Once upon a time, the character Sabrina Spellman almost made her 2018 debut on the CW. Originally conceived as a villain to appear in the first season of Riverdale, Sabrina of Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina then could have appeared on the CW regularly if the new series became an official Riverdale spinoff as planned. The teen witch was clearly meant to be on Netflix, but being on a different network didn't stop the show from making nods to the Riverdale world. In case you're hoping for a future crossover, here are the Riverdale Easter eggs in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina you might have missed. This post contains spoilers for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
Jughead and Betty probably aren't crossing town borders anytime soon, but Sabrina's hometown of Greendale is actually a neighboring town of Riverdale. Basically, if there's ever a massive homecoming football game in Greendale, Sabrina's school is definitely playing Riverdale on the field. The fact that the two shows don't share a network may mean the chances of a crossover are silm, but Riverdale and Sabrina creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has kept the realm of possibilities open in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. ICYMI, Sabrina and her gang could easily visit Riverdale, and here are some of the direct references the show made to Greendale's rival town.
01Football Players Ask The Weird Sisters If They Go To Riverdale High
To be fair, the cliquey, mystical Weird Sisters would probably fit in well with the environment of Riverdale High, and perhaps that's why the quartet of football players who bullied Susie thought that the witches were students there. Sabrina recruited Prudence, Agatha, and Dorcas to seek revenge against the jocks in a very Riverdale-esque prank, but her mischievous Academy of Unseen Arts classmates didn't exactly interpret that teamwork as a sign of friendship. Let's just say that I don't even want to consider the chaos of a future meeting between the Weird Sisters and Riverdale's Serpents.
02Harvey & His Dad Call The Riverdale Funeral Home
Although the Kinkles used the Spellman Mortuary for Tommy's body-less funeral, Sabrina's confession to Harvey about her half-witch status and how she resurrected Tommy clearly inspired the family's decision to go to the next town for a second funeral. Harvey's explosive fight with his dad at the Spellmans' funeral home also seemed to place a stigma on holding another service there. After Tommy returned to the mortal realm as a body without a soul, Harvey killed him, telling Mr. Kinkle that Tommy shot himself and making arrangements with the Riverdale funeral home. I wonder if a funeral for a familiar face was there at the same time...
03Ben Button Delivers Pizza To Ms. Wardwell
...OK, here's where the timelines of Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina get a little twisted. Recently on Riverdale, the mysterious background character Ben Button (Moses Thiessen) threw himself out a hospital window to meet his death. Yet, a week after that episode aired, the later half of Sabrina's first season showed concession worker Ben delivering a pizza to Ms. Wardwell, who may or may not have sexually pursued him.
So, did Ben's suicide technically happen after the events of Sabrina? Is Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meant to take place long before the mysteries of Riverdale began? Most importantly, does his Sabrina appearance tie back to Ben sharing a name with a famed character who ages in reverse? We'll have to wait and see if Riverdale tackles this question of chronology later in its season.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is currently streaming on Netflix. Season 3 of Riverdale airs on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on the CW.