Riverdale is back after its hiatus and with plenty more drama!
We start this episode with Spirit Week at Riverdale High as they are leading up to the big state championship football game. Thanks to Munroe, the Bulldogs have finally made it to the big game where they will face the Stonewall Prep Stallions who are apparently really good. However, it’s because they cheat. Betty discovers this while writing an article on the game that the Stallions consistently injure the star player of their opponent and yet somehow have never been caught? Brett tells Betty in a scene that, “Football is a sport of gladiators and you win by debilitating and slaughtering your enemies.”
The Stallions then take a golf club to Monroe’s knee, after which the Bulldogs show up at Jughead’s new school and start a fight where Brett seems genuinely surprised that he can bleed? What even is this show sometimes?
Archie’s uncle picks him up from jail after the fight. Remember Frank? I didn’t, but he’s been staying at the community center for a while now, and Archie decides it’s time for them to tell his mother. She is not a fan of Frank but decides he can work at Andrews Construction until he screws it up. Archie and Frank then bond over boxing, however, eventually things get complicated and Archie learns that his dad took the blame for Frank’s DUI back in the day. Archie confronts his uncle and they talk it out, but when Frank offers Munroe some drugs to play through the pain, Archie’s not too happy. However, Munroe plays well enough to get an offer to play at Notre Dame and suddenly Frank is allowed to stay at Archie’s house.
Then that takes us to the Vixens. Mr. Honey brings in the cheer squad’s new coach, Ms. Appleyard, and Cheryl has them go on strike until Honey threatens to ban them from prom. In the end, Cheryl locks Ms. Appleyard in a classroom so the Vixens can go cheer, but they aren’t able to cheer the Bulldogs to victory.
While all of this is going on, Veronica has been fighting with her dad. She launches her rum, which she’s been able to make and sell even though she’s not even old enough to consume alcohol? Hiram however delivers a cease and desist as a chemist compared their rums and decided the recipes were too similar. But by the end of the episode, she decides to combine her rum with the Blossom’s maple syrup.
Over at Stonewall Prep, Jughead gets a new laptop and a Yale interview (despite never applying). DuPont claims his friend is the recruiter and that he slipped him some of Jughead’s stories. Jughead is hesitant seeing as how it’s Betty’s dream school and she was rejected, but he decides to sit for the interview and he is praised and offered a spot.
Betty discovers that Jughead is in a secret society when she sends Veronica to a Stonewall party as part of an undercover operation and she is not pleased. However, they ultimately work it out but it takes us one month into the future where Jughead isn’t going to Yale (because he’s dead) and Brett and Betty are? This is just even adding more twists to the story.
Also, as the final part of Jug’s initiation into Quill and Skull (the secret society), he has to divulge his ‘deepest, darkest secret’, which seems a little personal and also something not everyone can just come up with at a moment’s notice. Donna’s has to do with an uncle who made a pass at her when she was 13 and caused her to cut herself and Brett’s is about a night he spent with a hooker at the age of 14 because he was scared his father would kill him if he didn’t. Jughead decides to go with a night where he watched some drunken businessman beat up the guy who used to protect him from junkies when he was homeless. He says that not doing anything to help is his greatest shame and he’s never even told Betty this. (I think he has darker secrets, but whatever. This show doesn’t make any sense anyway.)
Final Thoughts: Overall, this was a fairly uneventful episode, but I am excited that it’s back.
