'Riverdale' Just Came Dangerously Close to Killing Archie
Another Wednesday night, another Riverdale winter premiere, another hilariously overwrought voiceover courtesy of Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, who has a lot of feelings about Archie’s new life north of the border: “Just as Luke Skywalker went to Planet Dagobah, so too has Archie been in the Canadian hinterlands…” All right, Jughead, calm yourself-it’s a cabin.
Back in Riverdale, Hiram’s quarantine has been lifted, but the town is in semi-apocalyptic disarray with no sheriff and limited contact with the outside world. Or, to quote Jughead, the town is “A HAUNTED SHELL OF ITS FORMER SELF” even though everybody seems to be getting on with their lives in a way that feels vaguely anticlimactic. In any case, here's what happened in "No Exit."
1) Archie got a dog, and also sees dead people.
Honestly, the dog is all that matters. The recap could end here. Archie’s new doggo is named Vegas, and he’s a gorgeous golden retriever who's making Archie’s sad new Canadian cabin existence a lot less grim than it would otherwise be. Vegas’s beautiful golden coat is even helping to take some of the sting out of Archie’s hair now being black! But not even Vegas can protect Archie from a grizzly attack out in the woods, or from the ghostly visions that follow as he slowly dies from his wounds.
Archie’s visited by the deeply annoying ghosts of Cassidy and his pals along with Warden Norton, who persuades him to play a round of Griffins & Gargoyles, because why not, y’know? After completing a pair of mental challenges in which he gets to rewrite history-first saving Fred from being shot by the Black Hood, then following through on killing Hiram Lodge the night before his arrest-our favorite Red Palladin ends up confronted by a vision of Betty, Jughead, and Veronica. Are they dead? Nope, Archie’s visions just lack internal logic! The trio essentially say that the only way back to Riverdale is for Archie to come and play with them, forever and ever and ever, which turns out to mean playing one final round of G&G in which his nemesis is… himself.
Looking down on himself in bed with a baseball bat in hand, Archie realizes that he's his own worst enemy and keeps making terrible decisions that lead him into trouble. In order to get home, he has to “destroy the part of me that’s weak, that’s bad, that’s stupid.” But Archie, your stupidity is what we love about you! (That and your abs, also.) Despite sweet, sweet Fred appearing in a vision to try and persuade him otherwise, Archie smashes his own head in with the bat, and moments later some park rangers bust into the cabin to find a very dead-looking Archie lying on his bed. I’m not even going to pretend I’m falling for that nonsense, Riverdale!
2) Even as the Griffin Queen, Betty can’t get any respect.
Betty and Alice have been housing all of the kids that escaped from the Sisters since the quarantine, and they're all hooked on both G&G and fizzle rocks supplied by a rogue Serpent. Evelyn Evernever also throws a spanner in the works by showing up to proselytize about The Farm, trying to convince these poor brainwashed kids to join yet another cult. It seems to be working; by the end of the episode the kids have started to turn on Betty and no longer believe that the Gargoyle King is dead or that the Griffin Queen is their leader. Oh, and Betty apparently missed the chance to meet the elusive Edgar Evernever by five minutes.
Meanwhile, Betty and Sierra almost succeed in getting the nuns to testify against Hiram, but Betty jinxes it with this very, very unfortunate line early in the episode: “Hiram was paying the sisters to test his drugs o, the patients. I don’t see how he could possibly get away with that.” It’s like she’s never even met Hiram! Getting away with insane things is his MO! Sure enough, Hiram bails the sisters out of prison, and moments later Betty finds them all in the Gargoyle King’s chamber, dead in a blue-lipped mass suicide.
3) Veronica and Reggie is on.
Hell yes! Poor Reggie is almost beaten up by “the Gargoyle Gang” on two separate occasions while running shipments for Veronica, so he’s earned a little TLC-and honestly, the sexual tension between these two has been off the charts for weeks. After Veronica performs a killer rendition of "Maybe This Time" at the speakeasy, she and Reggie finally kiss, as Archie lies maybe-dying in a cabin hundreds of miles away. Sorry, Archie, but also not sorry because you abandoned Veronica and then made out with an evil farm girl in the very next episode, and also Reggie and Veronica make a pretty phenomenal power couple. My only qualm: Are we calling them Veggie?
4) Choni had their Serpent status stripped away.
This hurt, but Cheryl and Toni already seem to be living their best lives as sexy cat burglars and finally exchanged “I love you's" in this episode, so they’re gonna be fine. Plus, the Serpents pretty much seem to have a revolving door policy at this point, so I give it maybe four episodes until they’re back. Jughead kicks the pair out after they get a little too brazen in one of their break-ins at the Lodge house, stealing a “Glamerge egg” (?) from Hermione and leaving a lipstick kiss on Hiram’s beloved portrait of himself. I’d say that Cheryl should be watching her back after this, but I think Hiram probably respects the sheer audacity of this move.
5) Jughead is stepping up the fight against Hiram.
While Archie’s death visions make it clear that he still hasn’t let go of wanting to kill Hiram, Jughead’s taking a more tactical approach to taking out the Man In Black. After Fangs tearfully confesses to dealing fizzle rocks (he only did it to pay his mom’s medical bills, because even in Riverdale the American healthcare system is broken!). Jughead gives him a shot at redemption: Go undercover inside Hiram’s drug operation, and take him down from the inside. And Fangs agrees, because honestly what could go wrong? (Pre-emptive RIP, Fangs.)
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