This week on Riverdale, we learn how Betty killed Jughead, though do we really believe it? Especially since he’s writing about it all in his book. Could this all be just the plot of his book? Honestly, I don’t know what to think anymore!
Monday
Archie wakes up before 5am in order to give everyone at Andrews Construction coffee and doughnuts, and then also makes coffee for Monroe’s mother, who has been helping watch the community center. And somehow, in the middle of all this, Archie decides now that he’d like to go to college, but Mr. Honey quickly informs him that he’s too late to apply and that he can’t walk with his friends at graduation.
Then, we switch to Hiram Lodge who’s disease is affecting his muscle control, and when he yells that he doesn’t need Veronica’s help, she decides just to go to school. Veronica has a new attitude about life: stop thinking about the future and enjoy the time she has left with Archie. And by this, it means have sex every chance they get.
Over at Stonewall Prep, Jughead is kicked out of Quill and Skull. DuPont also informs him that they’re terminating his Baxter Brothers contract for ‘failure to deliver satisfactory material by March 15, which is on Friday, so it hasn’t even happened yet. Jughead vows to write an entirely new novel in five days and Betty gives him the idea to base it on his experience at Stonewall. So, it’s a prep school thriller, which really makes me believe that this might just be the plot of his book.
Monday then ends with Hiram showing up at the community center looking to train away his weakness.
Tuesday
Jughead gets to writing, but seeing as how it took him a full day to write 10 pages about Jarhead and the prep school students plotting to kill Bison, it’s not really going well. But Jughead has another problem: DuPont informs him that Jonathan is accusing him of plagiarising the short story that qualified him for Yale. When he goes to find his old laptop, it’s gone, so he can’t prove the story was his. He has until Friday, the Ides of March, before he goes in front of the disciplinary committee.
For now, Betty has an idea: She has Jughead take a lie detector test in front of the other Stonewall students, which I guess proves something but is actually pointless.
Then, she and Jughead search all of Stonewall for his old laptop, but they come up empty-handed. Well, sort of. What they do find in DuPont’s desk is a Baxter Brothers envelope that reads ‘ready to print’ and contains an edited version of Jughead’s original book: The Boy in the River. DuPont explains that the Baxter Brothers contract details that the brotherhood owns everything Jughead submits, even if Jughead’s classmates rework the material.
Elsewhere, Veronica is trying her best to ‘have fun’ but work gets in the way. When a mystery woman who is very clearly Hermosa in a wig tries to get into the Maple Club, so Toni, Cheryl, and Veronica set a trap. It ends with Veronica ripping off Hermosa’s wig and finding out that Hiram only told one of his daughters about his illness.
Speaking of Hiram, he suggests that an exhausted Archie sell one of his businesses, and his plan is to let go of Andrews Construction and pay Tom Keller a legit salary to help run the community center. But that plan will have to wait until after Archie takes the fall for the rum Mr. Honey finds in Veronica’s locker (which only results in Archie getting a week’s detention).
Tuesday ends when Archie confronts Veronica on her behaviour and she tells him Hiram is dying. His advice? Get Hiram fired up.
Friday (The Ides of March)
Veronica, in her plan to make Hiram mad, throws together an ad campaign presentation for Red Raven rum, demonstrating that it demolished Lodge rums in a taste test and surprisingly, this works.
Betty is back at it with her murder board, and she has a new theory: DuPont is the master mind controlling the students. She takes Donna out for some milkshakes to see if she’s on the right track, but Donna literally laughs in her face.
Cut to Jughead, who threatens to tell the disciplinary committee everything about this school, at which point Bret reveals that he does have a sex tape of Betty and Jughead and he’s not afraid to use it. At the hearing, Jughead agrees to leave Stonewall Prep.
When Bret invites Betty and Jughead to the Ides of March party in the woods, Jughead says yes, before promising Betty that he has a plan and is going to take care of things. Then he tells her he loves her before they kiss.
Archie couldn’t bring himself to sell Andrews Construction and as far as school is concerned, he has a plan: go to summer school for his diploma, take a gap year, and apply to colleges for the spring semester. Veronica is on-board.
At the party, Jughead shows up wearing his Serpent jacket and a mask, at which point he follows Bret into the woods to settle unfinished business. But as he follows Bret, Betty follows Donna. Alone with Betty, Donna reveals that she’s done some investigating of her own. It seems she paid Evelyn Evernever a visit and learned ‘the magic word’. She’s talking about the world that makes Betty go into a fugue state and hurt people she loves.
Veronica and Archie then find Betty holding a rock over Jughead’s dead body.
