Betty Got Caught Kissing Someone Who Isn't Jughead on "Riverdale"

This week on Riverdale, Jughead gets a funeral and Alice makes a documentary. Before we pack up our things for Yale, we need to cover the main plots of the evening:

Betty’s Big Plan

Part of Betty’s plan that maybe she didn’t see coming? She gets Jughead’s now-empty spot at Yale. Dang, Yale. His body isn’t even cold! Another piece she couldn’t have foreseen? Cheryl Blossom, self-proclaimed “Teen Queen of Tragedy,” putting Betty under suicide watch—with the watching done by Cheryl herself, of course. Things otherwise seem to be according to plan, when F.P. acts on an anonymous tip and finds Jug’s tie pin in Donna’s dorm room. Donna then turns on the waterworks and points a finger at Betty, Archie, and Veronica. Who are then arrested. Is this part of B’s plan? Not quite, but sorta? It’s hard to keep up, TBH. F.P. questions the teens, and their parents run interference. Alice is pretty convinced Betty did it, but once the fake blood rock tests come back, F.P. lets the crew free. Donna then puts forth her theory: Jughead faked his death so that the RHS teens could put Donna and Brett away for murder. If this is really what happened, I’m pretty surprised they’ve already let us know?

But this sets Betty down the path of funeral planning. F.P. gives a touching speech. As does Betty—including a passage from Jug’s favorite Sherlock Holmes short story. Of course, Brett and Donna show up and snark on the closed casket and accost Jellybean. Rude. Hiram shows up to suggest a leave of absence for F.P., which probably should’ve been suggested much earlier. F.P. quits. What a funeral this is turning out to be. It rivals Jason Blossom’s. At school, the rumors are circulating: Kevin asks Betty if Jughead is really alive. Meanwhile, Cheryl is taking her role as Betty’s watcher seriously which leads to her spying on Archie and Betty kissing. Yes, Archie and Betty. Kissing. Cheryl immediately takes pics and blasts it to the whole school, though she tells V in person. Veronica yells at Archie in the student lounge, but doesn’t blame B—though B takes the blame unto herself. So Veronica leaves the room after telling them both to “burn in hell” (Toni cheers her on).

Betty has other problems, though, like Donna teasing Betty about her and Jughead’s sex tape, which is still illegal in all ways, and Donna following her as she visits Dilton’s bunker to be with Archie. But of course, this return to the love triangle of Archie Comics past was all part of BVA’s master plan. Also part of the plan? Jughead actually IS still alive! And hiding in the bunker! He’s in on the whole thing! So Donna…was right? God, she’ll be insufferable once she finds out. P.S. Betty is seriously an evil genius. And Donna has definitely come slightly unhinged. Even Brett is backing away—though he is also alarmingly cool with thinking that he and Donna actually did kill Jughead.

Alice Makes a Movie

Good ol’ Alice Smith starts making a documentary about Jughead’s death immediately: Murder In A Small Town. That documentary, judging by its’ title, could be about literally anything that happened in this small town since before the show Riverdale began. Doesn’t Alice know that podcasts are the hip medium for true crime stories nowadays? Couldn’t her cinematographer Kevin have clued her in? Anyway, clips from her doc pop up throughout the episode, they are extremely lo-res, and the case unravels. One thing that’s nice about Alice’s interviews with people around Riverdale: we get to remember that the characters on this show were once friends, instead of just living in their separate plotlines like they have all season. Case in point: Toni and Jughead were actually friendly (and once hooked up, which Cheryl is super not jealous about, btw). We also get this iconic exchange:

Cheryl: I’m sorry I called Jughead a hobo that one time.

Alice: Is—is that it?

Cheryl: [pause] I’m really sorry I called Jughead a hobo that one time.

Cheryl Blossom lives her truth. Then, Alice’s doc turns into a melodrama about the love lives of teenagers once Barchie hits the scene. Kevin says that Betty dating Archie proves that Jughead is definitely dead. Sure. That’s sound logic, Kev. Later, something Betty tells Alice off the record causes Alice to pivot to “cover-up” with her work, so this documentary is now an expose about the Stonewall and RHS feud and how deep it’s gone. I have whiplash.

Hermosa Lodge, P.I. for Hire

Hermosa’s been doing some snooping of her own and finds out by calling Barnard that Veronica is under investigation. She plans to find out why—do the Lodges even know Jughead is dead?—and loop Hiram in. Hiram…does not need this right now? And somehow Veronica is the daughter who is respecting that? The two sisters continue to taunt one another, with Hermosa providing Veronica a passport and printed paper plane ticket—totally a thing young people buy—with her blonde alias. Veronica promptly rips it up, because Hermosa can’t get rid of her that easily. So Hermosa goes digging once more and discovers the holes in the “night of the party” stories Betty, Veronica, and Archie all told their parents. She forces V to tell her the truth about that night…and it seems these sisters get on the same side for once, as she later delivers intel on Donna and her “smoking gun” secret identity that we won’t find out until next week.

Rumordale dot com:

• Do you think the fact that Betty “killed Jughead” is affecting F.P. and Alice’s love life? It’s certainly affecting Veronica and Archie’s…though not as much as Hermosa is.

• Nana Rose pops up to be creepy as usual, talking about how Riverdale is bathed in blood. Cool story, Nana Rose.

• Nice Scream shout-out with Skeet Ulrich explaining that the rock was covered in corn syrup, the “theatrical stuff” they use to make fake blood.

• Archie’s community center efforts are suffering because people think he’s a murderer. This is kind of a bummer, especially since Archiekins is actually wildly nice and literally would never hurt his BFF Jughead.

• People who are in on the Jughead is Dead scheme: Betty, Veronica, Archie, Jughead, F.P., Jellybean, Charles, Dr. Curdle Jr., Mrs. Andrews, and now Alice. If two can only keep a secret if one of them is dead, what’s the rule on ten?

• The episode ends with Archie and Betty typing then retyping then sort of sending flirty text messages. Uh-oh.

• Um…did Donna kill Jonathan?

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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue