It’s the early morning, and Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Tabitha (Erinn Westbrook) return to Pop’s after a night of staking out The Lonely Highway. They haven’t found any killers or even any leads, but also no one else has gone missing over the past 10 days.
Dr. Curdle calls Betty. He wants to incinerate the body Betty has him cooling on ice. So that’s there the tongueless trucker went. He extorts some money out of Betty to hold onto the body for a bit more.
Archie (KJ Apa) retrieved more palladium out of the mine. He wants Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) to assure him that she’s going to help rebuild Riverdale with some of the money that she gets from all this palladium. She agrees to his terms and even pays him the odd amount of $517 for the chunk of palladium he brought her today.
Chad and Veronica (Camila Mendes) are at their divorce proceedings. He wants their house on Long Island, the apartment in the Pembroke and an alimony. Veronica is fine with all of that. All she wants is Archie. The problem though is she just told Chad that information.
Penelope tries to get under Kevin (Casey Cott)’s skin, likening Cheryl’s rule over the church to a cult. She knows just what to say to get Kevin to second guess things.
Tabitha gets a cal. Squeaky has gone missing!
Toni (Vanessa Morgan) meets with Britta, a Riverdale student who punched another student who threw homophobic slurs her way. Toni is there with advice and a shoulder to lean on, but the advice also includes not getting into fights.
Chad meets with Hiram (Mark Consuelos). Hiram tells him Veronica’s greatest possession is her love for Archie and says to Chad that is we wants to get back with Veronica, he need to get rid of Archie. Then he slides Chad his recently acquired ghost gun.
Kevin has some questions for Cheryl. “Who are we praying to? Jason?” Cheryl says it’s not Jason, it’s a higher power, and then goes into great detail about the fast/cleanse she plans to go on to think on it. Kevin’s face is like “Uh-huh..?” I don’t think Kevin is long for The First Church of Jason Blossom.
Tabitha enlists Jughead (Cole Sprouse) to help them solve the Lonely Highway killer mystery. Tabitha is still going to pay him to work in the diner, but instead of bussing tables, he’ll be working with Betty to solve the mystery. Tabitha, I feel like you’re handing your boyfriend over to his ex here.
Chad jumps Archie outside the community center and almost gets the drop on him, missing with his gunshots. Then Archie goes full Captain America, taking Chad out with a hastily thrown trash can lid to the head. Chad runs off but leaves the gun behind. Chad can do nothing right!
Jughead reviews all of Betty’s notes on the Lonely Highway killer…or killers, as Betty now believes. Jughead brings up Lerman, his student who disappeared earlier this season. Betty says he doesn’t fit in with the other victims, in that he’s not a woman. Nevertheless, Jughead wants to talk to him.
Dr. Curdle calls saying another body has been brought it. This one has been completely dismembered though. Dr. Curdle isn’t sure but says it could be Betty’s sister. They’d need to do a DNA test though.
Veronica has a change of heart. She wants everything now, and if Chad doesn’t agree to that, she’ll have him arrested for attempted murder. It turns out he didn’t realize he dropped the gun. And he’s sporting a nice broken nose thanks to that trash can lid.
Penelope tries to tempt Cheryl into breaking her fast with a huge breakfast spread but Cheryl doesn’t fall for it. Meanwhile, I’m getting hungry here!
Chad tells Hiram that the gun misfired. Uh-huh. Hiram doesn’t buy it and tells him to get out of Riverdale, saying never send a boy to do a man’s job.
Veronica shows up at Archie’s house with signed divorce papers. Time to get naked! Whoa, we haven’t seen shirtless Archie in some time. Remember when that was an every episode occurrence?
Cheryl shows off her new painting, which she says is what they are praying to. It’s nature: earth, fire, water, and wind. Kevin’s a bit doubtful. He looks like he was cooler with praying to Jason than to praying to Mother Earth. He tells Cheryl he’s out. Off in the wings, Penelope watches this with a smile.
Alice goes on TV, begging the killer to stop. She announces that the new dismembered body is down at the Riverdale morgue. Uh, Alice, you shouldn’t have said that.
Toni recounts her day to Fangs, which included helping her student, Britta, talk to her family about coming out. neither of them had an easy time coming out to their families either. Britta’s family doesn’t have the best reaction, asking if she’s sure.
A timer counts down in Hiram’s office. When it hits zero, a bomb goes off in Cheryl’s mine. Archie sends everyone topside but heads further in to rescue Eric. One problem: The mine caves in before Archie and Eric can get out.
Cheryl is writing her 12 commandments when Kevin calls about the cave in. Of course, Cheryl needs to outdo even Moses! Cheryl relays the news to Veronica.
At Pop’s, Betty, Tabitha, and Jughead talk to Lerman about the week he went missing. He doesn’t remember much, only that it felt like sleepwalking over the Lonely Highway and that when he woke up, he was in a metal shed, like a spaceship. He was alone in the shed but heard voices outside. He said the Moth Man saved him, saying that it was a mistake that Lerman was taken. He warned Lerman not to tell anyone about this or they would take him again. He doesn’t know where the shed is, but that it’s near the Lonely Highway. He could hear trucks going by while inside.
Veronica quickly deduces it was Hiram who blew up on the mine.
Archie finds a bloody Eric alive but covered under debris.
After DNA analysis, Dr. Curdle verifies the newly exhumed body isn’t Polly, but it is Squeaky. Also, Betty’s DNA matched the tongueless trucker. Say what? He’s a distant cousin of Betty. Big problem: both Squeaky and the trucker’s bodies have been stolen. I hope Betty gets a refund from Dr. Curdle.
Veronica knocks out Hiram with a swift hit to the head. He awakens to find himself tied up in front of Veronica. She goes off on Hiram, calling him a sociopath. She tells him if Archie dies, he does too. The dance of death the Riverdale title refers to is between Hiram and Veronica.
Betty and Jughead want answers from Nana Rose. Who was the Mothman corpse? Nana Rose admits it was Cousin Timothy. She found his body in the woods and put it in the barrel. He had some deformity that led to his swollen skull. She accuses her husband of being a horny bastard and impregnating every worker around the mansion. Nana Rose would be tasked with getting rid of the babies, which she started giving to a barren couple who lived in a cabin in the woods.
Betty theorizes that the trucker was one of those kids. Jughead recaps it all for the audience with “Nana, you’re saying there’s a secret illegitimate clan of Blossoms that have lived in the woods for two generations? Why did you call the corpse a Mothman?” Apparently, the family in the woods created the Mothman myth and the Blossoms were happy to embrace it. Nana says they migrated from the woods to the mines and when that closed down, they moved to an area off the highway. Jughead makes the Mothman connection to Dreyfus, and Nana Rose says, “Dreyfus Darkweather? Is he still alive?” Oh boy.
At the mine, a newly religious Cheryl prays at the mouth of the mine as townsfolk form a rock line to clear debris. Is Cheryl actually this religious or will she just do anything to avoid manual labor?
Archie is worried that they’re losing too much oxygen and that Eric is losing too much blood. That’s when he has a vision of Bingo who half tells him off, half just keeps paying him thirsty compliments “In basic, you did twice as many pushups as anyone else!” And calls for Archie’s dead soldiers to come help him. They do! Or Archie imagines it all. Either way, he’s renewed and starts digging again.
Betty gets a text from Toni saying there’s an emergency. Britta has run off. Toni explains all this to Betty and Jughead, who worry that she’s going to be abducted on the Lonely Highway while trying to get out of town. Toni wants to join them, but Fangs points out that she should stay home, being a new mom, but Toni won’t hear it and wants Fangs to watch the baby. But Fangs is coming too, to watch over Toni, so Fangs’ mom is on babysitting duty.
Cheryl prays again, calling on earth, wind, water, and fire to save Archie and Eric. Sadly, there is no Earth, Wind, and Fire guest appearance in this Riverdale episode. Also, this episode of Riverdale did not air on the 21st night of September, which would have been a real ::chef’s kiss::.
Back at the Pembroke, while Veronica cleans up after a day at the mine, Chad sneaks in with a gun. Did Cheryl’s prayer require a sacrifice and is that sacrifice Ronnie? Cheryl’s prayers work as Archie emerges from the mine, carrying Eric on his back.
Veronica, with the assistance of Pippi, Riverdale‘s version of Alexis, gets the drop on Chad. That’s two failed assassination attempts in one episode! When Chad fails he really fails. There’s a struggle in the dark and a gunshot! Smithers walks in to find Veronica standing over Chad’s dead body. Is this a Riverdale x Only Murders in the Building crossover?
Veronica pays another visit to her father, who is still tied up. Lucky for Hiram, Archie didn’t die, so neither will Hiram. Veronica says she used to admire him, but no more. And calls him a little bitch on the way out. Damn, Hiram. That’s twice this season you’ve been called that! Little Bitch is your new character name!
Betty, Toni, Tabitha, Fangs, and Jughead are armed and ready to stalk Dreyfus’s junkyard. Jughead distracts him with Mothman convo over moonshine. I guess this is a good reason to break his teetotalling. Jughead immediately lets on that he knows the Mothmen are Dreyfuss’s family. He theorizes that Dreyfus stole the Mothman corpse from Pop’s earlier this season as well as the trucker’s body earlier this episode. And that they were killing women along the highway. Dreyfus admits to all of it. First, it was about survival, but then it becomes about the hunt.
Outside, Toni finds a shed. Britta is inside! But someone grabs Toni! That’s when the Mothmen attack! Fangs is caught in a bear trap! Guys in Mothmen costumes attack Betty and Tabitha. Tabitha manages to stun one. Betty is being choked by another before she’s rescued by Toni.
One of the brothers helped Bitta escape. It turns out there’s a good Mothman. He’s the same one who freed Lerman.
Dreyfus tried to chew off his own tongue and choke on it, but Jughead stopped him. What is it with these guys and this move???
In a reversal of Fangs and Toni’s earlier couch scene, they discuss the day over a bottle of whiskey and tend to Fang’s foot. Fangs is worried about how they’re going to get through parenting in this crazy town, but Toni thinks they will.
Veronica and Archie share a bubble bath, reunited at last, while Hiram burns a photo of Hermione and Veronica. I don’t think Hermione will be back in Riverdale any time soon.
Betty wants answers from Dreyfus. Where’s Polly? “She’s in the junkyard. I can draw you a map.” Alice and Betty go the next day. This time, it’s not a ruse. In the trunk of a car, they find Polly, or what’s left of her. RIP Polly. RIP Squeaky, the latest two victims on Riverdale. The Lonely Highway killer case has been solved, but is this going to send Betty down the road of eventually becoming the final season of Riverdale’s serial killer?
