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Let’s Talk About ‘The Town’:
- A scathing, anonymously written article about the state of Riverdale raises questions and lands Jughead in hot water.
- Jughead finally admits his superpower to Archie.
- Britta seeks help from Nana Rose in freeing Cheryl’s soul.
- At a Town Hall meeting, Percival Pickens admits it was he who wrote the article, and he has some questionable suggestions for how to improve the town.
- Betty gets a call that Glen has gone missing, and then receives a package with a horrifying clue.
- With Alice influencing the city council members with her disdain for Babylonium, Veronica decides the only way to change their minds is by operating completely above board.
- Archie tries to combat Percival’s idea about the town’s homeless by building the denizens of Sketch Alley their own tiny homes.
- Veronica and Jughead begin to realize there is something off about Percival.
- Betty returns, but her headaches are getting worse.
The town of Riverdale was the main focal point of this week’s episode as it becomes clear to our main players (minus Betty who is unseen, still tracking TBK for the majority of the episode) that something nefarious has taken the town in its grip. The drama kicks off with a scathing article about the condition of Riverdale, from the illegal casino to the homeless population in Sketch Alley. Published anonymously in Jughead’s paper, the article riles most of the residents and Archie, in particular, wants to know who wrote it. Approaching Jughead for the answer, he refuses because he knows Archie will take matters into his own hands … literally. But he gets his answer at a town hall meeting when he calls out the ‘coward’ who was too scared to put their name on such a trashy article. Percival Pickens takes ownership of the article, and makes suggestions on how to improve the town, starting with bussing the homeless out of Sketch Alley to parts unknown. Archie says that’s not how Riverdale operates, so he’s tasked with coming up with a plan to deal with the homeless. Babylonium is another issue, and Veronica and Reggis need to convince the city council — namely Alice — that the casino can be family friendly and become a major tourist destination, bringing money into Riverdale.
Meanwhile, Britta is sure that Cheryl’s soul is still around even though Nana Rose believes she’s gone, but Britta reveals she saw Cheryl in a mirror. Rose tells her the only way to save Cheryl, and having been imprisoned Rose it rethinking her plan to replace Cheryl with Abigail, is to enter her subconscious while Abigail is in a deep sleep and then she must go into a deep sleep close to Abigail. Britta drugs Abigail’s nightly tea, doses herself, and finds Cheryl, Jason and Penelope, first enjoying breakfast together and then at the twins’ birthday party. But Cheryl is not allowed to celebrate because she wanted her friend Heather to be there and Penelope refused, making this party all about Jason. Unable to reach Cheryl on her first couple of tries, Britta writes a note explaining that she’s stuck in a dream world and her terrifying mother isn’t real. Britta almost gets caught by Penelope again when she rages into the twins’ bedroom in full Mommie Dearest drag, demanding the kids scrub the floor clean enough to eat from under the threat of being beat with a hanger (Nathalie Boltt was insanely over-the-top and it was glorious). Britta had to try one more time, finding Cheryl with her hair chopped off. She was able to give her the note before Penelope threw her out of the house, and Cheryl finally realized that she was in fact trapped in a dream. She reverted to her old self and banished Penelope, then visited Britta in her dream to tell her they need to get rid of Abigail’s soul now … but she doesn’t quite know how. Nana thinks that since Britta once housed Abigail’s soul, she may be the one to drag her out of Cheryl.
After the town hall, Jughead admitted to Archie that even though he printed Percival’s article, he’s not in agreement with the plan to get the homeless out of town. And he also admits to Archie that since the explosion he’s lost his hearing but can read minds. Jughead has been able to carry on conversations with people by hearing what they are going to say before they say it, but Archie thought one thing and said another and that kind of gave Jughead’s game away. But they still need to come up with a plan to convince the city council that cleansing Riverdale of its homeless population is not the answer. Veronica and Reggie also have a big hill to climb with convincing the town that the casino is not a bad element. Since Alice keeps dragging the Lodge name into her negative thoughts, Roni decides they have to do the opposite of what her father would have done, so no scams, no shady customers, no under the table payoffs … but it’s going to be expensive to get the actual permits to operate the casino. And after a visit from Percival to discuss the casino, it seems that there is nothing Veronica can do to convince Alice that they are operating above board, even suggesting a plan to make the casino a more family-friendly destination.
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Archie also presents a plan to build tiny homes for the residents of Sketch Alley, with free labor provided by his company. But the materials are going to cost around $25,000 per home and Alice is not on board with that, immediately going to the ‘we’ll have to raise taxes to pay for that’ trope. Jughead can hear the thoughts of the crowd, and as you can imagine when someone says ‘raise taxes’ no one is happy about that. But Tabitha and Toni ask Archie to come up with a business plan for them to consider. His plan, as he meets with the women as respected business owners in town, is to ask them to sponsor one home each which will be painted in the style of Pop’s and the Whyte Wyrm (and it just so happens that Benjamin Moore is donating paint — that’s some subtle product placement for you). They agree and Toni sends Archie $25,000 via Chime (more subtle product placement) to get started. They get two model homes built in Pop’s parking lot and they are immediately vandalized, but nonetheless Tabitha is still on board to fund the project.
While Veronica hopes to change Alice’s mind, Reggie goes over the numbers and tells her that they are so over-leveraged that they can’t afford to pay for all the things they need to pay for and may never turn a profit if they do things above board. And then they are asked to come to the private poker room where they find a customer … hanging from the ceiling. If word of this gets out, they are truly sunk so Roni calls in Heraldo (Abuelita’s godson and ‘wise guy’ apparently) to handle the situation discreetly. Reggie assumes the man had been on a losing streak and took his life, but reviewing the video it seems the man was up $20,000 so why would he kill himself? Veronica notices someone at the table with him whispering in the man’s ear. It’s Percival Pickens. Elsewehre in town, Archie and his crew have taken it upon themselves to begin building the homes in Sketch Alley with Jughead clearing the idea with his old friend Doc, the man who took him in at one point. He’s very touched by the generosity and offers to help, but he later approaches Kevin in a sort of daze, whacking him in the head with a hammer. Jughead goes to the jail to ask Doc what happened but Doc doesn’t remember anything between picking up the hammer and standing over Kevin. But Jughead can read his mind that there was a voice, with an accent, that told him to do it. He knows it can only be Percival, who has gone to the hospital to visit Kevin and his father and to have a little chat.
Jughead asks Percival to sit down for a follow-up interview to his article, and while questioning him Jughead tries to root around inside Percival’s mind to see what he can find. While Percival is answering Jughead’s questions, he stops and looks Juggie dead in the eyes and mentally tells him to stop rooting around in his brain. Jughead is shocked silly, but he has to tell Archie that Percival also has some kind of power or persuasion. At Pop’s, the gang is repainting the tiny houses and Archie says they’ll just be vandalized again and Jughead says they’ll just repaint them again and again, no matter how many times the houses are defaced. Percival shows up and tells them that won’t be necessary anymore because he took it upon himself to ship the homeless out of Riverdale, after having a brief chat with them and giving them $100 each and a bus ticket. They don’t believe him but when they get to Sketch Alley, it’s completely empty.
At the town hall meeting, Percival reveals his actions and Alice seems very pleased by this. Then Sheriff Keller addresses the council and reveals that after talking with Percival, he’s going to join him and Kevin as a new deputy, which fills Archie and Jughead with a sense of dread. Veronica tries to talk to Alice about the casino again but it seems to be a dead issue to her, so Roni decides that in order to gain the upper hand they will have to operate according to the original plan. After all, she is her father’s daughter. Betty returns home to Archie but asks him to turn off the TV and all the lights. She’s wearing sunglasses at night. She lost TBK in Maine but her headaches have gotten worse, which she attributes to her power of seeing auras, which she still can. Archie tells her that the town is in deep trouble because of Percival, and the last thing we see is Percival staring at a wall with photos of the key town residents, maps and newspaper articles, jotting down a note about Jughead’s mind reading ability, and focusing his attention on the photo of Archie.
Riverdale airs Sundays at 8:00 PM.
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