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There was one notable thing on this week’s Riverdale: the complete absence of Toni Topaze, which may be why we got a lot more Principal Weatherbee than normal. And if you were wondering about actress Vanessa Morgan, yes she really is pregnant on the show. And we’ll guess the reason for her absence is that she gave birth on January 29, so congratulations to Ms. Morgan and family!
Toni’s absence left the job of school spirit in the hands of Archie, Veronica and Cheryl, but with the Bulldogs’ miserable record on the field — zero wins, zero points scored — even Cheryl was to the point of dragging the Vixens off the field because there was nothing to cheer for (she did come around and performed Lady Gaga’s ‘Stupid Love’ for the crowd at the game). And Hiram is working hard to destroy Riverdale High by poaching its star quarterback for Stonewall Prep and having the local football organization ask for Riverdale’s withdrawal. But Archie isn’t about to give up that quickly, and with Veronica’s and Tabitha Tate’s help, they throw a pancake breakfast at Pop’s, get the community spirit they need, a whole new team of recruits for the Bulldogs — all female, it seems — and though they didn’t win, they did score a touchdown so that was all the win they needed. Take that, Hiram. Even Reggie bailed on him to support the Bulldogs after he refused to break some kid’s legs to stop the football game from happening.
With Cheryl back in the Riverdale High spirit, there was something else she needed to fix that even she admits she broke — Kevin and Fangs’ relationship. Hoping to smooth things over with a face-to-face-to-face talk, Cheryl was relieved to learn that her little key party stunt only magnified the problems in their relationship, it didn’t cause them to split. Well, at least they are on the same page about that. But Kevin still won’t open up as to why he’s suddenly having this crisis and why he can’t stop himself from cruising. Shockingly, another trip to the sauna (where this sauna is remains a mystery) for Kevin ends with him being savagely beaten by a hot guy who wasn’t ‘like him’. Between Melanie on Pennyworth and Kevin, this has been a horrifying week of brutal beatings on TV. But it made Kevin open up to his father. Tom was always supportive of Kevin but his mother was another story. When he was a kid, she made some comments about having to buy him ‘husky’ clothes that hurt him so much he went to the woods just to be alone, not knowing it was a major cruising area. He doesn’t say how old he was, but he had to be young and he found men there who told him he was cute and gave him the attention he needed. And now, he believes he’s just hard wired to need that affection from anyone who will give it to him. He even wonders if he’s ashamed of himself for being gay, something he denied when Fangs asked him point blank about that. Let’s hope Kevin can figure himself out and be happy with the person he is.
This week saw the first real team-up between Betty and Jughead since they all got back to Riverdale. Betty learned that the blood on the telephone booth on the Lonesome Highway was a match for Polly’s but seeing how devastated Alice already is, she chose to lie to her mother and tell her it wasn’t a match. Believing Polly to still be alive snapped Alice right out of her booze and pills funk to the point that she decided to host the support group for the mothers of the missing and dead girls. Picking up a lunch meat tray from Pop’s, Betty told Jughead that Polly is dead and he suggested they go see the old man who lives along the Lonesome Highway to see if he can offer any clues as to what happened to Polly and the other girls.
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Jughead is still deep into his alien investigation, and he becomes more intrigued when one of his students, Lerman Logan, writes a paper about an alien abduction that is eerily precise in its details. (Side note: Who decided to name this kid Lerman Logan? Was it a joke, a dig, a very deep dive into actor Logan Lerman’s acting credits that mirror the Lerman Logan character? Or just a friendly wink to the actor who appeared on Greg Berlanti’s other series, Jack & Bobby?) Lerman’s parents are too thrilled that Jughead is digging into their kid’s past, even suggesting they have been abusing him, and Weatherbee is incensed that Jughead has seriously overstepped his boundaries, with the Logan family worried that Jughead has unlocked whatever demons torment the boy which they claim has led to his sleepwalking, even disappearing for a week, and found on the Lonesome Highway with no memory of the last seven days.
So while Betty is back to staking out the truck stop, pulling young women out of any truck she sees them enter, she comes across the trucker who was the last to see Polly, and she takes him to the woods, ties him to a tree, has a complete breakdown and is just about to murder him when Jughead calls. Lerman has disappeared again and he wants to search the highway. Betty is right off the highway and agrees to help. Jughead’s call saved the trucker’s life, in that moment, but Betty left him tied up, saying she’d send someone tomorrow … if she remembered. She’s also a bit miffed at Jughead for taking her to see Old Man Dreyfus, telling them that Polly was taken by the Mothmen. She’s not buying it, but when they find Lerman and he says ‘it happened again’, they have to wonder if it was an abduction or something else that’s making him ‘lose time’. But they may never find out as the Logan family suddenly leaves Riverdale with no forwarding address.
When Betty gets home, she finds Alice in a bad emotional state … and her FBI boyfriend Glen is there as well. To check up on Betty, unwittingly revealing the truth to Alice. Alice is now furious at Betty for not being honest with her, and Glen is taking her off the case to handle it personally, by the book, leaving no stone unturned. Who thinks Betty is just going to sit back and let that happen?
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8:00 PM.
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