Roses are red, Cheryl is too, is she a witch or just a creepy boo? Riverdale's Season 5 midseason finale, "The Pincushion Man" dropped a major hint that Cheryl and the Blossoms are witches — whether they know it or not. And if they thought I wasn't going to have any questions... well maybe they're not as magical as they seem.
In the last episode, Reggie, desperate to secure the Blossom maple groves for Hiram, set fire to Cheryl's precious maple trees. (Looks like someone forgot to pay attention to Smokey Bear — only you can prevent forest fires, Reggie!) In doing so, he also sent flames roaring straight for Thornhill, where Cheryl, her nana, and Minerva are spending their evening. Luckily, thanks to Hiram's staged prison breakout, Penelope Blossom bursts in and alerts them of the flames. What happens next is nothing short of magic.
After Nana Rose suggests sacrificing Minerva to the flames to save Thornhill, Cheryl's new girlfriend runs out of the house (understandable), leaving the Blossoms with nothing to do but pray for wind to divert the flames. The three women kneel at an alter, praying together, the wind comes, and the fires subside just enough to save Thornhill. Reggie later calls it a "freak windstorm," but what if it's not a freak occurrence at all, just an occult one?
The wind could just be a coincidence, but it looked like Cheryl felt her prayers working. That, and the altar which was full of red candles, animal bones, and photos of dead Blossoms, definitely puts more evidence in the Witch column. Plus, it's one of the rare times Penelope, Cheryl, and Nana Rose were all working together, and we know how powerful female magic can be when united. We've seen it before in Netflix's Archieverse series, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which brings me to my next chunk of evidence: the Blossom connections to CAOS.
CAOS and Riverdale never had much crossover, despite taking place in the same universe, but it's worth noting that, what little crossover we have seen gives more credence to the Blossoms Are Witches theory. In CAOS' third installment, Penelope Blossom herself appeared on the show — sort of. In "The Hellbound Heart," actor Nathalie Boltt made a cameo as a glamour disguise Prudence uses in an attempt to kill her father, Father Blackwood. Though she didn't end up actually playing Penelope on both shows, Boltt's casting suggests that Prudence is at least aware of the Blossom family. How else would she come up with such a perfect disguise?
Later in CAOS Part 3, the Blossoms are explicitly mentioned as a Riverdale family connected to the occult. In "Heavy is the Crown," Sabrina must find the crown of Herod, a magical artifact that was last recorded in the possession of one Benjamin Blossom. Long story short: Ambrose and Sabrina find the crown hidden inside one of the Blossom maple trees. In other words, the Blossom family fortune might have been built on magic this entire time.
Then there's Minerva, who is played by CAOS actor Adeline Rudolph. Rudolph appears to be playing an entirely new character on Riverdale, but nothing is guaranteed. CAOS ended with Rudolph's character Agatha very much alive and retaining her witchy powers. It's possible she's gone to Riverdale to check in on the Blossom family magic.
Finally, there's also four full seasons worth of ominous Cheryl lines and odd actions that suggest she's a witch. Like all the times she talks about the Blossom family curse, or when she seemingly saved Fred Andrews by giving him the "kiss of life" that Archie had once given her. Was that an oddly sexual way to reference CPR, or a literal magic spell? Even Madelaine Petsch, who plays Cheryl, told Elle that interaction with Fred Andrews made her "question Cheryl's abilities."
Cheryl being a witch would not only make a ton of sense, it would finally bring Riverdale into the supernatural. And, really, when you think about it, isn't that exactly where Riverdale belongs?
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