The 'Riverdale' Winter Finale Just Solved the Gargoyle King Mystery
And in the end, the real Gargoyle King was the friends we made along the way. Riverdale’s rollercoaster of a winter finale, "Outbreak," seemed to resolve the mystery via some trademark Betty Cooper detective work, revealing that the Gargoyle King does not exist! He’s just a statue at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, and has been turned into more thanks to the drug-induced hallucinations of the facility’s patients. But of course, Hiram Lodge appears just in time to throw everything into chaos again, in a final shot that seems to suggest the Gargoyle King is real after all? Or maybe Hiram’s just high on his own supply? I have nothing left but questions at this point!
Here, six things to note from tonight’s episode.
The seizure outbreak is spreading.
Veronica and Toni are the latest major characters to be affected, and I’m starting to wonder about the specifics of who’s susceptible. One: Why are all of the victims female? Two: When the entire cheerleading squad was struck down, why was Cheryl the only one spared? Three: Why are only young people affected?
While Toni’s recovering, Cheryl takes the opportunity to ask her to move in, which would be a hard pass from me. (Why is Cheryl even still living at the hell-mansion that is Thornhill at this point?) And while Veronica’s recovering, her parents take the opportunity to threaten to ship her off to Manhattan, where she can “relax” and escape from stress. Sure, sounds plausible, unless you’ve ever actually been to NYC.
Jughead’s mom ships Jarchie.
Gina Gershon made her debut as Gladys Jones, along with Trinity Likins as Jughead’s sister Jellybean, who now goes by JB for understandable reasons. “You two finally got together, huh?” Gladys smirks at Jughead and Archie, who both look confused. (I mean, they’re the only two out of the core four who have yet to share a contrived kiss!) Jellybean also has a crush on Archie, while Archie seemed to be giving Gladys the eye at least once or twice in this episode, so the sexual dynamics here are altogether confusing.
Later, though, Gladys overcomes her shipping preferences to tell Jughead that he needs to cut Archie loose, because Hiram has a bounty on the head of anyone who helps him. Jughead refuses, but then Archie himself appears from the shadows and convinces him it’s for the best. “Wherever I go next, it’s gotta be alone,” Archie says, as the boys share an emotional goodbye hug. Where he goes next appears to be Canada, since he’s crossing an unspecified border and Mexico would be quite a hike from Riverdale’s east coast location.
Fred Andrews finally becomes a character on this show again for long enough to show up and also share a poignant goodbye with Archie. Most heartbreakingly of all, though? Archie has to dye his hair brown. I’m legitimately worried this is a Samson situation where all Archie’s power lies in that red hair, and he’ll never be the same again.
The Gargoyle King is a collective delusion.
Riverdale really played us here, tbh. For weeks now, they’ve had us feverishly speculating about the identity of the Gargoyle King, so wrapped up in the riddle that we completely missed the glaringly obvious truth. To quote Hiram: “The Gargoyle King? That’s not a real thing.” Betty locks Ethel in the King’s chamber to prove this point to her, and it briefly seems like this might end very badly once Ethel starts screaming. But Betty’s right! The Gargoyle King is just a creepy statue in the basement of the Sisters of Quiet Mercy facility, and it's has been used for decades to traumatize its residents into compliance. After being locked in the basement with the statue for long enough, the kids came up with a fantasy world in order to cope with their fear, and so Griffins & Gargoyles was born.
This is disappointing on one level, but also a logical reveal that tracks with everything we’ve seen and makes this whole season so far a pretty compelling story about gaslighting. Then again, remember when the Black Hood’s identity was “revealed” last year? Trust nothing that happens in a Riverdale winter finale.
Veronica and Cheryl torture Penelope with maple syrup.
That’s it, that’s my whole talking point, although let’s also have a moment of silence for Cheryl’s majestic Buffalo Bill moment: “Speak, or it gets the syrup again.” I’m not 100% clear on how this constitutes torture, unless the Blossoms’ maple syrup is really just that gross, but it seems to work on Penelope, who offers some vague intel about how Hiram wants to transform Riverdale into a lawless zone where businessmen can make money at all costs and conduct their shady, corrupt enterprises “unmolested." Keep this up and Hiram could run for president!
Betty becomes the Griffin Queen.
Now working as a team, Betty and Ethel try without success to get the residents to leave the facility. Just as Sister Woodhouse predicted, the residents are too brainwashed to even consider it-until Betty and Ethel come up with the idea to use G&G as a tool. In order to leave, the kids need a new mystical leader to worship. “Let’s give them the opposite of the Gargoyle King,” Betty suggests, which is… The Griffin Queen.
In a gloriously insane and campy twist, Betty shows up in a big ol’ pair of wings to Pied Piper the kids to safety, telling them “The King is dead! You are all free!” Everyone willingly follows her and Ethel outside and back towards Riverdale, just as some very ominous sirens start to sound in the distance.
Hiram’s master plan finally becomes clear.
Hiram’s vendetta against Archie has always seemed a little extreme, and as it turns out, he never really wanted Archie. He just wanted to chase him-and his friends-out of town so that they wouldn’t get in the way of his master plan, which is to quarantine Riverdale and cut it off from the rest of the world. His exact purpose is unclear, but it has to be some much bigger variation on what Veronica accused him of doing with Riverdale High: Get a piece of land on the cheap and use it to expand his drug empire. With no sheriff, and now no contact from the rest of the state, he can essentially rule unchecked, much like a monarch.
So the Gargoyle King may not exist, but since Hiram is the one who supplied the fizzle rocks that led to the Gargoyle King’s “creation” and has now effectively taken Riverdale as his kingdom, it’s arguably still pretty accurate to call him the Gargoyle King. And in a deeply frustrating final shot, the episode scuppers all of its seemingly answered questions as Hiram raises a glass to the King, who’s just chilling in his office. Now, again, Hiram could be celebrating his victory by getting high and hallucinating on fizzle rocks, but that just doesn’t seem his style. So, questions to ponder over the hiatus: Is the Gargoyle King real? And if so, is it up to Betty the Griffin Queen to stop him? And perhaps most importantly of all: How will Archie cope as a brunette?
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