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Generally, I’ve been more pleased with this season’s Riverdale than almost anything from last season, but the storytelling has still be a bit all over the place, throwing things at the wall to see what would stick. Like the mystery of the VHS tapes. When was the last time anyone mentioned those? But the show did something great with the third season finale, setting up the ‘death’ of Jughead, and through various teases this season, we finally got to that moment we saw in the third season finale.
Episode 414: How To Get Away With Murder
Okay, does anyone actually believe Riverdale is going to kill off one of the core characters? If they really wanted us to think Jughead is truly dead, they’d take Cole Sprouse’s name out of the opening cast credits. That it’s still there at the top of this episode is a dead (pardon the pun) giveaway that Jughead is alive and well. Or is he?
I have to give it to the writers for really selling the idea that Jughead is dead, from the three wildly different stories Betty, Archie and Veronica told their parents as to why they were sneaking in in the middle of the night in their underwear to the organization of a search party that found … Jughead’s body at the bottom of a ravine. I mean, if they’re faking that then that means pretty much the entire town is in on whatever Baxter Brothers style mystery Betty and Jughead have cooked up.
It’s interesting that Betty has pulled Charles into the investigation to try and pin something on the Stonies. Everyone is certain that Betty would not have picked up the bloody rock that killed her boyfriend, so why was it in her hand? And when said rock is recovered Betty has to work quick with Charles to swap out the rock with one covered in stage blood that Charles offers to have sent to Quantico for a quicker result. Her real problem is Donna Sweet, whom Betty rightly deduced was the brains of the operation. Donna is always one step ahead, anticipating Betty’s next move, right down to finding the bug she placed in Brett’s room to hopefully capture an incriminating conversation.
Betty finally admits that she blacked out the night of the Ides of March party, but she’s still not sure what Donna did. Donna has tried to convince Betty over and over again that she saw her and Jughead go off into the woods together, but Betty refutes that and says it was she and Donna who went into the woods. Betty also knows that Donna did meet with Evelyn, and Betty also pays her a visit to see if there was another trigger word, but Evelyn is filled with so much rage that she just repeated everything Donna had already told her. It took a bit of hypnotism with Charles to get to the truth. There was no trigger word, Donna blew a drug into Betty’s face, ‘Dragon’s Breath’, that would have rendered her into a blackout state but not in any condition to kill someone. So the Stonies killed Jughead to set up Betty, and her friends are just so much collateral damage.
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Betty realizes that she’s been playing offense this whole time which is why Donna has been able to get ahead of her but she finally flips the script and that’s when the search party is organized. Which does throw Donna off because why would Betty lead the sheriff, Jughead’s father, to the body if all the evidence points to her as the killer? Knowing Donna would return to that spot in the woods, Betty reveals that she knows Donna killed Jughead — which totally rattles her even though she pretends she has no idea what Betty is ranting about — but what Betty says next really rocks Donna’s world — Betty is the ultimate wild card, the daughter of The Black Hood. Donna will never be able to guess what her next move will be but if Betty goes down she’s taking Donna with her. Gulp. Now Betty just has to wait for Donna to make the next move.
Oh, and hey, Mary Andrews came out as bisexual, now in a relationship with her friend who was scouting Archie to box for the Naval Academy. And after some tense moments as Hiram reveals he’s changing his will to include Hermosa, Ronnie and her dad finally have a heart-to-heart about keeping secrets and allowing her to help him fight this disease. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one. Is he really sick or is he attempting to get his two daughters to finally accept each other as family? Time will tell.
Episode 415: To Die For
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This episode opens with Betty being notified about the sudden opening at Yale, the implication that it was Jughead’s spot. And we knew from a flashforward that Brett mentioned that it would now be he and her together at Yale, so now we know how that came about. Also, Alice is producing a documentary about a murder in a small town, interviewing key subjects about Jughead’s death. So … we’re still working on the presumption that he’s dead. But … there is a new insidious rumor floating around town that Jughead faked his death. But why? And now that the Blossom curse has visited itself upon Betty, Cheryl has appointed herself as Betty’s guardian angel to make sure she doesn’t off herself.
After going through the motions of packing up Jughead’s belongings at Stonewall, the sheriff gets a tip that there may be evidence in Donna’s room, and he finds … Jughead’s Quill & Skull tie pin. That rattles Donna enough to ‘admit’ she saw Betty, Archie and Veronica that night standing over Jughead’s body which then led to the arrest of the trio in the middle of science class. Betty assures her friends this is all part of the plan and to stay cool.
But let’s cut to the chase here because there are a lot of things that don’t quite make sense. Jughead is alive, of course, hiding out in the bunker. And we eventually learn that Charles, FP, Jellybean, the coroner and Mary Andrews were all in on the scheme, but we don’t know how long they knew. Well, we do know Archie finally confesses to his mother — after Betty stopped him from doing so earlier — but the others were in it from the start? FP knew the search would eventually lead to Jughead’s body but did he know this was all staged at this point? Alice apparently did not know until late in the game when Betty wanted to tell her something off the record during an interview for her documentary, at one point hilariously telling Betty she half expected her to do something like this.
But I’d still like to know how long all of the key players were in on this. We do know that someone did attempt to kill Jughead. He’s got the stitches in his forehead to show for it (and Betty even managed to knit him a brand new beanie to replace the one she burned). We’re still missing the crucial piece of this puzzle in how the plan was concocted to spin the ‘murder’ around on Donna and company. It also seems like there was a real murder in the process, Johnathan, who has not been seen with the group since the ‘murder’. In fact, Donna mentioned that they watched Johnathan paint Jughead’s blood on the rock (which is how she knew Betty had somehow swapped it with a fake), but she also warned Brett not to go against her or he’d end up like Johnathan. So, what happened to him and where is the body? And have Betty and Jughead realized Johnathan is missing?
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A problem I see developing moving forward is that the more people know Jughead is alive, the harder it’s going to be to keep that secret from the Stonies. Betty, Archie and Veronica did put on some major performances for the benefit of the preppies — and now I have to wonder if Cheryl is in on it now too — by staging a tryst between Betty and Archie in the music room, which Veronica was alerted to by Cheryl and then had a very public meltdown in the school library. That also turned the tide on the ‘Jughead is alive’ theory because, as Kevin stated, Betty would never make out with Archie if Jughead was alive. But Betty may have slipped up a little too, knowing Donna would be following her to the bunker after a visit to Pop’s. She made sure Donne caught her and Archie together but Donna also noticed something amiss — three milkshake cups. That had Donna certain Jughead was alive and this was all a ruse but Brett tried to brush it off as Archie having a massive appetite (especially after Archie picked a fight with him specifically to get Brett and Donna talking for the bug they eventually found). But Betty still believes they are in psychological warfare with Donna and the preppies and they have to keep up the ruse to finally pin the attempted murder of Jughead on them.
I’m curious to know what skin Charles has in this game. One of those aberrant plotlines earlier in the season showed us that he’s in a relationship with Chic and they have some plan to blow up the Cooper family, so his helping Betty with this game could blow up in her face … or not if that storyline went the way of the VHS tapes storyline. I mean, at this point there are only seven episodes left to the season, so they can’t stretch the ‘Jughead’s dead’ storyline that much further. Can they?
We did get one little hint that the tide may be turning at the end of the episode. Veronica and Hermosa have agreed to bury the hatchet, to a point. Hermosa is doing all she can to deduce why Veronica has decided to defer her entrance into Barnard. Ronnie uses the excuse of her friends dealing with this loss, but Hermosa ain’t buying it. She even learns about the different stories each of the three gave their parents. But, Veronica must have finally let her half-sister in on the ruse so she could use her impressive detective skills to get information on Donna. And she does. It turns out Donna Sweet is … well, they haven’t revealed that to us but Jughead said if the information is true, it’s the smoking gun they need to nail her for the ‘murder’. So, do we assume she has some connection to Mr. Chipping that is beyond what they believe to be a student/teacher affair? Is she in cahoots with Mr. Dupont? These are answers yet to come but let’s hope it doesn’t take seven weeks (or more because you know another lonf break is coming to stretch the season out to mid-May) to find out.
Because I’d really like to have some resolution to the VHS storyline and Charles & Chic as well.
What did you think of this episode? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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