Last week’s episode of Riverdale ended on a cliffhanger with Fangs’ life hanging in the balance and needless to say, this week was just as packed with absolutely heart-stopping action and drama.
We start up right where we left off with the Black Hood arriving at Cheryl’s house and chasing her with an axe. But as Cheryl later tells Betty, she was able to get to her archery set and hunting cape. She isn’t lying as she climbs out a window, grabs her bow and dons a hooded red cape so she can shoot the Black Hood in the shoulder. By the time she calls Betty, she’s busy tracking the Black Hood through the woods and she warns Betty that, if this is her father, he’s a maimed animal which means now he’ll lash out and kill.
But the Hood isn’t the only person feeling riled up as everyone has lost their minds in Riverdale. The Serpents are rioting because someone shot Fangs, the Bulldogs are trying to find Reggie who swears he didn’t shoot Fangs, and suddenly everyone’s holding a baseball bat and trashing the town.
While this is happening, Veronica finds Midge Clump’s mother out on the streets and takes her to the police station after she confesses that she shot Fangs. She then runs into her mother who has decided to put a $1 million reward out for anyone who can turn in the Black Hood, preferably dead.
At the high school, the Bulldogs and the Serpents square off despite Archie saying that Midge’s mom shot Fangs, but Principal Weatherby breaks up their fight. Betty then returns home in the hopes of finding her father, but she gets a phone call from FP instead who is looking for Jughead. Right after they check Fangs into the hospital, Jughead leaves possibly seeking revenge, while FP also has some news about a bleeding Hal who was just checked into the hospital.
Pop tells Archie that Reggie is at Pop’s and Kevin, Archie and Moose head there. Things get even more insane when the Ghoulies show up with painted faces and bats with nails in them looking straight out of Mad Max. Pop Tate comes up with a plan and Archie climbs up to the roof and lights some bottles of liquor on fire and tosses them at the Ghoulies to keep them back. He does this long enough for the real heroes to arrive: Fred, FP and Sheriff Keller roll up in Keller’s old squad car and they save the day. Kevin says “hot Riverdale dads to the rescue” and I think we can all get behind that!
Back at the penthouse, Veronica breaks into her father’s office and discovers a file he has labelled as “October Surprise”. In the file are photos of Hermione and Fred kissing, along with a story Hiram wrote about the affair. And Hermione knew about it and had to agree as Fred’s campaign is all about family values so it would destroy him.
That’s the final straw for Veronica who is sick of her father always letting someone else take the risk. Hermione is still convinced that Hiram would never put them in harm’s way until Small Fry (Papa Poutine’s very large son) busts down their door and nearly kills them. Hermione grabs Hiram’s gun and kills him.
Meanwhile, Betty races to the hospital but all she discovers is a dead doctor and then her phone rings. The Black Hood wants to meet at home and if she’s not there in 10 minutes, he’ll kill Alice.
THE BLACK HOOD IS HAL!!!
Hal sits Betty and Alice down to show them home movies of when he was a boy. Basically, after Hal’s father killed the Conway family, a young Hal was the one who had to convince the only survivor ( a young Mr Svenson) to point his finger at the wrong man. In the video, Hal’s mother calls the Conways ‘sinners’ and says ‘sinners have to die.’
Hal forces Alice to take out her recorder, at which point he explains that Great Grandpappy Cooper wasn’t murdered by his brother. He was the murderer and took on the Cooper name to create a new identity for himself. The Conways knew their secret, which is why Betty’s grandpa killed them. Hal has the same Cooper darkness in him that his father, grandfather and Betty have.
He makes Betty say that he’s the Black Hood and confesses to attacking Fred, Ms. Grundy, the Sugar Man, and the doctor at the hospital. But he won’t confess to the shooting at the debate. So who was it? Oh, maybe the guy who showed up at the Andrews house and shot Fred, who is thankfully fine because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Hal continues to explain how Betty’s speech reminded him of what his mother used to tell him, and the promise that he made to his mother to make this town better. He wants to purge the town of sin. When Alice asks why he’s saying this all on record, he says it’s because, “I want everyone to understand when they find us.” As in, dead bodies???
Alice understands and she is not one to go down without a fight. She distracts Hal by attacking his ego (basically by saying she slept with FP) while Betty grabs the iron from the fireplace and knocks him out.
While all this is going on, Penny Peabody returns. She has partnered with the Ghoulies to kidnap Toni. Jughead shows up to save her and Penny says that he should have brought backup and that’s when Cheryl appears behind him. Needless to say, I loved Cheryl getting to be a heroine in this episode!
Penny’s request is simple: She wants the Southside so she can sell drugs. The Serpents vote to go to war with the Ghoulies, but Jughead doesn’t want that to happen. FP then tells everyone that Fangs has died and Jughead loses his mind.
First, Jughead calls Hiram as he realised that Hiram has been behind all of this. As soon as Hiram figured out that the Serpents couldn’t be bought, he paid the Ghoulies and Penny to get rid of the Serpents once and for all. But Jughead has a counteroffer…the Ghoulies get Jughead, to kill.
Jughead calls Betty to tell her that he’ll never stop loving her just as Hal Cooper is escorted out of the house by the police. Archie arrives to see it unfold and Betty is very worried. Betty calls FP and asks what is going on. Turns out Jughead walks right to the Ghoulies who beat him to possibly even death. FP realises where Jughead is and races after him, which results in the hour ending with Betty, Archie and others watching as FP emerges from the woods carrying Jughead. Needless to say, we were all crying at that point.
Final Thoughts?
Wow. That was insane. We have a copycat killer in Riverdale, a wounded or possibly even dead Jughead, a divided Lodge family and a dead Fangs. Also, we all knew Hal was the Black Hood for the whole season so it wasn’t too much of a surprise but it still left us shaking!
Next week is the season finale so prepare yourselves!
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