Welcome to the mid-season finale of Riverdale where it becomes even more confusing than the previous episodes, if that’s physically possible. Let’s get into it.
The episode starts with a mass seizure which hits all the Vixens, including Toni and Veronica. Cheryl takes Toni to her house to care for her and also asks Toni to move in with her and Toni basically agrees. Veronica is taken back to the Pembrooke by her parents, and when she wakes up, she overhears them talking about how Hiram wasn’t supposed to go through with something if Veronica could get sick. So, basically Hiram is the mastermind as per usual. But when Hermione and Hiram try to send Veronica off to New York, she realises that something big is coming and refuses to leave. She meets with Reggie at Pop’s to find out some info on the Gargoyles handing out fizzle rocks.
We then catch up with Betty who isn’t taking fizzle rocks, well she is, but she’s throwing them up afterwards. She is still sane, thank goodness! When Alice visits Betty, she tells her daughter about the mass seizure at school and Betty realises that she has to speed up her plan. She then manipulates Ethel into taking her to see the Gargoyle King. Betty pretends to be the King’s new favourite, so Ethel takes her to his chambers so they can compare relationships. Once there, Betty shoves Ethel inside and locks the door. She explains to Ethel that the Gargoyle King is just a hallucination, and when the drugs wear off, Betty will come back to get her.
It works as when Betty returns a few hours later, Ethel is sitting there with nothing but a statue of a gargoyle. How could he have come to Betty’s house and they weren’t high? Also, how did Alice see him that night at school when she wasn’t high? Betty says that the King they’ve seen while sober must be someone dressed up as the King. Betty enlists Ethel’s help in kidnapping Sister Woodhouse and tying her up in the King’s chambers so they can get some answers. They only do that after Betty calls Veronica (who hasn’t realised Betty has gone missing), and gives her the mission to get answers out of Penelope. Apparently, Veronica thought Betty was at the Farm, though she clearly knew, Betty hates the Farm. Cheryl is upset and says they have to break her out, but Betty is dealing with it on her own.
Sister Woodhouse reveals that the game was started at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy. They used the gargoyle statue for years to scare kids into submission, and some students created the game around the idea of the Gargoyle King to cope with trauma. The Sisters then used it to help focus the patients, but the game wasn’t supposed to get out. Betty and Ethel then leave Sister Woodhouse tied up, and take her keys. They announce that they’re breaking out and taking the other girls with them. Where are all the other adults/people who work there?
Then we catch up with Jughead and Archie who reunite with Jughead’s mother (who assumes Jughead and Archie are a couple), and sister who goes by JB, instead of Jellybean. Gladys, Jughead’s mother, invites them for dinner, where Jughead catches her up on the G&G stuff before he calls her out on the fact that her ‘legitimate’ business is a chop shop. But, Penny Peabody shows up and tries to take Archie back to Hiram. JB saves the day with her slingshot, which allows Gladys to get some alone time with Penny, as she is upset that Penny sliced up her son’s arm. (Also, JB has a crush on Archie which is hilarious.)
Gladys gets Penny to talk about Hiram, and she comes to the conclusion that Jughead needs to let Archie go on his own because wherever Archie is, everyone around him is in danger. Archie agrees, so Gladys calls FP and Fred to take their sons away: Jughead heads back to Riverdale, while Archie heads for the border with his dog, Vegas.
Then we go back to Veronica and Cheryl’s mission. After Veronica finds out that the Gargoyles are giving out fizzle rocks for free, she and Cheryl storm a school board meeting. Hermione wants to shut down the school, but Veronica calls out the fact that Hiram’s prison is a drug factory. Hiram denies it but later tells Veronica that she wasn’t entirely wrong. She hasn’t grasped how large his plan is: Hiram’s building a new kingdom and he’s hoping Veronica will help him oversee the new order. She walks away and joins Cheryl to question Penelope.
Their torture technique is covering Penelope in so much maple syrup that she can barely breathe, and then letting the ants in if she doesn’t tell them what they want. All they get out of Penelope is that Hiram is going to turn Riverdale into a place where their businesses (drugs and prostitution) will prosper. The two girls head to Pop’s and get Kevin, Moose and some other guys to help them and they head to Hermione’s office. But they’re too late. Hermione has already called and Riverdale is now under quarantine, as alarms start to sound.
Back at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, Betty and Ethel figure out a way to convince the other girls to leave. They turn it into a quest and say that they are running from the Gargoyle King to the Gryphon Queen (who happens to be Betty in some wings). Betty convinces the girls to leave but they can’t go far as the quarantine has started. Alice comes to get Betty and finds her and all the other kids from the Sisters. Betty asks what’s going on and Alice says the town is under quarantine.
FP and Jughead are met with many armed men at Riverdale’s borders where they are stopped and not allowed through, even though they live in Riverdale. Apparently no one is allowed in or out.
Archie heads to the border and dies his hair black in order to be in disguise and honestly he looks great with dark hair as we all know cause KJ Apa (the actor) has dark hair in real life.
As chaos unfolds, Hiram finishes up a call with the governor who tells him, “May God have mercy on our souls.” And then Hiram responds, “Not God, governor. The King.” And it’s revealed that the Gargoyle King is in his office so even Hiram is playing the game.
Final Thoughts?
This episode was so stressful! I have so many questions and I just want to know who the Gargoyle King is! I can’t wait for it to come back in January!
