Warning: SPOILERS for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 3.
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 3 premiere featured a shocking cameo from a Riverdale character. Nathalie Boltt reprised her role as Penelope Blossom, the disgraced mother of Riverdale teen, Cheryl Blossom. Both series presumably exist in the same universe considering they are developed by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Here’s a breakdown of Boltt’s cameo and what it means for the Netflix series.
Penelope Blossom was an orphan that grew up at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy before being adopted by the Blossom family, a family she eventually married into. She was very controlling and abusive towards Cheryl, which has been shown countless times on Riverdale. Aside from being affiliated with gangs and drug dealers, Penelope is a stone-cold serial killer. So far, Penelope has killed her husband, Clifford Blossom, and his brother, Claudius, as well as Darryl Doiley, Felix Featherhead, and Hal Cooper. Cheryl caught on to her mother’s recent harassment and locked the woman in an underground bunker where she currently remains on Riverdale.
Penelope briefly appears in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 3 during the episode “Chapter Twenty-One: The Hellbound Heart”. While Sabrina deals with entering hell to rescue her boyfriend as Hilda and Zelda figure out the next step in guiding the coven, Prudence and Ambrose are on the search for Father Blackwood. The plot shifts to New Orleans where Penelope, now using a Southern accent, guides a man who looks like Father Blackwood into her room. Penelope offers “Mr. Wood” a drink but when she turns around, the woman transforms back into Prudence revealing her Penelope form was just a disguise. After demanding the location of her brother and sister, Prudence stabs her father in the gut, but he’s revealed to be one of Blackwood’s Judas acolytes. Prudence and Ambrose realize that they are using the same tricks as Father Blackwood but her transformation in Penelope is very telling.
Why Prudence Was Disguised As Penelope Blossom
In order for Prudence to use a glamour spell to disguise herself as someone else, she had to have met that specific person in the past. Prudence and Penelope never interacted directly in Riverdale or Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but that doesn’t mean it never happened. Considering Riverdale is across Sweetwater River, it’s likely that Prudence ventured out of Greendale. Penelope was shown to run a brothel called “The Maple Club” in Riverdale and it’s possible that Prudence visited in order to search for information on Father Blackwood or some of his followers. His misogynistic followers seem like the perfect clientele for Penelope’s brothel. It’s also possible that Penelope broke out of the underground bunker and Prudence encountered her while she, too, was on the run.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Riverdale have made small crossovers in the past. Riverdale’s Ben Button made an appearance in Sabrina’s debut season while a Baxter High bully recently visited Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe to talk to Betty about a story she was writing. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 3 also has a few more connections which will have viewers hoping for a major crossover event in the near future. It seems inevitable that Sabrina will end up meeting Archie, Jughead, Betty, and Veronica at some point, but until then, keep those eyes peeled for other cameos.
Next: What to Expect From Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Season 4
