BY MARISSA CASTANOS
Welcome to another week of the Riverdale Rundown. This week, we will hopefully get more insight as to who attempted to murder Archie’s father, and who successfully killed Ms. Grundy.
This was a sad episode for Pop, as his entire crew quit on him since the accident. It sounds as though they are too scared to be at Pop’s because of the shooting, as are all of Betty’s friends. But Betty has an idea to bring life back into Pop’s Shoppe, she wants to throw an event for community members so they feel like the establishment is safe again.
F.P., Jughead’s father, was charged with arson, obstruction of evidence, the list goes on – and he now faces 20 years in prison if he accepts a plea deal from his less than an impressive lawyer. Jughead goes to the Southside Serpents with a plan that could get him in a lot of trouble. He wants to break his father out of jail and smuggle him into Canada.
This is also the episode where the students – Archie in particular – are told of Ms. Grundy’s death. I can only imagine the flashbacks that Archie is having while being told of this news while in the middle of a lecture. Before the commercial break, we see Archie’s intimate memories with Ms. Grundy flash through his mind before he gets up and walks out of class. This even leads Archie to think that the killer is targeting him, and going after the people he cares about.
We now find the person that Jughead was looking for – a Southside Serpent who is also a woman, and? A lawyer. She has agreed to help Jughead’s father if Jughead one day returns the favor by doing something for her. She tells Jughead that he needs to get the victim’s family to forgive his father in order for F.P. to receive a lesser sentence.
Betty comes home and comes to find that Pop his selling his shoppe to an “anonymous buyer.” If you do not recall from season one – Veronica’s parents bought the drive-in anonymously, so it would only make sense that they did the same thing here. But surprise – her parents were not the buyers.
Betty and Jughead go to the Blossom’s new home, asking them to give his father mercy to reduce his sentence. Cheryl immediately becomes defensive and says she will not have a reminder of the darkest part of her life walking the streets of Riverdale. So, Jughead now has to come up with a new plan – blackmail.
We now know what Ms. Grundy was killed with. It was – dun dun dun – a cello bow. What was the gift Archie gave Ms. Grundy the night they were found together? That’s right. A cello bow. We also know that Ms. Grundy’s murder was a crime of passion, thanks to Betty’s mother paying off the examiner for such information.
Change scenes and we’re now sitting at Pop’s with Betty, Jughead, and Pop. Jughead asks Pop to cook F.P.’s favorite meal for the town to eat. Meanwhile, Betty comes up with an insidious plan, to expose the video of Clifford Blossom shooting his own son. Betty tells Cheryl she is giving her the chance to put “a nice ending to a sad story,” unless of course, Cheryl wants the entire town to see what her father did.
Archie goes to the sheriff, and tells him that he believes that Ms. Grundy’s ex-husband is responsible for shooting his father, and killing Ms. Grundy. We do not know much about Ms. Grundy’s ex besides the fact that he was abusive, and Ms. Grundy changed her name and moved to try and get away from him.
After a commercial break, we see Cheryl sitting in a courtroom, asking the judge to be more lenient on F.P.’s sentence, but the judge doesn’t budge. One eyebrow raise from Betty to Cheryl and Cheryl immediately tells a lie to the judge – that her father threatened F.P. into covering up her brother’s murder.
At the end of the episode, we join Riverdale students and community members at Pop’s for a celebration that Betty put on in hopes of saving the establishment. I can’t help but feel like something dark is going to happen while everyone is gathered here – and that’s when the Southside Serpents walk in. Don’t be alarmed, they were just there to sit in a booth and enjoy a milkshake like everyone else, or were they?
The end of this episode was a sweet one, everyone was sitting in Pop’s enjoying their milkshakes. But the camera did focus on one character that might have a lead on who the masked murderer is – Dilton Doiley. He was the last person we saw before the presumed last commercial break.
But wait, there’s more. After the last commercial break, we see Cheryl sit down with her mother to watch the video of her father committing the heinous crime – the crime of killing his own flesh and blood, Jason Blossom. We then see a couple of teenagers in a car near Sweetwater River, and during a “make out sesh” they stop because they hear something in the woods around them, so we all know what this means, death is upon us.
A large man walks up the car, points a gun in, and both teenagers are shot in cold blood.
This week did answer some questions. But I’m still left with a few: Who will Archie accidentally shoot with the gun Doiley gave him- because we all know that that is something that is very probable, considering Archie is having hallucinations and already attacked a teammate that was wearing a ski mask outside his home. Why did the Lodge’s get rid of Smithers, what did he know? Is the killer still targeting Archie? I mean he just killed two innocent teenagers in the woods. For now, all I know is that the Lodge’s are up to no good, and Archie is in serious need of some sleep.