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.
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?
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.
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.
