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Let’s Talk About ‘RIVERDALE: RIP (?)’:
- Jughead has cleaned up his act enough for Mr. Weatherbee to call him back to mentor students who want to revive the school paper, The Blue & Gold, turning it into a true source of journalism renamed the Riverdale Choice.
- Archie’s friend Eric has gone back to his home, so we won’t be seeing him anymore.
- Betty has graduated from her FBI training and is given the plum opportunity to open a field branch right in Riverdale.
- Veronica is not welcome back in New York City, going from the She-Wolf of Wall Street to the Black Widow of Wall Street after killing Chad (even if it was self defense).
- Jughead and Tabitha make it official, while a spark seem to ignite between Alice and Frank.
- A Ghoulie firebombs Pop’s, and no one wastes a second pinning the heinous act on Hiram.
- Betty gets a phone call from the Trash Bag Killer congratulating her upon her graduation and promises to not come after her if she can promise him the same.
- With the threat of a Ghoulie incursion, Toni decides it’s time to bring the Serpents back to town, making Fangs her Sepent King and baby Anthony the heir to the throne.
- Sheriff Keller asks Kevin to be his full-time deputy, but Kevin wants to give New York City and Broadway one more try.
- Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead spearhead a movement to get Riverdale reincorporated.
- Cheryl and Britta take to the mines themselves but instead of palladium, they find skeletons. Lots and lots of skeletons. Nana Rose reveals the truth of Riverdale’s horrific past, leading Cheryl to demand a public apology or there will be consequences.
- Pop Tate returns and offers to help Tabitha rebuild the diner … on the condition that he can come back to work there. Of course he can!
- Reggie fails his stockbroker exam, so he proposes building a casino in Riverdale. Ronnie is hesitant at first but after she learns she’s persona non grata on Wall Street, she agrees but selling the idea to the town is another issue.
- The entire population of Riverdale (or at least the actors in this episode) gathers to run Hiram Lodge out of town. He does leave … with a bang.
The fifth season finale of Riverdale is a culmination of everything that’s been built up since the season started with the seven year time jump and Hiram Lodge’s stranglehold on the town, getting it unincorporated and ripe for his picking once SoDale was up and running. So pretty much any side plots in this episode were all tied to the main thrust of getting Riverdale away from Hiram. And that campaign was launched when a Ghoulie showed up at Pop’s with a Molotov cocktail. No one hesitated to think that it was anyone but Hiram behind the deed and they were right. Toni and Fangs beat the information out of the guy who also added insult to injury when he told them the Serpents were a joke with their jobs and babies, and the destruction of Pop’s — and the Whyte Wyrm below — would allow the Ghoulies to retake Riverdale. That ain’t happening on Toni’s watch, so she and Fangs make a pact to fulfill their duties as Serpent King and Queen, with baby Anthony as their prince, and bring the Serpents back to town, no more trucking for them. But they have to make Riverdale a real town again if they plan to give them jobs that pay as well as truck drivers. And knowing Hiram’s plan to take full control of Riverdale came at the cost of Pop’s and other suspicious fires around town, Jughead and Tabita firebomb Hiram’s propaganda newspaper, the Lodge Ledger.
Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead spearhead a movement to gather signatures from 51% of the population of Riverdale to get the town reincorporated. Archie asks Toni to get the Serpents to help but at this point she isn’t too keen on making them run errands for Archie. She relents though because they know they face a greater foe in Hiram Lodge. After setting the diner on fire, Archie, Betty and Sheriff Keller waste no time in arresting Hiram — without evidence — and toss him in jail. But they need something to nail him so Ronnie, Betty and Archie go through his papers to see what they can find. Ronnie does find the smoking gun that shows Hiram was planning to absorb Riverdale into SoDale and that, or course, included the palladium mines under the Blossom maple groves.
But knowing Hiram’s well-paid attorneys will get him freed from any and all charges lodged (no pun intended) against him, there’s only one thing they can do to make sure Hiram never does harm to Riverdale again — make him disappear. Veronica knows Hermione won’t look for him, and neither will Hermosa. Archie also knows Sheriff Keller will look the other way, and Betty says the FBI won’t investigate his disappearance. The final nail in Hiram’s coffin comes from Reggie, who gives Ronnie a flash drive containing security video of Hiram murdering the old mob boss in the hospital. So while the sheriff is ‘out to lunch’, Veronica and Archie pay Hiram a visit, marching him out of his cell at gunpoint. He truly believes she is going to kill him, but when they get to the city limits, the whole town is there for his send off, what he now believes to be a public execution. But Ronnie does show some mercy after playing him the security video footage. He blames Archie for Ronnie’s behavior, but she tells him they broke up and this is all her. Ouch. With only the clothes on his back, he’s banished from Riverdale. They’ll sell what they can of his assets to rebuild Pop’s and get the town back on its feet. As Hiram walks away, he stops and turns and everyone raises a weapon, from Cheryl and her bow and arrow to Alice and a shotgun. Is this the last we’ll see of Hiram Lodge? (Mark Consuelos will not return as a series regular for Season 6, so he may or may not make a guest appearance, but this leaves Madchen Amick as the last full time parent on the show.)
With Hiram gone, the group now needs to focus on what a new Riverdale will look like. Archie asks Toni to be the new mayor, but she declines. He asks Fangs as well, but in his new position as Serpent King, he has other things on his plate (I’m surprised he didn’t ask Alice, who seems to be the natural choice). SO what kind of government should the town have? One with a ruling committee and all major issues brought to a public vote? A mayor who answers to a committee? A mayor seems out of the question since most people still have a bad taste in their mouths from Hiram’s abuse of power, so what the government will look like remains up in the air.
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They have another major issue to deal with, though, as Cheryl burst in on the meeting. She and Britta had taken to working the mines themselves and came across hundreds of skeletons entombed in the mine. Bringing this shocking discovery to Nana Rose, she tells Cheryl she wondered if anyone would ever find ‘The Forgotten’. Nana relates the story of Abigail Blossom, circa 1890. Thorn Hill was a school for girls at the time run by Abigail, but the townspeople of Riverdale feared and hated Abigail, accusing her of being a witch. They also knew of the palladium under the groves so they decided to steal it, storming Thorn Hill with pitchforks and torches, burning Abigail at the stake. Nana reveals the conspirators were Archibald Andrews, Jedediah Jones and Beatrice Cooper. With Abigail’s dying breath, she cursed the town, damning them all to tragedy, and not long after while they were working in the mines, there was a collapse, entombing a generation of fathers and sons. And it’s all in Abigail’s journals.
So Cheryl now demands a public and immediate apology from Archie, Jughead and Betty, but Archie asks her to just hold off until they can get the town stabilized. She reminds them that the roots of her maple trees have become entwined with those bodies which in turn nourished her trees. And she’s spent years atoning for her own family’s sins so she prays they do the right thing. But at the town meeting, Archie is focused on getting things moving to take Riverdale back. He announces that in lieu of a mayor, there will be a council of four (it really should be five, Archie, to avoid tie votes). Cheryl storms into the meeting and assumes the four will be Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead. Archie surprises her with the news that his proposed council would be Tabitha Tate, Toni Topaz, Alice Smith and … Uncle Frank? I guess he’s staying and that spark with Alice will ignite. Why didn’t he ask Cheryl to appease her a little?! Archie, Archie, Archie. But a vote is held, it’s unanimous, and Riverdale is reincorporated. But still no apology to Cheryl.
Ronnie and Reggie use this opportunity to bring the idea of a new family-friendly casino to town, but Frank and Alice immediately shoot that dowm saying it will turn Riverdale into a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. Tabitha wants to focus on rebuilding Pop’s, but Toni at least asks them to bring a formal proposal to the first council meeting next month. They pair decide to just go ahead and start a small on in a back room. Cheryl return to Thorn Hill telling Nana that the town has no interest in revisiting the past, and Nana isn’t surprised. She asks Cheryl to read a document of Abigail’s last words, the curse she bestowed on the town. She does and upon finishing the doors fly open as a wind whips through the room. After things calm down, Cheryl announces she is turning Thorn Hill from a church to a school for wayward girls, just like Abigail (is she perhaps now possessed by Abigail’s spirit?).
Archie erects a new Riverdale sign at the city limit, and a sudden cold wind sweeps through town. At their casino, a spark ignites between Ronnie and Reggie. Tabitha and Jughead make their own relationship official, and at Archie’s house he and Betty agree that it’s time to make their relationship work again. They go to Archie’s bedroom but they hear a ticking sound. Is it the digital clock? No. Archie looks under the bed and sees a bomb with just a few seconds left on the clock. At the town’s border, Hiram Lodge is sitting in his car also watching the time tick down to zero. As he drives away, a fire can be seen in the distance, in the heart of Riverdale.
Now that’s a cliffhanger! Fortunately because of the way the show was scheduled this season, Season 6 begins in just a few weeks rather than a few months and it looks like some big changes are coming in the five episode premiere event, not the least of which finds the town now named Rivervale. And while Hiram Lodge may be gone, everyone’s favorite teen-age witch, Sabrina Spellman, will be paying a visit! Noe that is something to look forward to. We’ll see you back here after the November 16 Season 6 premiere!
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8:00 PM.
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