This week’s Riverdale starts with some backstory into Heather’s (Caroline Day) life. For anyone not in the know, Heather is Cheryl’s (Madelaine Petsch) junior high school crush, reintroduced in last week’s episode. Heather’s mom died shortly after they moved to Greendale. My money is on Heather having killed her. Am I a distrustful person or is that just the safe bet when anyone talks about a death that happened to someone close to them in the past on Riverdale. Cheryl tells Heather she wants to turn Thornhill into a town library just to get Heather around there more. It works.

Tabitha (Erinn Westbrook) is finally back! Unfortunately, she failed in getting Pop’s declared a landmark. She’s not giving up though. Tabitha pitches an idea to Archie (KJ Apa) to take apart the diner and rebuild it somewhere else. Archie is immediately in.
Veronica (Camila Mendes) has an idea to make the casino profitable: Jughead (Cole Sprouse) does a mentalist act at the casino with his mind-reading powers.
In case you were wondering, Andrews Construction is a union shop. This comes in the conversation when Archie tells his crew about the Pop’s job. This means time and a half overtime for a job that requires long days. Fangs (Drew Ray Tanner) is on the construction crew. Fangs explains to Toni (Vanessa Morgan) that he joined the crew so that he could actually contribute around the house.
Betty (Lili Reinhart) walks into her house to find the twins playing with a kitten. Grandma Alice bought it for them. Uh oh. Dagwood, the boy twin, has that evil aura emanating off of him. Betty takes the kitten and gives it to a shelter. Good call, Betts.
Dagwood has the evil aura!
Archie and company get to work dismantling Pops. A gumball machine falls on its own and shatters. Tabitha stares at it like it’s an ominous sign. (It is!)
Betty tells Agent Drake about her ability to see auras but mentions she can’t see them around the Trash Bag Killer. She doesn’t see one around Drake either. Because she’s TBK Junior? I think it’s safe to say at this point that TBK is either 1.) Hal Cooper. We never did see him die. or 2) He’s Agent Drake’s dad. And Drake is the daughter that Betty previously surmised TBK had based on her time spent trapped by TBK. Drake suggests getting the kids tested for the serial killer gene. Of course, Betty takes them to Dr. Curdle, the town mortician, for testing. Where else would Riverdale folks go for pediatric medical care?
Dr. Curdle: Riverdale mortician slash pediatrician
Heather and Cheryl share an interest in the occult.
Uncle Frank and Percival (Chris O’Shea) steal away Archie’s crew by bragging that not only will they pay more, but they’re not union, so no pesky union dues. Fangs is the first to bolt. F’ing Fangs.
Veronica and Jughead launch their show. Jughead is now Forsythe the Fantastic. Veronica wears her best Zatanna cosplay.
Forsythe the Fantastic and Zatanna Veronica
What the heck? Someone stole all of Pop’s booth and tables from a locked truck and put it all back together inside the diner. Archie wants to know who picked his lock.
Tabitha confronts Percival at his shop, but he denies it all. She breaks a vase on her way out.
Archie and the guys empty the diner again. But the jukebox flashes and electrocutes them when they try to move it.
Betty gets a call from Dr. Curdle. Dagwood doesn’t have the gene, but Juniper does. Drake theorizes that the gene is preventing her from seeing their aura, that she can only see the aura on people who don’t have the gene.
Jughead makes the front page of the town paper, you know the newspaper he runs, which seems like a conflict of interest to me, but no one in Riverdale questions it. Reggie shakes down Veronica. He blackmails her for a cut on the mentalist show money. Veronica wants Jughead to mindwipe Reggie. Fair. Jughead isn’t sure if he can, but agrees to research how.
Tabitha swings by Pop’s late at night and sees it open for business, but when she goes inside it’s deserted. However, there is a hot pot of coffee on the counter and the jukebox blinks menacingly.
Pops thinks it’s the ghosts of people who died at Pop’s who are haunting it. After the electrocution, most of Archie’s crew went to work for Percival. This is a problem because Percival could show up any minute with his bulldozers.
This episode of Riverdale is brought to you by Chime and Visa in very awkward product placement of Archie treating Uncle Frank to a meal. Archie tries to talk it out with Uncle Frank. Archie uses a childhood photo of his dad and Frank as a tether to break Percival’s hold on him.
I am starting to think we’re going to find out that Agent Drake has this gene and is in Betty’s blind spot.
Tabitha heads to Heather and Cheryl for help. They theorize that the ghosts have unfinished business. Heather offers to help invoke them and convince them to move on. She calls out the ghosts at Pop’s and tells them to leave. It seems to be working. Gilda, one of the ghosts, says they’re bound to the place and bear witness to the final battleground between good and evil. When Tabitha tells her about Percival’s plan to bulldoze Pop’s to build a train station, Gilda wants to know if Percival is building the ghost train, which would give him dominion over the living and the dead. She calls Percival the eldritch evil. Tabitha says it’s all starting to make sense. And Cheryl says “is it?” I agree with Cheryl.
The ghosts of Riverdale haunt Pop's diner
Alice confronts Betty about Betty taking the twins away. Where exactly did Betty take them? Alice asks her if she even has feelings, which reminds me of a scene from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia in which Dennis (Glenn Howerton) says, “You remember feelings, right?” Betty sees the aura coming off Alice, but wait, Alice has the gene!

Tabitha asks Archie if they can set up Pop’s inside the El Royale. He agrees. The photo breaks Uncle Frank’s sway from Percival and he offers to help set up Pop’s in the El Royale. They even get help from the ghosts, who bring out the furniture to the parking lot overnight.

Jughead attempts to mindwipe Reggie. He looks through Reggie comics the way he looked through Betty comics. He tears out pages, which has an immediate effect on Reggie. He can’t remember what he was going to blackmail Veronica about. Reggie runs to Pickins, saying he suspects Veronica and Jughead stole a memory from him.
Cheryl confronts Heather. What Heather did at Pop’s is necromancy – death magic. Heather admits that she isn’t just Wiccan, she’s a full-on witch. She suspects Cheryl is a witch too. Cheryl says, “I haven’t used that word to describe myself, but I feel like I’ve been dancing around it for months, years.” She asks Heather to teach her what she knows. Heather says “I’d love that.” I feel like they’re not actually talking about magic training.
Uncle Frank’s got the aura! Uh-oh! Franks says he’s going to drive the truck to El Royale, but after seeing the aura, Betty runs inside to get Archie, who confronts Frank. Frank admits he was going to drive everything in the river and then punches Archie with a fistful of palladium. Unfortunately for Frank’s now broken hand, palladium no longer weakens Archie. Man, if someone hasn’t watched Riverdale since as recently as the end of season 5 and watched this episode, they would not understand a single thing!
Later, Pops is impressed by the El Royale Pop’s. Tabitha sees the ghosts there, who look content, and says the plan worked.
Toni makes a candlelight dinner for Fangs. She proposes to Fangs. Why? Quick flashback to Toni talking to the child services worker, who tells Toni that if she wants to win her case against Kevin, she and Fangs need to be seen as a united front.
Evil aura Betty
Betty tells Agent Drake about the auras she’s seen recently. Not only her mom but someone else who definitely has the gene. Who? None other than Betty herself. But she can’t figure out what that aura is trying to tell her. Who is Betty a danger to?? Maybe the entire town of Riverdale? Please see my previous theories on why serial killer in training Betty should be the villain of the 7th and final season Riverdale.

1 COMMENT

  1. The show has gone full Berlanti: An annoying big bad who has plans A-Z read and even when the heroes win, it’s part of his master strategy. The heroes will win by dumb luck or the villain fouling up.

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