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Riverdale pulled out ALL the stops in this week’s penultimate episode of Season 3. As the series goes, this has not been a stellar season, often dragging out the boring Gargoyle King storyline with nothing much happening elsewhere. When they finally introduced Edgar Evernever into the story, it got a bit more interesting but piling one mystery on top of another with no payoff was getting tedious. If you think back to Season 2, that had a very interesting and exciting first third of a season, then they tried to fake us out by ‘revealing’ The Black Hood before the winter break and pretending the story was done … and then the second third dragged until they finally brought the real Black Hood back to juice up the last third of the season. An argument could be made that Riverdale is a series that works better with a 13-episode run as evidenced by the stellar debut season which gave us a great story and no filler. Most serialized dramas struggle to maintain a solid 22-episode season, so it’s time that the networks really take a lesson from the cablers and cut back. And that way they can also have more original programming every season. Seems like a win-win to me.
So heading into this season’s finale, the writers really amped up the story by giving us some crazy/outlandish plot twists, giving each of our main characters some major business, that leave us wondering what they’ll do next to end the season. First up, Archie and Veronica. With Ronnie still fuming about her dad’s deception when it comes to the ownership of Pop’s and La Bonne Nuit, things got even more heated when she overheard Hiram telling Hermione that he’s made a deal with the governor to buy Riverdale, so she’d better start packing up her office at City Hall. Archie’s not too keen on the idea, and mom Mary believes that she may have a way to help Veronica and Archie thwart all of Hiram’s plans: nail him for the underage drinking and illegal gambling at the club. Of course, Ronnie’s involvement may be an issue but they come up with a plan to produce some fresh crimes the Feds can link unequivocally to Hiram. Archie challenges him to a boxing match with the fate of the town on the line, and Ronnie hints to him that people are already asking about betting on the match but she’s turned them down. Hiram thinks that’s crazy talk and suggests a lot of money can be made … and Ronnie could pay off her debt.
As the boxing match gets underway — and it turns bloody when the gloves come off and they go at it bare-knuckled — the Feds make the raid on the club and then Ronnie helpfully directs them to Hiram’s illegal, underground boxing match … and just in the nick of time as new bets were coming in that Hiram was about to kill Archie in the ring. Thinking he’s won the match, Hiram is a bit taken aback by Ronnie’s betrayal, ratting him out to protect Riverdale. The final insult came as she visited him in jail, gleefully telling him that all of his assets are being seized, leaving him with nothing but the boxing trunks he’s wearing. For Archie, the team-up with Ronnie might mean something more, and Mary encourages him to find out … but then he finds Reggie at her place (hmmm, she still has a place at the Pembroke?) which puts the kibosh on his feelings. There was one curious bit of wording here that may give Archie some hope if he was paying attention. Reggie said he came there to tell Veronica that he wanted to be with her and that she said she wanted to be with him. When Archie asked if that’s true, he response was a cagey, ‘That’s what I said.’ But is that what she means?
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Meanwhile, Jughead is trying to get to the bottom of things with the Gargoyle King and the Black Hood after last week’s bloody prom and the question of are the two working together? Learning about the letter Betty received that lured her away from the prom, Jughead tried to follow the trail to the original sender and finally ended up with … Ethel, the princess. But she’s too fearful of the King to tell Jughead his identity and she has every right to be scared. But there is one missing piece, the boy who Jellybean was playing G&G with and she tells her brother the boy is in the woods about to ascend. Jughead has to stop him but when he gets there he finds himself surrounded by a band of ‘Lost Boys’ who chase him with spears to the bunker where … Ethel is hiding out. Knowing things are getting dangerously out of hand, Ethel whispers the true name of the Gargoyle King to Jughead and he’s flabbergasted. Last time, I surmised the King could be the assumed dead Chick, but I was wrong. It’s another assumed dead character and if this is true it is a brilliant callback to the Season 2 premiere.
Ethel says the Gargoyle King is Jason Blossom. Whom everyone witnessed being shot in the middle of the forehead by his father Clifford. And then Clifford ‘hung himself’. Okay, so think back to Season 2’s premiere. Fred had been shot by the Black Hood in the Season 1 finale. While he was in and out of consciousness in the Season 2 premiere he was having some crazy dreams. One featured Archie’s wedding to Veronica. As the camera panned back to the assembled guests, the entire Blossom family was present, Jason and Clifford included. Clifford even bizarrely stared right into the camera as if he was looking into Fred’s soul before that jolted Fred awake. I’ve always wondered what exactly that meant. And then Claudius Blossom appeared, the never-before-mentioned twin brother of Clifford … whom Penelope seemed a little more than friendly with considering she’d just met him. There’s always been a question about his true identity, with many fans believing he was truly Clifford who faked his death with Penelope’s help. But if he didn’t really kill Jason, why the act? Claudius and Penelope had cooked up a scheme to eliminate Nana Blossom and Cheryl, so was that to somehow restore Jason to the heir to the family business (which by this point seems to be in a shambles)? One thing we do know: Jason’s coffin is empty. And it would somehow make sense that he and Hal are working together, Blossom strong, but for what reason? To purify the town and return it to its maple-producing glory for the Blossom family to regain their status? A lot of stuff was unpacked this week with only one episode left to resolve it before the next cliffhanger.
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And Betty’s life at The Farm isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Having sessions with Edgar to dig deep into her dark side, Betty’s finding herself hypnotized and actually confronting herself, learning about how she killed the family cat and pushed her sister down the stairs, being told by this dark version of herself that she is the real Betty and this goody-two-shoes version is part of her. And then Alice and Polly pile on, revealing that Betty was diagnosed as a child as having the ‘serial killer gene’ that not even Hal possesses! Betty’s not buying any of this though and subjects herself to another session with Edgar, this time plugging her ears so as not to hear the clicking of the perpetual motion balls. Pretending to be hypnotized, Betty is again taken to the room where she spoke with herself — and we can assume now that this is how Cheryl is seeing Jason and Alice is seeing Charles — and discovers it’s really Polly filling her head with nonsense. But she doesn’t react when Polly/Betty tells her she’s a killer.
Wandering the halls, Betty notices Evelyn in a room hooked to some kind of machine. It looks like a dialysis machine. Chatting with Cheryl, Toni, Kevin and Fangs, she learns that Fangs has just had some kind of surgery to help remove his pain. Apparently Edgar’s process is to help his followers manifest their mental pain into something physical which he then removes. Betty is a bit shocked to hear this, and to learn that Kevin has already undergone the process with Toni and Cheryl up next. Then she pulls up Kevin’s shirt and sees the scar on his back, which he is not happy about, warning her to never do that again. Putting the pieces together, she goes back to Evelyn and realizes it is a dialysis machine and Evelyn is getting anti-rejection drugs … oh my gosh, Edgar is harvesting organs, not only for Evelyn but to sell on the black market. Cheryl and the rest don’t believe her but she brings Cheryl the proof: a heart on ice. That snaps her out of it when she realizes Toni is about to have her procedure. While she goes to rescue Toni, Betty tries to make her escape with the organ when Jughead calls and tells her Jason is the Gargoyle King. It’s not the most outlandish thing she’s learned today.
Betty tries to prove to Kevin and Fangs what’s going on, but they turn on her and take her to Edgar. Cheryl and Toni manage to evade capture but find themselves cornered. Toni is able to slip out of a window, but Cheryl stays behind, begging Toni to run and save herself. Cheryl is captured in a horrifically brutal moment while Betty is fighting to not be put under so Edgar can do whatever it is he plans to do to her. It was one of the most harrowing, edge-of-your-seat moments this show has ever given us, and will hopefully lead to an equally riveting and exciting season finale.
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8:00 PM.
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