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The 1950s were a time that people today look to as ‘the good old days’ but in reality it was an era fraught with worry. Sure, the family-focused TV shows of the era made it seem like everything was all hunky-dory, but real life families were dealing with the threat of Russia starting a nuclear war and Communists taking over the country. Those nuclear fears played out on the big screen with irradiated giant creatures from the ants of Them! to that giant lizard from Japan, Godzilla, and to giant humans as seen in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman and The Amazing Colossal Man. The fear of the United States being wiped out by a nuclear bomb plays out in this week’s episode of Riverdale, which also tips its hat to the amazing 1977 schlock film The Incredible Melting Man (from which HOTCHKA gets its name).
The episode seems to be giving us four separate stories as each segment is introduced in full color before going to black-and-white for the remainder of the episode until the switch back to color at the very end. Jughead and his pals are leaving a screening of Them! at the Babylonium when a frightening sight lurches forward from the darkness. As the scene drains of color, the title ‘Jughead Jones in The Mysterious Melting Man!’ appears on screen and the man lurching toward them does indeed appear to be melting. But Sheriff Keller is right behind him, firing a few shots and killing him right in front of the teenagers watching in horror, a massive pool of blood spreading from under the corpse’s body. Jughead pays a visit to Dr. Curdle, now a coroner (last time we saw him, he was just a family practitioner), who reveals to Jughead that in his quick observation of the body — before Mayor Blossom had it whisked away — he concluded the man had been exposed to radiation, to which Jughead replies, ‘Atomic or nuclear?’. Umm … anyway, Jughead needs to get on this case ASAP.
Cut to the Cooper home and Betty is ready to walk to school with Ethel. Hal says they can get a ride with Alice but Betty says that’s not happening, not even if it’s pouring down rain because she’s signed up for a driver’s ed class and she will soon be able to drive herself wherever she wants (she doesn’t seem to realize she’ll need a car for that as well, and I’m certain Alice is not going to be agreeable to buying her one). And then we get the switch to black-and-white with the title ‘Betty Cooper in Driver’s Education!’. At the Andrews home, Uncle Frank is still harping on Archie about his poetry during family breakfast, dropping some hints that maybe Archie should consider joining the military to become a man instead of heading to college to study literature. This colorful scene becomes the monochromatic ‘Archie Andrews in Shipping Out!’ At Thorn Hill, Cheryl and Julian spy their father speaking with a man in uniform at the front door. Inquiring as to the man’s identity, Clifford takes them to the study to show them the item that was delivered — a small statue of the pagan god Moloch, to whom they may be sacrificed if they cross him. And then the color fades with the title ‘Cheryl Blossom in Operation Moloch!’ appearing (love the use of the exclamation point in each title).
But even though this appears to be four separate stories, they are all intertwined. After being shown a film in class about what to do in the event of an atomic bomb being dropped on Riverdale — ‘Duck and Cover!’ — Jughead is concerned about dying. He’s also focused on the melting man and his ties to Clifford Blossom. Apparently he was an employee at the maple syrup factory, as was Ethel’s father so could there be some connection (Brad Rayberry is also connected apparently having seen something in the mines that led him to write a story about an atomic bomb that resonates with Jughead)? Questioned by Jughead about her father, Ethel just wants to move on with her life and forget about the past … and hey, she’s suddenly dating Ben Button. Waitwhat?! Dilton Doiley overhears Jughead’s conversation and seems to want to tell Juggie something, but what? In the school library the gang is talking about what they would do if a bomb was dropped on Riverdale, and they clearly have no idea what will happen if that occurs. Archie just thinks he can grab his mom and hop in his jalopy and speed out of town, but Clay can’t take much more of the inane talk and tells them there is no out-running a nuclear blast. They’ll all be vaporized instantly, and if anyone does survive, they’ll suffer from radiation poisoning. Kevin suggest that hiding in a refrigerator would protect him, and food and water wouldn’t be a problem because he’d be in a refrigerator (of course no one pointed out he’d also suffocate). Clay says they would need a lead-lined bunker to truly be safe, but Betty wonders if a bomb would be dropped on a small town like Riverdale. Jughead isn’t sure they should bet against that.
Later, Archie catches up with Kevin and Clay who tell him they are joining the Merchant Marines, a civilian organization that will let them travel the world. Clay also tells Archie that many of the Beat Poets were also Merchant Marines and they used their experiences to inspire their writings. Traveling the world and being able to write seems a better proposition to Archie than college or the military. He brings this up at dinner, but Uncle Frank still believes a military career would be better for Archie, to make him a man (I’m surprised he’s not once called Archie a ‘pansy’ for wanting to write poetry but the implication is certainly there), and Mary wants him to finish high school and then go to college. In the meantime he can get his job a Pop’s back or work with her at the dress shop, a suggestion which pushes Frank to the brink of calling his nephew some derogatory name for even thinking of working in a dress shop. Archie is set on the Merchant Marines but he will have to finish high school first (he also learns that it won’t be the pleasure cruise he’s expecting). Later Uncle Frank gives Archie his father’s dog tags and tells him that Fred wasn’t drafted, he enlisted because he wanted to serve his country. And if Archie wanted to honor his father, he should do the same thing … and he doesn’t even have to finish school to do it. Archie later reveals to his mother what Frank did, and at the next family dinner she lays into him and says it’s time for him to move out of her house. When he asks who will be the man of the house then, Archie says he will and Mary quickly snaps back that she doesn’t need a man to run the house, she does very well for herself and she’s the one paying the mortgage. But since Tom Keller has also been kicked out of his house, Frank says he’ll look into rooming with him. As he leaves, he says he’s going to miss Mary’s pot pie but she says he’s always welcome for Sunday dinner. He’ll be back Sunday then. And Archie tells him that writing poetry doesn’t make him any less of a man, that a lot of the poetry he’s read, some of the most honest and heartfelt, was written by soldiers in the trenches facing death all around them. Frank seems to accept this and leaves a bit more amicably than expected.
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Jughead is still trying to crack the case of the melting man — while still having anxiety over being vaporized — and he gets some surprising information from Dilton. Dilton tells Jughead that he’s his best friend, his comic book buddy (okay, more new information here), and he’d do anything to keep Jughead safe should a bomb be dropped on the town, and then he takes Jughead to … the bunker! Jughead is both amazed and concerned. What does Dilton’s father know that the rest of them don’t to have built a bomb shelter? Dilton shows him something else, what appears to be a metallic rock but it’s actually … palladium! Big shout out here to writers Ted Sullivan and Greg Murray for all of the callbacks this week! It is beginning to feel like the original Riverdale timeline is beginning to bleed into this one, and not a moment too soon. Dilton explains that this ore was found in the mines under the Blossom property and in its inert form it’s harmless, but highly compressed it could be more explosive and destructive than a nuclear bomb. Holey moley!
Armed with this new information, Jughead confronts Cheryl about the mines. She reveals they are located directly below the maple factory. Jughead asks if her parents have been acting oddly recently, and she tells him that she actually overheard them speaking in what she believed to be Russian (after being awakened by a nightmare in which a nuclear bomb was dropped on Riverdale). Holey moley! Jughead now wonders if the melting man, Brad Rayberry, Ethel’s parents and the Milkman may all be connected to Clifford Blossom. Did they all know too much about the palladium? Cheryl agrees to do some snooping, and while going through the drawers of her father’s desk in the study, she notices the candle flames blowing in a … breeze? Approaching the wall, she presses on a painting and the wall opens to reveal a room full of Milkman uniforms and milk bottles. The next day she shows a bottle to Jughead and he is certain now that it’s all connected to Clifford. He tells Cheryl that Veronica has contacts at the FBI now because of the case against her father, so he’ll ask her to hook them up. At a family breakfast at Thorn Hill, there is a knock at the door and Cheryl gleefully goes to answer, opening the door and telling the people on the other side that they’re right on time. It’s FBI agent Glen Scot and his men there to arrest the Russian spy, Penelope, and the American traitor Clifford. It seems the American government thought Clifford was working on the bomb for them as part of Project Moloch, but he was actually going to deliver it to the Russians. Now they are both in federal custody. Cheryl also decides the best place for that Moloch statue is in the fireplace.
Meanwhile in Mrs. Grundy’s driver’s ed class (yes, she is a multi-tasker apparently), all of the girls (weird that the isn’t a single boy in the class) have passed the class with flying color and will all be going to the DMV at the end of the week to apply for their licenses, but they have to bring their birth certificates … to make sure none of them are ‘Commies’. This puts Ethel in a bind since her birth certificate is at her house, where her parents were … Betty says she will definitely swing by to pick it up for Ethel, completely understanding why she doesn’t want to go herself. Ethel tells her it is probably in her mom’s crafting desk, and when Betty locates it she finds bank deposit slips to Ethel’s mother from … Hal and Alice Cooper. And she also finds a picture of Hal holding a baby that isn’t her or Polly. She confronts her parents and Hal tries to make excuses — Mrs. Muggs was their housekeeper, but some of the slips were from two years ago and she hasn’t been their housekeeper for as long as Betty has been alive. As Hal stumbles to find more excuses, Alice finally tells him to stop. It’s time to tell Betty the truth. She dismisses her husband and lays it all out to Betty. Mrs. Muggs was their housekeeper and Hal had an affair. When Ethel was born, they asked the Muggs to raise her and they would pay child support until she was 16 as long as they didn’t reveal the truth. If any of that had come out, it would have destroyed their lives, the Coopers’ and the Muggs’. Alice had to forgive Hal for his trespasses and act like nothing ever happened, and suddenly it all makes sense to Betty, why her mother has always been so hard on her. She didn’t want her to end up in a similar situation. And with the truth finally setting them free, all of that animosity between them is gone, but now they have to do the right thing and tell Ethel the truth.
As the four talk, Alice and Hal tell Ethel that they want to make things right and formally adopt Ethel. She is touched by the offer but … it’s not what she wants. She just wants to leave this life in Riverdale behind and move forward, and with her new driver’s license and the car she won at the Miss Teen Riverdale Pageant, she’s going to do just that with Ben Button at her side. As the news spreads about the Blossoms, Jughead explains all that’s happened in a letter to Rayberry’s wife and also to Ethel at Pop’s. She’s relieved to finally know the truth about her parents’ murders, but she’s ready to leave Riverdale behind. Jughead seems surprised that she’s dating Ben — as are the rest of us — but her car and Ben are outside and ready to go. Veronica, Betty and Alice are also outside to say their goodbyes. Ethel and Ben are heading to Hollywood, and V has put in a good word with her studio friend Peter Roth (who has appeared this season in Episode 9, ‘Betty & Veronica Double Digest’ … and who was also the chairman of Warner Bros. Television in real life until 2021) who has given Ethel a job as a storyboard artist at the studio, and she has set up a place for her to live with another of her Hollywood friends — no word about Ben’s accommodations — so she will be well taken care of. Betty reminds Ethel to send her the address so she can come visit this Summer, and Jughead hugs her and says she was always the best partner in crime. She tells him to not be too sad and they’ll always have Pep Comics, to which he replies, ‘Hopefully. We’ll see.’ A truly at peace with herself Alice tells Ethel that she truly believes she’ll be just fine in her new life, and they embrace before Ethel gets in her car and pulls out of Pop’s parking lot.
Our narrator Jughead says that Ethel was the first of them to go, to leave Riverdale behind, but there would be others soon as all of the pieces began to fall into place. Project Moloch had failed, but would the town be facing an even greater cataclysm? Ethel and Ben drive out of Riverdale and the scene transforms back into vivid color as this latest chapter come to an end. Two more episodes left, and it seems like Jughead will be remembering their real lives as Tabitha returns. Kudos again to the writers for really tying so much of the ‘real world’ storyline into this alternate timeline story and really wrapping up a lot of loose ends that have been dangling all season, especially the Milkman story. To finally have some resolution to that is hugely satisfying, but will we finally learn if Frank, Werthers, Featherhead and Tom Keller were also aware of Clifford’s scheme? We really need to know what Werthers’ agenda is. We’ll find out soon … hopefully.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 9:00 PM.
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