Riverdale Season 6 Episode 5: Ending Explained! Are Betty & Archie Dead? Who Killed Veronica?

Riverdale Season 6 Episode 5 is out now to stream on Netflix. This 100th episode was like a love letter to fans. “Episode 100: The Jughead Paradox” was a treasure trove of callbacks and cameos. For any longtime Riverdale fan, it’s possible to spot the many references to past storylines, which are sure to spark nostalgia. And if you’re an Archie Comics fan, we’ve finally got the 1950s aesthetic back. We haven’t seen this surprise since Riverdale Season 1 Episode 7. She was sorely missed and she was long overdue. 

Riverdale recognized his madness and dived in headfirst to offer us even more outlandish plots. And this time around, Riverdale made it seem like it was part of the joke, playing out all the shipping, soap opera storylines, and its darker black crime style. We tell you all about the end of episode 5 of Season 6 of Riverdale on Netflix!

Riverdale Season 6 Episode 5 Ending Explained

Veronica discovers that the two Reggie are dead after fighting a duel for her. Jughead then reaches out to him and explains that they have to go through the experience of the bomb explosion together because they are the counterparts of Archie and Betty. But when Jughead doesn’t show up for the wedding ceremony, Archie realizes he’s trying to separate the two universes. So, he kills Veronica while she tries to help Jughead, he is also Cheryl’s murderer. We realize Archie is Rivervale’s “big bad” when he strangles Jughead.

However, Betty, in her wedding dress, arrives and shoots Archie down. However, after Betty and Jughead leave to replay the bombshell scenario, Archie returns from the dead to pursue them. So although Archie died in Rivervale initially, he keeps coming back to life due to the nature of this parallel universe.

So just like Hiram Lodge is Riverdale’s “big bad”, Archie is Rivervale’s bad guy. Indeed, Rivervale exposes the townspeople to their darker sides. The negative traits of each character are taken to the extreme.

Riverdale and Rivervale are parallel universes, the latter is created following the explosion of the Hiram bomb during the season 5 finale. We also learn that Dilton, who teaches physics at Rivervale and dies in Season 3 of Riverdale, from cyanide poisoning, is responsible for these parallel universes that are not meant to exist.

Rivervale’s Jughead is the only one to be both inside and outside of history; he decides to become a “living battery” or a “story generator” in order to save both the OG and its alternate version. By endlessly writing stories for Rivervale, Jughead is able to control the fate of the city.

Are Betty & Archie Dead?

Thanks to everyone’s outfits, we realize that most of the events of this episode take place right before the bomb explodes at the end of Season 5. Betty and Archie survive the bomb explosion at the end of the season. Season 5 We only know this from the events that take place in Season 6.

Using his understanding of parallel universes, Rivervale’s Jughead manages to contact Betty and Archie of Riverdale through a distorted voice phone call and warns them of the bomb explosion. So, we think Betty and Archie escape the room just before the bomb goes off.