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I think the producers and writers at Riverdale are really counting on you forgetting all about that winter finale cliffhanger with air raid sirens going off in town and Riverdale sealed off, preventing Jughead and FP from re-entering. Because the season picks up five weeks later, and while there is still a curfew in effect, it seems the borders have been re-opened. And, unfortunately, we’re still stuck on the Gryphons & Gargoyles storyline.
There is still a battle of wills churning between Hiram and Veronica. Now he’s putting the squeeze on her speakeasy for protection from the Gargoyle Gang, which he controls and has no qualms about sending them to harass her or her employees, including roughing up Reggie while making an illegal beer run (I’m really confused about what exactly Ronnie is providing at Le Belle Noir — is she selling booze to teenagers??? Riverdale is turning into Gossip Girl). Ronnie tries to cook the books and convince her father that the place isn’t doing well enough to pay him 15%, but you can’t con a con.
While Jughead was away — for a month apparently — with Archie, the Serpents have fallen on hard times. Fangs has taken up selling Hiram’s Fizzle Rocks to make a few bucks, and Cheryl and Toni have become neighborhood cat burglars, robbing from the rich to give … to themselves. Unfortunately, Cheryl decides to leave a calling card on the portrait of Hiram Lodge in his office after stealing Hermione’s ‘Glamorgé egg’ (seriously), so Hiram impresses upon Veronica that things will get much worse for her and her business if she doesn’t intervene and get the egg back.
That opens up a whole can of worms with the returned Jughead and his Serpents, threatening anyone who breaks the code of no drug dealing and no criminal activity with expulsion from the group. He’d already given Fangs a pass because of his sob story about needing money for his mother’s medical treatments, but when he learns about Cheryl and Toni, he asks for their Serpents jackets. But they know about Fangs and demand he get kicked out as well, forcing Jughead’s hand. But he gets the egg back and a bonus — Ronnie decides to one-up Hiram by hiring her own security / protection: The Serpents, who gleefully turn the tables on Hiram’s Gargoyles the next time they try to attack Reggie. And Jughead still has a soft spot for Fangs, giving him the chance to infiltrate the Gargoyles in order to bring Hiram’s drug operation to a halt. With the Serpents now protecting the speakeasy and Ronnie taking over the headliner duties after Josie was scared off by a Gargoyle, it seems that there may be something more between Ronnie and Reggie than a boss/employee relationship (and maybe we’ll finally get some classic Archie/Ronnie/Reggie romantic rivalry going on).
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Betty is still dealing with the kids she and Ethel helped free from The Sisters, but they are still haunted by dreams of the Gargoyle King coming to kill them even though Betty tries to convince them he’s dead. Hoping to get them back to sleep, she reluctantly agrees to let them play a round of G&G because it helps relax them and finds a packet of Fizzle Rocks in the box. She’s the one who ratted out Fangs to Jughead. Alice is at the end of her rope with all the kids in her house and wants to send them to The Farm (with a little push from Polly and Evelyn Evernever), but Betty gets Fred, Cheryl & Nana Blossom, and Attorney McCoy to take in some of the kids. But by the time Betty gets back home, they’re gone, apparently taken by Edgar himself to The Farm. The show has been teasing this Edgar guy since the start of the season, so it’s about time we get to see him.
Betty is also hoping to work with Attorney McCoy to get the Sisters to cooperate with them to testify against Hiram Lodge in exchange for immunity for charges like human trafficking and illegal drug testing. The Sisters try to get around that by taking a vow of silence, but McCoy learns they actually haven’t been sanctioned by their religious organization for more than sixty years, so they can’t use that as an excuse. But before they can speak, someone posts their bond and they are gone, ‘We go to join Thee’ written on the jail cell wall. Betty fears she knows exactly where they went and she goes back to the school to find them all dead, blue lips, kneeling before the Gargoyle King statue, the head Betty removed replaced by a longhorn skull.
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And Archie is somewhere in the Canadian wilderness, apparently some kind of forest ranger holed up in his own little cabin in the woods. He’s warned that there have been bear sightings and to keep an eye out while he’s making his rounds but either a bear, or maybe Bigfoot judging by the tracks he found, puts some pretty nasty gashes in Archie’s chest and arm. He makes it back to his cabin and radios for help and tries to bind the wounds himself before passing out.
When he awakens, he finds Cassidy and three others he knows are dead playing G&G in the cabin, waiting for him to draw his quest card. He knows this is a dream and agrees to play along in the hopes that by doing so he will wake up and be done with this game. The card reads ‘Defeat the Hooded Spectre of Death’ and Archie finds himself back in Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe, but this time he manages to take down the Black Hood before he can shoot Fred. Believing his quest is completed, he returns to the cabin to find the deceased prison warden there waiting for Archie to fulfill his next quest.
The second card he draws reads ‘Kill the Gargoyle King’ but the warden tells him to look at it again and then it reads ‘Kill the Man in Black’. Archie leaves the cabin again and is then in Hiram Lodge’s study. Hiram doesn’t believe Archie has the balls to kill him, but Archie surprises Hiram with a sharp dagger to the gut. Returning to the cabin once again, Archie finds Betty, Jughead and Veronica waiting for him. He has one more turn before he can complete the round. We don’t know what the card says but Archie asks if it’s the last level. Jughead says it sure feels like it is.
Archie goes to the cabin door and when he steps through he’s in his bedroom, bat in hand, looking at his sleeping self. From the shadows Fred says he doesn’t have to do this, but Archie knows he’s no longer that innocent teenager and he needs to kill that part of himself to be able to move on. He brutally swings the bat three times. Back at the cabin, the forest rangers race in to find Archie … dead in his bed. (So maybe we won’t get that Archie/Ronnie/Reggie love triangle after all.) Has Archie finally made his way to Eldervail, and is there a way back? (Perhaps it’s time for a little magical intervention from Sabrina Spellman.)
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8:00 PM.
What did you think of the mid-seaon premiere? Is Archie really dead? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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