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Riverdale continues to wrap up its fourth season disguised as the fifth season, wrapping up a major plot point, and laying some groundwork for the actual fifth season.
One of two minor points this week centered around the Lodge family. After Hiram physically attacked Archie at the gym for breaking Veronica’s heart and after Veronica was almost killed in retaliation for someone Hiram killed (saved by a few shots from Hermosa), the sisters decided it was time to put Hiram out to pasture before he got them and Hermione killed. Hermosa arranged to have Hiram roughed up so he’d call Veronica for help, but this time she refused to tend to his wounds. They also got Hermione to turn over her stock and Hiram’s ‘little black book’ of crime contacts so they could take over the family business. Hiram resisted at first, flying into a frightening rage at his daughters, but after Ronnie left him bleeding, he decided it was time for a long vacation to the Cayman Islands. Then Hermione dropped a bomb — she’s not going with him. She only stayed with him to protect Veronica, but with her going off to college and Hermosa running the business, she’s dumping Hiram, and moving to New York City to take Andy Cohen up on his offer to become a ‘Real Housewife’. But will Ronnie ever make it to Barnard, and will Hiram really leave Riverdale? And has no one thought to suspect that Hermosa has manufactured all of this takeover drama just to set herself up in a position of power, to become basically the female version of Hiram? It all smells fishy to me.
Cheryl had some interesting story this week as she attempted to talk the Blossom family into allowing her to reopen the family maple syrup business, but none of them were interested, especially if she was the one running the operation. So Cheryl went to mommy dearest to tell her what went down and Penelope told her to leave town for a couple of days. So she’d have an alibi. So Cheryl and Toni went away for the weekend, and upon returning home Cheryl found Nana Blossom in mourning — the entire Blossom family ‘poisoned themselves’ and now Cheryl has complete control of the Blossom family business. What. A. Coincidence. And in the suicide note, they said they did it to atone for their crimes against the native people of Riverdale. One nice little touch to try to smooth over the rift between Cheryl’s and Toni’s families.
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In one of the two main stories, Archie’s pent up rage has reached a boiling point, pounding on his punching bag in the middle of the night, refusing to play Veronica’s game that they are still together, and just angry at the world in general, having not dealt with his father’s death (and this reopens the wound of Luke Perry’s loss for the viewers as well). After seeing the video Archie found depicting him held at gunpoint by The Black Hood, and then refusing to talk to his mother about it, Mary called in some reinforcements — Uncle Frank. Not thrilled he showed up, Archie gave him a good punch but Frank knew that beating the crap out of him was the only way Archie could make peace with himself, so he taunted Archie into giving him a beat down. After a few punches, all of Archie’s emotions were released and the Andrews family was able to reconcile their issues. What had set Archie off to begin with was that the father of the boy who accidentally killed Fred was set to go on trial, and they hoped Mary and Archie would write a letter of forgiveness to get him a lighter sentence. After Archie was able to release his anger, the man showed up and told him that his son was stepping up to take responsibility, and Archie found it in himself to offer that forgiveness to help the teenager. Frank also said he was going to turn himself in to face responsibility for his war crimes, and Mary is going to represent him in court. And as a last gesture, both Archie and Frank went to Fred’s grave to pay their respects. Hand me some Kleenex, please.
But the big story of the night involved Jughead and Betty. After receiving a call in the middle of the night from Bret in prison saying he had some pertinent information for them but he needed to be moved to solitary immediately, Betty said she’d call Veronica to see what she could do. Going to the prison the next day, they were told Bret was no longer there … he was dead. At the morgue, Dr. Curdle Jr. showed them the body and aside from the several stab wounds, Bret’s eyes had been gouged out. Then another call in the middle of the night from Donna Sweett saying Bret and another of their classmates were murdered and someone was coming after her as well. Betty didn’t believe her but after calling the other girl and learning she was in fact murdered, she began to think perhaps Donna was right and there was a Preppy Murderer out there. But who? Who could have gotten to Bret in prison?
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The arrival of another tape at the Jones-Cooper household revealed that whoever was making the tapes actually got inside their house, filming them as they slept. Also learning that someone had been bugging their phones, all the pieces fell into place and Betty summoned Charles to the house. And he freely admitted that he had, in fact, bugged them with his FBI resources. And he did kill the video store guy and others to protect Betty. Jughead rightly figured it was Chick who carried out Bret’s murder in prison, and that the two of them were still working together. But Charles did not admit to making the videotapes. He said they would figure that out eventually.
And they did. And the videotapes were coming from inside the house — it was Jellybean! She and the boy she had played Gargoyles & Gryphons with decided to make these tapes but not as a threat. All Jellybean wanted was to keep this brother she was just getting to know from going off to college by setting up a mystery to keep him in Riverdale. She and some friends, after renting actual videos from Blue Velvet and knowing the information Jughead and Betty had gathered, created the elaborate videos by making the character masks and various sets all by themselves (how a group of kids had the resources to pull that all off without anyone noticing isn’t explained, so let’s just go with it). Jughead breaks the news to FP, and while he was shocked at first, he did not get angry at Jellybean, just gave her a big hug. But Jughead got accepted into the writing program at the University of Iowa, so will he really make it out of Riverdale along with Veronica?
What did you think of this episode? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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