do both: Let’s see if we can go big in the finale and then still maintain the character stuff. So [those were] our marching orders from the very beginning of the season.” As to who is hunting the so-called Core Four, and why? It ties into the overall season mystery of The Gargoyle King, a gigantic being seemingly made of sticks and bones that last episode was revealed to be *spoilers on* Jason Blossom. There are still a lot of questions about that particular reveal, particularly since Jason’s death kicked off the events of Riverdale right at the start of the first episode. But even that, according to Aguirre-Sacasa, is all part of the plan. “This episode was definitely done as an homage to the pilot, really,” Aguirre-Sacasa said. “It’s really bringing the story full circle.” The Riverdale Season 3 finale airs Wednesday at 8/7c on The CW. And check back with Decider right after the episode for a lot more with Aguirre-Sacasa. Where to stream Riverdale