Riverdale’s Madchen Amick Spills on Directing Season Finale

She’s been in front of the camera for four season of The CW’s “Riverdale,” but on this week’s episode, Madchen Amick also doubled as the show’s director.

It’s an accomplishment that’s been a long time coming for the actress, who first became interested in directing when she began her career on “Twin Peaks” in 1990. While she has since helmed music videos for her kids and has a docu-series about mental health under her belt, taking control of tonight’s episode — the season finale — was on a whole other level.

“I was fun,” Amick tells TooFab of her time behind the camera. “It felt really good, it felt really comfortable being in the director’s seat.”

While the episode was supposed to be the 19th in a 22 episode season, the coronavirus pandemic shut down production on the show as it was in the middle of Episode 20. With the showdown, Amick’s episode became the last of the season.

“I just feel grateful that it actually made it in. It was the last episode we were able to film in its entirety. I was 3 days into my 4 days of editing when we got word they were shutting down on set,” she explained. “It ended up the episode stood alone as a great finale and the stakes were heightened with this ‘Auteur Voyeur.'”

She also promised that, like any season finale from showrunner Roberto Agguire-Sacasa, the episode’s “going to leave you hanging” with a good cliffhanger.

Amick said her desire to direct began on “Twin Peaks,” where she was able to see women like Lesli Linka Glatter and Diane Keaton direct episodes.

“This big wave of pushing for diversity behind the camera is really important,” she said. “It put this little seed in my mind. When you’re shown an example, no matter who you are, you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s possible, I can do that too.’ I always felt like, ‘I want to step behind the camera and I have an artistic voice that I want to see come to fruition and hopefully I’ll get that chance one day.’ Years of being in front of the camera went by and finally I was like, ‘It’s time. I’m gonna do this.'”

When asked how she put her own personal stamp on the episode, which finds the students of Riverdale High plotting revenge on principal Mr. Honey, she explained how all that time on “Twin Peaks” really helped shape her vision.

“I have to give David Lynch a lot of credit, because he was my introduction into filmmaking. How blessed am I that he ended up being my mentor?” she asked. “He’s just a true visionary, genius, master and he told me at one point, ‘Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing because I’m just a conduit for something that’s coming through me and coming out into the films I make.'”

“I have that as my base, because I left ‘Twin Peaks’ and went into the real world of Hollywood, which had all of these rules and all of these guidelines that equal success. I remember the next 5-6 years of my career, I just kept hearing,’ ‘You can’t do that, you can’t do that.’ I was like, ‘You can, I was on a show that did it and it broke boundaries and it changed the rules.’ You can do it, just have the vision and follow it through.”

With that in mind and aiming to “honor” the world Agguire-Sacasa built, Amick said she also hoped to “bring some inspiring new ideas” to the table. According to her, Roberto was “great and super open to it,” explaining she was able to “push the envelope with all this fantasy stuff and pull on my David Lynch things I got to witness.”

With everyone in quarantine right now, Amick said she’s been keeping up with her costars via text.

“I’ve been making sure to reach out to everybody, check in with everybody. Lili [Reinhart] and I continue to have a close relationship, we text with each other. We were texting last night, how are you feeling, you know,” she said. “I have a group chat with all of the ‘moms’ on Riverdale, we’re all in this hot mom group chat.”

As for what they talk about, Amick said, “There was a point I felt like I had watched everything and I was stuck and I didn’t know what to look for. I was like, ‘Ladies, help me out, I need something new to watch.'” They came through, recommending “Honey Boy.”

The season finale of “Riverdale” airs tonight on The CW.