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Let’s Talk About ‘In the Fog’:
- Archie, Betty, Jughead and Tabitha decide they need to rally their friends and family members not yet under Percival’s spell to take a stand against him.
- A thick fog is approaching Riverdale, an event not seen since 1922.
- Betty is alerted that another young woman has managed to escape TBK.
- Toni, Fangs and Kevin are about to be embroiled in an ugly custody battle.
- Penelope returns to Thorn Hill, claiming to have turned over a new leaf and bearing a gift for Cheryl.
- Jughead asks Tabitha if she can time travel back to stop the bomb from exploding but she claims there are too many variables to make the attempt. But is she telling the truth?
- Betty’s ‘friend’ is two weeks late, and she reveals to Archie how she got away from TBK.
- Veronica thinks she may have acted too hastily in breaking up with Reggie and wants to give it another go.
- Kevin is surprised when Moose returns to Riverdale, the high school’s new PE teacher.
- The city council pulls a fast one under cover of the fog in an attempt to thwart a coup.
A thick fog rolls into Riverdale this week, bringing with it some surprises and inescapable truths that may change some lives forever. For Cheryl, the fog brings Penelope back to Thorn Hill, now a nun with an open heart looking for forgiveness from her daughter so she can move on to a life in the convent. Except Cheryl isn’t buying any of this change of heart from her. Penelope claims she has a gift for Cheryl and all she asks for is a hot bath and a hearty meal. Cheryl finally agrees but when she catches her mother ogling the cursed doll containing Abigail’s spirit, she is sure there is more going on so she whacks Penelope in the head and ties her to a chair. When Penelope awakens, she realizes she is burning up from the inside, and Cheryl reveals her power of pyrokinesis, threaten to burn Penelope to a crisp. But again she tells Cheryl she has a gift that she needs to see — dozens and dozens of letters from Cheryl’s long lost (and banished) high school sweetheart Heather. Penelope had intercepted them over the years, keeping them from Cheryl, and admitting that she did so because she saw something in Cheryl that she was ashamed to admit she also felt in herself. Thankfully Cheryl did not toast Penelope but her world has been rocked by the revelation that Heather is out there somewhere, and that she never forgot Cheryl.
Veronica has a change of heart about her breakup with Reggie, and while the two are stuck at the casino because of the fog, they begin to rekindle their romance with a game of poker … strip poker, that is. They get a bit frisky in Roni’s office but the portrait of Hiram glaring at him makes Reggie a bit uncomfortable so they take their private party to an unoccupied suite. Things seem to be going well, but if they are to resume their romance, Veronica needs to remove the portrait of Hiram from the office. It’s time to stop living in his shadow. Veronica is very angry that he would ask her to do such a thing, and they both realize they are in a toxic relationship and both of them are too much like their parents, Roni like Hiram and Reggie like his mother, who put her own career ahead of her family. It seems there is no way for them to move forward, especially after Roni said if she’d had her way she’d be in New York now working on Wall Street, and that she dumped Archie because he did not want to leave Riverdale. But when Reggie asked who she’d rather be in New York with, she couldn’t simply say his name and that was the clincher for him. But in the end, Veronica did decide that it was time to put Hiram Lodge to rest … at least his portrait.
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Kevin and Toni had a few words about their impending custody battle over baby Anthony with Kevin not wanting the boy growing up in a gang atmosphere, while Toni threw Kevin’s reckless cruising in the forest as probably not the best role model. But they agreed to all sit down and talk over dinner that night. Fangs, however, is not on board at all about cutting the Serpents out of the raising of their child but Toni is hoping they can keep them out of the conversation. Back at the high school, Kevin got a surprise visit from Moose who revealed he’s the school’s new PE teacher. And he wants to make up for the bad way he left things with Kevin, especially after his father dressed up like the Gargoyle King to scare them after catching the boys having sex, which Kevin said scarred him for life. But a kiss from Moose convinced him that maybe they could make this work so he bailed on dinner, blaming the fog, which set Fangs off to the point he wanted to find Kevin and knock his block off. Toni’s calmer head prevailed and said that either they would all talk or they would fight it out in court. Spending time with Moose brought up some bad dreams, but Moose was there to comfort Kevin, and the whole reunion actually made Kevin change his mind about a legal battle, willing to settle for joint custody. Unfortunately, he got Fangs on the phone and he wasn’t about to share his child and told Kevin he’d see him in court. Maybe when Toni gets wind of this she’ll be able to smooth things over.
Archie, Betty, Jughead and Tabitha felt they needed a plan to defeat Percival before he took over and brought on the apocalypse which only left Pop’s standing. Their plan is to launch a coup with the support of anyone they can get who isn’t under his spell and take over the city council. What they don’t know is that Alice overheard them and ran right to Percival, with a plan. Luckily, she had that fog rolling in to keep people off the streets, which made it difficult for the gang to unite and carry out the coup. But that gave them more time to deal with their own personal issues while they waited for the fog to lift.
When Betty tried to leave her house to go to Archie’s, she saw a figure just standing at the end of her sidewalk. TBK? Not sure because she slipped out the back instead. Archie wanted to go out take on the stalker but Betty told him it wasn’t necessary. Besides, it could be someone with palladium and he could get hurt. But since TBK was brought up, Archie finally asked Betty how she got away. She’d been held captive in the pit for two weeks, but one day something changed and TBK allowed her to come out, saying he felt they were kindred spirits and he would let her go if she could prove to him that she was … by dismembering a dead body. She did and he let her go. So she had no grand escape, she was just allowed to walk free and that is obviously weighing on her. Also weighing on her is the fact that her period is two weeks late and she’s never late. But is she pregnant? A test was taken at the end of the episode but only Betty and Archie saw the results. Now I have to backtrack for a minute, back to TBK. Seeing TBK in a T-shirt in Betty’s flashback — he’s pretty ripped — and then having that person standing in front of her house … and Moose suddenly back in town … could Moose be TBK? He certainly knows Betty, knows her family history, knows she is the daughter of the Black Hood, so I’m calling it now that Moose is TBK. Even the voice is kind of similar. We’ll see.
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At Pop’s, everyone cleared out when news of the fog was delivered by Alice on the local news, so Jughead and Tabitha were alone. At one point, Tabitha thought to herself what would she do when he’s gone and Jughead accidentally intercepted the thought, answering her out loud, thinking she was referring to Pop with whom she’d just been on the phone. But Tabitha was a little upset with him because they had a deal that he wouldn’t read her mind. Jughead asked that since she could time travel, maybe she could go back to just before the bomb went off and get it out of Archie’s house. She says she’s tried but it’s one of those fixed points in history and no matter how many variables she tried it always goes off. So maybe she can get him out of the garage so he doesn’t lose his hearing, but she said it would be too risky, too many variables and ripple effects. She doesn’t seem to believe what she’s saying and Jughead may not either.
After the fog rolls in and knocks the power out all over town, Jughead decides to syphon the gas out of their car so they can fire up the generator while Tabitha fires up an old HAM radio to see if there is anyone in the area who needs help. She hears some odd voices but can’t quite tune them in, and then panics because Jughead has been gone for far too long. Picking up a rifle and ready to head outside, Juggie walks back in, gas in hand, just having gotten turned around in the fog. They get the generator running and the lights are back on a Pop’s, and Tabitha gets back on the radio to let anyone know if they need a place to stop and rest or eat, to just look for the light of Pop’s. As dawn comes and the fog lifts, the news breaks that overnight Riverdale appointed a new mayor — Percival Pickens. The city council met in secret, without Tabitha, and voted to dissolve while making Percival mayor. So much for a coup with no city council to disband. Wondering how they were now going to stop Percival, Tabitha admitted to Jughead she lied about stopping the bomb. She did, and Jughead didn’t lose his hearing but he also didn’t develop his power to read minds. In every scenario, 1,384 of them, Percival won. Jughead accepts that stopping the bomb is not an option as Tabitha tells him that all of their powers play a part in stopping Percival, especially his since his mind reading power is the closest to Percival’s mind control, but she has something else to lay on him — she wasn’t worried about losing Pop, it was Jughead she was thinking about because he dies in every scenario but they do manage to beat Percival twice out of 1,384 scenarios (even though she already said he won in every scenario?). Jughead tells her not to worry, it’s not the first time he was destined to die, and they will figure out a way to stop Percival.
Riverdale airs Sundays at 8:00 PM.
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