There’s a lot to unpack from the series finale of Riverdale. In the episode, titled “Goodbye, Riverdale,” we get to watch all the characters we’ve known and loved over the past seven seasons move away from town (for the most part), live happy lives (for the most part), and then die (for the most part). We get some pretty definitive answers, too, about what fans deem “endgame” for the characters — who they end up with, as the final credits roll. But there’s one word from Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) that holds a ton of weight and throws some of those endgames (or lack thereof) in flux. So what did Jughead mean when he said “sometimes” in the Riverdale series finale?
Here are the circumstances surrounding those two syllables that we’re about to spill hundreds of words exploring. In the episode, Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) is 86 years old, on her deathbed, and wants to see Riverdale one last time. Enter an angelic version of Jughead who offers to take her back to a day of her choosing in a sort of dream/wish fulfillment scenario that takes place out of time, while taking Betty back in time. Over the course of the episode Betty reunites with her friends, and either remembers or discovers their final fates — ranging from dying peacefully in their sleep in their eighties to getting stabbed by a hustler, and everything in between.
While the duo sits at Pop Tate’s (Alvin Sanders) grave, they discuss their own fates. Betty moved away from Riverdale, started a popular advice column, and then spun it out into the renowned feminist magazine She Says, “the go-to source for hard truths.” However, what she considers her “true legacy” is her family. She never got married, but she did adopt a daughter, Carla, who had Betty’s granddaughter, Alice.
We also find out Jughead’s story, as his obituary is what kicked off Betty’s trip down memory lane. When Pep Comics folded in the previous episode, he went back to work in the business, starting up Jughead’s Madhouse Magazine, something that Jughead dismissively refers to as “mostly kids and teens who read it,” but Betty clarifies is popular and still published to this day.
After Betty explains that she never needed to get married, she turns to Jughead and asks, “Any regrets not getting circled?” To which Jughead looks directly at Betty and replies, “Sometimes.”
There’s a lot going on here, but the most obvious interpretation of this is that Jughead regrets not getting married to Betty. Whatever happened during their high school years (both times they went to high school), or after, the two clearly have a connection, as evidenced both by four solid seasons of the series where they were together, on and off; and this finale, where they reconnect at the end of Betty’s days. We’re also told that they both became titans of magazine publishing, albeit in very different genres, so it’s not too much of a leap to fill in the gaps that they crossed paths at some other point in their lives. So again, simplest interpretation, it stands to reason that whatever Betty felt — and she’s pretty clear that marriage was not on the table for her — Jughead might have seen her now and again, and felt a pang of regret for what might have been if they tied the knot.
But like everything with Riverdale, things aren’t that simple. This is a dream scenario they’re both in as Betty lives out her final hours, asleep in the back of a car driving up to Riverdale. So there’s a version of events where none of this is “really” happening, and Betty is imagining what Jughead might say in this scenario; essentially Betty thinks that if Jughead was asked, he might regret never having married her.
To further complicate things, though, this isn’t Jughead. At least not really, so much as some Angel that has the form and memories of Jughead, or some version of Jughead who is not exactly the one who grew old and died and ended up in that great Pop’s Diner in the sky. He’s also an angel who is dressed and styled exactly how Jughead was in high school. This isn’t the heavily side-burned Jughead who died at 84, or even the 1950s-style Jughead with his pinned-on crown. This is classic, Season 1 Jughead, the one who always pined after Betty but never made a move because she was clearly meant for Archie (KJ Apa). In that case, it stands to reason that this simulacrum created to stand in for Betty’s original high school memory of Jughead would of course regret not being with her.
There’s one other interpretation of events, though: Jughead isn’t talking about Betty at all; he’s talking about Tabitha Tate (Erinn Westbrook). Over the course of multiple seasons we saw the connection between Tabitha and Jughead grow to the point where, at the end of Season 6 they lived out their entire lives inside a time bubble in Pop’s Diner (it’s complicated, don’t worry about it). And in this season’s penultimate episode, Tabitha returned to see Jughead and his friends one last time, in the form of an angel. In their final scene together, while Jughead posited that Tabitha had died saving them from a comet that destroyed Riverdale (again, don’t worry about it), she explained that she didn’t die, she’s still alive, everything that happened in that time bubble is real, and they’re still together, somewhere out there in the ether. Then they shared a truly epic kiss that called back to the one they shared in the Season 7 premiere, and Tabitha disappeared. Jughead went back to live the rest of his life in the 1950s forward, and that’s where we get caught up to the finale.
Here’s the thing: this Jughead we’re seeing is an angel. Tabitha is also an angel. At the end of the episode, there’s another Jughead sitting in Pop’s Diner, the 1950s version, who greets Betty after she dies. Meanwhile, Angel Jughead walks away into the distance — to where we don’t know. It’s not too far a leap to think that this version of Jughead got his happy ending in The Sweet Hereafter (the show’s version of Heaven) with Tabitha. They may not have gotten married, not on Earth, not really; but they’re together for all eternity anyway.
…Or maybe Jughead just regretted not having a big ol’ wedding. You know Jughead, he always loved a party. Just kidding.
Whatever your interpretation of events, though, that is your interpretation — and part of an ambiguous moment like this Jughead “sometimes” is that all interpretations are correct, and none are wrong. If you ‘ship Betty and Jughead (aka Bughead), you’re correct that this moment was all about Bughead. If you ‘ship Tabitha and Jughead (aka Jabitha), you’re correct that this moment was all about Jabitha. And if you like big wedding parties… I don’t know, good luck to you, I guess.
Regardless, somewhere out there, some version of Jughead is wandering the afterlife. Is he with the one he was meant to be with? Is he alone? The answer, simply, is: sometimes.
