Warner Bros. Television
Riverdale goes ‘film noir’ this week — albeit in color with some moody lighting — and gives us a crazy hour full of twists and turns and lots of answers which seem to put an end to the not very engaging Gryphons & Gargoyles storyline this season … but from the looks of the next episode preview, that will continue. Unfortunately.
Now it seems Riverdale is going to give us some themed episodes this year. We’ve already had the Breakfast Club episode and this week it’s a pastiche of classic crime dramas like The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity. And the episode title itself, ‘The Red Dahlia’, is a play on the infamous ‘Black Dahlia’ murder mystery (although the person given the title nickname does not end up dead by the end).
With Hiram still clinging to life after the attempt on his life, Veronica (dressed in some ridiculous 1940s femme fatale outfit) asks Jughead to do some digging to find out who pulled the trigger on her father. With a hefty fee involved, Jughead takes the case but it might be easier to suss out who didn’t pull the trigger considering Hiram hasn’t made many friends in town.
Despite what Ronnie thinks, it definitely was not Archie … although considering how emotionally unbalanced he’s been since surviving a bear attack and being driven out of Riverdale by her father, it’s not much of a surprise that Archie ends up coming to his senses, so to speak, realizing that the only way he can ever be the old Archie again is to kill Hiram.
Veronica also pegs her mother as the Prime Suspect, but she has the best alibi in town — she was on the phone with Hiram when he was shot. But why was she so quick to give FP Jones the sheriff’s badge? Is it because they have a history from The Midnight Club? But believing her mother is in the clear, Ronnie suggests that since Hiram and his drug operation has gotten him into this mess, it’s up to them to get him (and themselves) out of it by destroying the Fizzle Rocks and all of the equipment Hiram moved to the prison once the Whyte Wyrm became exposed. Hermione would rather sell the drugs and make some cash … but then that just make her a drug dealer. Without her mother’s knowledge or approval, Ronnie and Reggie take care of destroying the operation … but there’s one problem: Hermione got cash up front for everything and now has nothing to deliver. Nor does she have the money, so Ronnie has now put them in ever deeper shizz than they were before.
While Jughead is trying to find out who shot Hiram, he’s got his own dead body to deal with, Tall Boy, and hiding the corpse from the new sheriff isn’t an easy task. And FP is not buying the story that Juggie, Sweet Pea and Fangs patted Tall Boy on the back and put him on a bus out of town, never to return. Meanwhile Betty is continuing to meet with her father to try and figure out who killed Claudius Blossom. Considering he was poisoned, as were many other people around town including The Sisters, Hal guides Betty to the one person in town who could have done it. In fact, another suicide may not be what it seemed. So Betty is off to see Dr. Curdle Jr. to get Clifford Blossom’s autopsy report — the one Penelope instructed Dr. Curdle Sr. to not conduct — and, surprise, Cliff hung himself after he was already dead. Poisoned. When confronted at her sex/fetish club (!), she even admits it and says she’s only ever killed men who deserved it … but she has an ace up her sleeve to hold over Betty’s head: Chic and how Betty basically delivered him to The Black Hood.
Warner Bros. Television
More snooping for Jughead as he learns from Hermione about a woman who may be Hiram’s mistress. Hermione knew about her and asked Hiram to break it off, and perhaps a jealous rage is what led to the murder attempt. Hermione had revealed that the rash of seizures in town were caused by the runoff from Hiram’s drug manufacturing and the ‘mistress’ (played by Kelly Ripa), who happens to have a Glamourgé egg (is it the same one that Cheryl originally stole?), is a water inspector who was paid to doctor the reports about the quality of the Sweet Water River. So it appears she’s off the hook as a suspect … even though she carries a gun.
Things begin to get a bit too real for Jughead when he’s alerted by Sweet Pea that Hermione has been having an affair with … the not quite headless Minetta, and he overhears their plan to frame FP by having Minetta shoot Hiram in the hospital with his own police issued gun, thus tying it to FP. Now it all makes sense as to why she wanted him to be sheriff. Jughead makes it to the sheriff’s office just in time to catch his father who was on his way to be ‘framed’ (and by framed, we mean murdered by Minetta) and revealed Curdle had faked the reports of Minetta’s death. Worried that FP will be framed for Hiram’s shooting, FP reveals that HE DID shoot Hiram, something he’s been wanting to do since Riot Night. Stunned by this revelation, Jughead also admits that Sweet Pea and Fangs accidentally killed Tall Boy and they disposed of the body. But how can they keep FP from being framed or killed?
Stage a press conference with Alice, of course. As they are getting set up (and, seriously, Alice is going to shoot a video in a room with no lights except for what’s coming in between the blinds?), Hermione arrives and FP tells her he’s just about to explain how Tall Boy shot Hiram, and then he got shot himself and died on the way to the hospital. Problem solved.
But back to Archie who has arrived at the hospital to deal with his number one problem once and for all (and does Archie really believe murdering Hiram will make eveything in his life right again?). With Hiram still unconscious, Archie tells him how his entire life changed for the worse after getting involved with Hiram and just as he’s about to pull the trigger, someone tries to open the door. Archie hides and sees a masked man about to shoot Hiram, but Archie shoots at him, saving Hiram’s life. While Ronnie and Reggie are burning up the drugs, she gets a call from Archie who tells her what just happened at the hospital (leaving out the part that he was there to kill her father).
Archie and Veronica hug it out and apologize for their behavior, but now Hiram is awake and wants to see Archie. Having saved his life, Hiram has no option but to offer a truce with Archie. Hiram won’t come after him if Archie promises not to come after Hiram. Archie agrees, shaking on the deal. But there’s still a lot of double-crossing going on in the Lodge household.
After Hermione tells Veronica about the trouble she’s caused by destroying the drugs, she then pays Jughead a visit. He tells Hermione he knows about the doctored water reports and the confronts her about trying to frame his father for Hiram’s murder. Hiram had promised to shut down the drug operation because of the seizures, of which Veronica was a victim, and the quarantine she imposed on the town was so Hiram could destroy the operation. Instead, he just moved it all to the prison. Hermione reminds Jughead that someone tried to shoot her during the mayoral debate, Tall Boy in fact who was paid by Hiram, and that shooting Hiram was payback. Now that they know each others’ secrets, she suggests it’s best they keep them to themselves. Later, in bed with Minetta, she has one more loose end to tie up. She gets out of bed, gets a gun and shoots Minetta several times.
And it all comes full circle when Veronica gives Jughead the rest of the money she offered for whatever information he found. She tells Jughead that she told Hiram that Tall Boy was the one who pulled the trigger. Jughead asks if she wants to know who really shot Hiram, but at this point she’s satisfied with the story as it is.
And is love in the air for Archie and Josie? Before attempting to kill Hiram, Archie had his rock bottom at the Speakeasy and Josie came to his rescue to sober him up before the bouncer messed up his pretty face. Her suggestion of channeling his energy into something positive may have actually led Archie to consider killing Hiram, but once that had passed he seemed more himself, telling Josie he was going to get back into music and maybe perform with her. Josie thought that was a great idea … as long as he was just her back-up singer! Where do they go from here, and how will Veronica feel about her headliner dating her ex? Oooooh, girl, it’s gonna get messy.
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8:00 PM.
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