Let's Talk About Tonight's Very Special Flashback Episode of 'Riverdale'
Let the record show that two weeks ago today, I asked whether everyone in the town of Riverdale-but especially Jughead and Betty-had lost their goddamn minds. And as it turns out, the answer in Jughead’s case is a resounding “Oh heck yes!” Jughead was already showing signs of seriously impaired judgement in "As Above, So Below," willingly playing Russian Roulette with a chalice of poison just because Ethel Muggs told him to, and the final moments of tonight’s episode confirmed that he has indeed had some kind of mental break, babbling at an alarmed Betty about how he’s going to ascend and meet the Gargoyle King.
But we’ll get to that. First up, let’s talk about the long-awaited flashbacks that made up the bulk of this episode, and saw the show’s entire teenage cast playing their own parents back in high school. Fred, Alice, Hermione, FP and the gang get stuck in detention together, end up bonding despite their differences, and all become obsessed with a role-playing game that ends in a mysterious death. Sounds like high school to me!
Here are the eight most important things we learned in "The Midnight Club."
1) Griffins & Gargoyles has the ability to literally drive its players insane.
In an extremely disturbing turn of events, Hermione admits to the Riverdale High student body that Dilton and Ben’s deaths were caused by G&G, and warns them that the game is designed to foster “paranoia, delusion and violence” in its players. She warns the students to stay away from the game and imposes a ban, but as Veronica points out, that’s only going to make kids want to play it more.
Betty remembers what the coroner told her about Dilton’s death-that the details seemed familiar-and learns from Alice that a mysterious Fresh-Aid related death took place years ago in Riverdale, while the parents were all in high school. Cue the flashbacks…
2) Fred, FP, Alice, Hermione, Penelope and Sierra were actually friends.
There’s not much love lost between any of these parents in the present day, but it turns out that they had a brief period of intense, admittedly weird friendship back in high school. Some of the parents, like Fred and Penelope, don’t seem to have changed a whole lot since, while others have undergone a radical transformation. Alice, who’s narrating this whole saga for Betty (and the viewers) is a leather-clad biker chick who just can’t quit Forsyth Pendleton Jones Jr., because he’s such a stud muffin. “I hated him, but I wanted him,” she tells a grossed out Betty in the present day.
FP is also radically different from his modern-day self, a jock type who wears a letterman jacket around school and hides the fact that he lives in a South Side trailer park with his abusive father (this was bleak! Poor FP!) Hermione is a rebellious Catholic schoolgirl who’s already involved with an enterprising young man named Hiram Lodge, and determined to get out of Riverdale at all costs.
In another cute moment, it’s revealed that Sierra and Tom were dating way back in high school, and seemed crazy about each other. But Tom’s parents weren’t comfortable with him dating someone so “different” (ugh), and after the events of "Ascension Night" (wait for it), Sierra ended their relationship. He promised to wait for her, and as we know now, these two do find their way back to each other!
3) Fred, FP, and Sierra were in a band together called The Fred Heads.
Are we…. sure this isn’t the real reason they all swore an oath to never speak of this dark time in their lives again?
4) Penelope Blossom’s backstory is so much creepier than you ever imagined.
Even Penelope didn't originally want to be a Blossom. She grew up at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy orphanage, and was adopted by the Blossoms at the age of eight for entirely non-benevolent reasons. "I was being groomed to first be Clifford's sister, and eventually his life companion," she reveals, as everybody in the group lets out a silent, collective "y i k e s." A disgusted Hermione notes that this is "basically incest," which, duh, it's the Blossoms! On balance, it's a miracle Cheryl turned out as well-adjusted as she did.
5) Griffins & Gargoyles became a way for the members of The Midnight Club to escape their demons.
These kids are all miserable and alienated for different reasons, and so when they find a creepy looking game called Griffins & Gargoyles in a teacher’s desk, they’re all in. (Side note: who is Mrs. Crabapple and why was G&G in her desk drawer?)
At first, the game seems like wholesome fun that involves quests and gemstones and goofy costumes. Everybody gets along better when they’re playing, in part because the girls have less time to exchange catty insults about whose family is the worst. The kids start meeting up at Riverdale High in the middle of the night to play, because if there’s one thing teenagers love it’s spending additional time at school…
And then Hiram Lodge shows up and everything goes to hell.
6) The school principal died mysteriously during Ascension Night.
Hiram and a bunch of other students turn out to be G&G players too-just like in the present day, the game is spreading like a virus-and one night, he breaks out some kind of drug that turns out to be not jingle jangle, but fizzle rocks! “They’re new, just hit the streets,” he brags, and in the present day Alice ominously reflects that the drug might have been what “turns us into monsters… or maybe we’d been monsters all along.”
One night, Alice explains, the gang all got very high on fizzle rocks and “our dark doppelgangers were released," and while we’ve all had a night or two like that, Ascension Night ended in tragedy. Alice, pregnant with the baby that will become Chic Cooper, is the only one who doesn’t take any of the drug, and gets creeped out fast when everybody else starts to act erratically. She goes to the bathroom, where things suddenly take a turn-the lighting turns red, two chalices of liquid appear, and the walls are suddenly covered in the phrase “FLIP FOR YOUR FATE."
When bloody graffiti tells you to do something, just say no. That’s always been my philosophy, and it seems to be Alice’s too, because she runs out of there as fast as she can-and runs right into the Gargoyle King in the hallway. She also sees the school principal looking around with a torch and flees before he sees her. Poor Principal Featherhead is never seen alive again, and days later his blue-lipped corpse is found stuffed into a cupboard in the hallway.
What… exactly is supposed to have happened here? Did Principal Featherhead stroll into the bathroom, see the graffiti instructing him to Flip For His Fate, and go “You know what, I think I will?” Why are all these people so eager to drink unidentified liquid out of creepy-ass chalices? If he hadn’t been playing the game himself, why would he be this vulnerable to suggestion?
7) The trauma of the experience drove everyone in the Midnight Club to make radical life changes.
Nobody is exactly sure what happened to Principal Featherhead. Aside from Alice, everyone was high and didn’t see either the principal or the Gargoyle King. At least, that’s what they all claim. Alice suspects that somebody in the group was dressed as the Gargoyle King, but they all fiercely deny it. After briefly turning on one another, the group agrees to take this secret with them to the grave, and all go their separate ways. But the guilt and trauma of what happened changed them all, and turned them into the (mostly) monstrous bunch they are today!
Fred sold his guitar and resigned himself to taking over his late father’s family business. Hermione began a lifetime of moral compromise with Hiram. Sierra ended things with Tommy. Penelope agreed to live with Clifford at Thornhill forever and ever and ever. And Alice traded in her leather for a preppy pink girl-next-door vibe, and asked future serial killer Hal Cooper to get a malt at Pop’s. Unfortunate decisions all around!
8) Jughead is in serious danger.
When Alice finishes her story, Betty tells her that she’s seen the Gargoyle King too, and wonders out loud whether it’s the same person from the Midnight Club. Alice points out that there’s no way the killer could have known that Principal Featherhead would intercept the quest, meaning that the intention must have been for one of the group to drink from the poisoned cup. So is this murder, or suicide? “In the end it’s just death, Betty,” Alice says, making a very solid point.
After Betty finds plenty of evidence at the school to back up her mom’s story, she runs to Dilton’s lair to tell Jughead what she’s learned… only to find him in the thick of a G&G game. “It’s all making sense,” he says maniacally. “I’m a level three. It’s only a matter of time before I ascend, and I get to meet [the Gargoyle King].” Dilton and Ben committed suicide because they wanted to ascend, so this is altogether an extremely stressful ending to an episode, and we are only four hours into this season! Who’s going to save Jughead?
('You Might Also Like',)
