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Let’s Talk About ‘Blue Collar’:
- Percival has altered the terms of his constructions workers’ contracts, which does not make them happy.
- Archie and Tabitha ask a surly Cheryl (she really is snappy for some reason) to see what kind of dirt she can find in her family history between the Blossoms and the Pickenses.
- Agent Drake is showing a lot of interest in Veronica’s poisonous powers.
- Charles comes home … to die.
- Moose questions Kevin’s drive to gain full custody of Baby Anthony, but there seems to be more to the baby than anyone realizes.
- Reggie helps Percival break into Jughead’s mind and the results are catastrophic.
- Archie may have a foothold with Percival’s construction workers in attempting to get them to unionize.
- While Heather and Cheryl grow closer, Veronica needs a favor for a new business isea.
- Kevin’s actions force Toni and Fangs to switch gears in their custody battle.
- My thoughts about us not being quite out of Rivervale territory seems confirmed by the episode’s end title card.
This week’s Riverdale was a pretty dark episode, from storyline to lighting it just felt very oppressive and dangerous, especially as Percival’s plans begin to take shape as construction on his railroad begins. The question is exactly what kind of railroad is it? Cheryl is sure he’s building a Ghost Train, which would grant him dominion over the souls of the dead … and the living, which Cheryl notes isn’t something you can just go around telling people. But to stop the railroad from being built, Archie needs to convince the workers that Percival is simply exploiting them — he’s cut their pay, is making them pay for their own tools, and they get no overtime or benefits. But he knows he has them over a barrel because none of them have worked for some time, and at least they don’t have to pay union dues. But that is actually where Cheryl comes in.
The Blossom family has a questionable history with the Pickens family, so Archie is hopeful she will be able to find something in her family history to prove to the workers how bad Percival actually is. Cheryl doesn’t seem thrilled to be participating in this venture any longer — really, what crawled up inside of her and died? — but she reluctantly agrees to help. At least it allows her to spend more time with Heather, who is more than happy to pore through the Blossom family history. And Heather finds something that may be helpful, a letter that mentions the Malleus Maleficarum, one of the more powerful arcane texts in existence. According to the document, a Pickens ancestor stole the Maleficarum from a Blossom ancestor … probably not the dirt Archie needs, but Heather states that if Percival has the text they need to get it back. Which gives her a chance to teach Cheryl an ‘unseeable’ spell, but this one doesn’t require a magic cloak like Harry Potter uses. All Cheryl has to do is concentrate on the spell and hold her breath, and that will bend visible light around her, rendering her unseeable to anyone else … like Percival when they go to visit him at his Curiosity Shop to retrieve the Maleficarum. And surprisingly it works. Cheryl nearly got caught when she knocked a book in Percival’s office onto the floor, but he never saw her and she was able to grab the text and get out of there safely with Heather acting as a distraction. What they plan to do with the book will have to wait, as Cheryl still needs to find Archie’s dirt — she does — and then admits to Heather that she’s only started her library to keep her around longer. She tells Heather if she wants to leave, she’ll understand … but Heather is more than happy to stay with Cheryl. Which finally brightens Cheryl’s dark mood!
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Meanwhile, Betty and Veronica are having a chat with Agent Drake about Veronica’s new power, trying to determine if Hiram’s death was the trauma that brought it on (or maybe it was guilt?) but the conversation is interrupted as Betty gets an urgent call from Alice. Racing home she learns Charles has been released from prison … because he’s dying and they have no room for him in the infirmary. Alice has set him up in Betty’s bedroom and Betty has a chat but sees that he is in no condition to be a threat to her. During their chat, Charles wonders if all the terrible things he’s done have just come back to poison his system, and now he’s paying the price. He tells Betty he’s ready to face whatever fate lies ahead for him after he dies but does he have to die? (He also hasn’t seen or heard from Chick since the prison breakout, as they were sent to different prisons after they were recaptured.) But Charles’ fate weighs heavily on Betty because this could be her fate as well. So maybe there is a way to help them both thanks to Veronica.
After talking to Drake more, Veronica has come up with a plan to enter the absinthe market … except pure absinthe is highly toxic and illegal. The toxicity comes from the main ingredient, wormwood, but perhaps there is a way that Veronica can distill the toxins out since, as Drake surmised, her body is acting as a dialysis machine, filtering out the poison her body produces so it doesn’t kill her. Drake is also interested in getting in on the ground floor of this venture and it seems to work as we later see Veronica and Betty enjoying some green liquid. But before she can proceed with the absinthe, Betty asks her for a huge favor after barely stopping Alice from smothering Charles to death (Alice said that was their plan so he didn’t have to suffer but Betty isn’t down with any more murders in the building). Since Charles is dying from some toxins, perhaps Veronica will be able to act as a filter, cleaning his blood. He agrees and it works. We don’t know how, but he is healed and V just felt a little fluey. Charles admits that he really was terrified of death but has Betty improved her own karma?
Moose is surprised by Kevin’s opulent living quarters, and Kevin tells him that Percival is helping him out (he omitted the part about the makeout session) and that he needed to move out of his dad’s place to establish himself as a responsible parent. But Moose asks Kevin why he’s so intent on destroying his friendship with Toni and Fangs, and how is he even sure Baby Anthony is his? At the work site, Kevin and Fangs get into it as Kevin tries to assert his fatherhood, and Toni is not happy that they almost came to blows. Fangs accuses her of taking Kevin’s side, but she says she’s on the baby’s side and he should be to. Later, Toni comes home and Britta is there babysitting but she can’t find Anthony’s pacifier. She tells Toni that Kevin stopped by, as he told her he usually does on Saturdays, and that’s when the pacifier went missing. Marching herself to Kevin’s and interrupting his dinner with Moose — whom she warns to stay seated and he does — she punches Kevin in the face a couple of times, demanding the pacifier back, knowing that he took it to have a DNA test done (the original plan before the custody fight was to not know who the father was so they could all co-parent). With more than his pride wounded, Kevin (and Moose, who seems to have fallen in with Percival … or he’s just trying to be a supporting partner for Kevin … are they officially together now?) goes to Percival and tells him he failed in his mission to secure the pacifier. So Percival was behind this all along … so did he put the suggestion in Kevin’s mind to go forward with the custody battle? Seems like, because Percival tells him it’s okay that he didn’t get the item and, by the way, Kevin isn’t Anthony’s father. Because he knows things. And what he also knows is that Baby Anthony is going to be the true savior of Riverdale … but not if he can help it. And after both of their encounters with Kevin, Toni has decided that they are not rebranding the Serpents as political activists, and she wants Fangs to initiate Baby Anthony into the group properly, choosing his Serpents name. Happy with her new path, Fangs finally accepts her proposal of marriage.
Percival has his hands full this week, First Reggie — who still can’t put his finger on what he’s forgotten — asks Percival for that magic lesson he promised. Percival pulls out a ventriloquist dummy — that looks like Reggie! — and gives him a quick lesson on throwing his voice. The plan is to distract Jughead long enough, at one of his performances, for Percival to get in and cause some real havoc for Jones. Percival has taken a peek in Reggie’s mind to discover that Jughead did, in fact, tear a page out of one of the comic books so now he needs to know what it was. As Reggie throws his voice to heckle Forsythe, Percival makes his way in but encounters a locked door. Jughead was fully prepared for an attack, so Percival needs to appear as a more familiar entity. Reggie acquires some of Jughead’s personal belongings, including his Serpents jacket and the familiar beanie that was buried in a time capsule, and he again uses his ventriloquism skills to distract Jughead long enough for Percival, in Jughead drag, to enter his mind. Finding the door now unlocked to him, Percival jams the door open which causes a flood of thoughts from eveyrone in the room to consume his mind. Unable to shut the door and quiet the voices, Jughead leaves the Babylonium and heads for Pop’s, but there are too many people there as well. He can still hear voices at home so he leaves Tabitha a note and flees to the one place he knows — or hopes — will be quiet: the bunker. But even there he finds no peace and isn’t sure what to do next.
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Percival also has Archie and Tabitha to deal with. Knowing Percival is exploiting his workers, even making them pay for their own coffee, they decide to take a food truck to the site and hand out free coffee. And there’s a special at Pop’s — 25 cent hamburgers just like they were in 1947 when the first union was formed in Riverdale. That gives Archie a chance to talk to Fangs and Carlos, to really try to sway them into forming a union even though they all know Percival will fight it. Cheryl gives Archie what she believes will help him sway the workers — a letter from one of her ancestors warning about one of Percival’s ancestor, the one who tried to prevent a union of the mine workers from forming, who saw the workers as nothing but animals. With the workers gathered at Pop’s, Tabitha reads them the full text of the letter which completely changes their view of Percival and they unanimously vote to unionize. They appoint Archie as their representative and he is more than happy to deliver the news to Percival and Frank (and Kevin and Moose) that the workers won’t be showing up to build his railroad any time soon, at least not by workers in Riverdale. Percival says we’ll see how long they remain on strike in the face of what’s coming. He warns Archie — whom he tried to sway to join his workers earlier — that he hasn’t seen any real fighting yet … but he will.
And as the episode ends with the familiar Riverdale logo, the D flashes back and forth with a V several times which seems to confirm my suspicions that we either haven’t really left Rivervale, or the two universes are in fact seeping into one another. But we’ll be left to ponder all of this for two weeks as the show takes a break and then returns on June 12 with … the musical episode! This time the cast will be performing songs from the musical version of American Psycho (yes, like Carrie, such a thing exists). What do you think of the season so far? I know some feel it’s completely jumped the shark, but I am enjoying the heck out of it. It’s probably the strongest season since the first in my opinion. I hope they continue this craziness with the seventh and final season next year … they have nothing to lose at that point! What do you think? Comment below!
Riverdale airs Sundays at 8:00 PM.
What did you think of this episode? Let us know in the comments section below.
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