For anyone who hasn’t watched any of season two or last night’s episode of Riverdale, please be aware that there will be spoilers!
The season two finale left us with a sort of cliffhanger. Archie Andrews was arrested for murder after being named student-body president. We know that he was framed by Hiram Lodge (his girlfriend’s father, which…don’t even get me started), and that he didn’t murder anyone.
The season three premiere opens with Archie’s trial, which has been going on all summer long. When the jury can’t reach a verdict, the judge announces that the trial will continue the Tuesday after Labor Day. The judge also tells Archie to spend this time with his friends and family, because this might be the last time he gets to do that for a while.
It’s discovered in this episode that Betty Cooper, detective extraordinaire and girlfriend to Jughead Jones, has been going to therapy and taking ADHD medication after her father was found out to be the Black Hood, the serial killer that haunted the town of Riverdale for all of season two. Polly, Betty’s sister, and her mother, Alice, have been supposedly healed by someone named Edgar, who runs the farm that Polly has been at. Polly and Alice really want Betty to see Edgar and the other people at the farm because they believe that she, too, can be healed. Betty thinks they’re out of their minds, and I have to agree. For most of the show, the writer’s having been alluding to this farm and how it may not be everything Polly and Alice make it out to be. Polly then says that there is something Alice should know about Betty, but the show heads to commercials before we’re told what that is.
After the commercial break, there is a bit of a snafu between Jughead Jones, the leader of the South Side Serpents, and Penny Peabody, who now leads the Serpent’s rivals, the Ghoulies. Basically, Jughead wasn’t thinking and now Penny and the Ghoulies are very upset. We pick up after this in the Cooper household, where Polly and Alice confront Betty, because she made up a psychiatrist and forged a signature to get ADHD medication. Jughead, Betty, Veronica and Archie go swimming for the last night of Archie’s freedom, as the judge had told him earlier in the episode. Betty explains to Jughead later that she hasn’t slept or done anything else but try to find ways that Archie is innocent since he’s been on trial. He must know that she made up all of this, because he isn’t mad or upset with her, instead gives her his iconic beanie and tells her that they’ll get through anything, as long as they’re together.
That Tuesday, court is back in session when it’s announced that the jury couldn’t come to a verdict, therefore resulting in the judge dismissing the jury. Archie’s mother, who is also his lawyer, tells him that this could lead to a mistrial, in which case they would have to go through the entire trial all over again. The District Attorney states then that there is a plea deal that Archie could take, and without consulting his mother, he takes it. All of his friends are shocked, even some of the parents.
Archie is taken to juvy, and the most heartbreaking things about this episode is when Veronica tries to chase after him as he’s being taken away. She insists that he’s innocent, that it was all her father, that Archie doesn’t deserve this, but he gets escorted out of the courtroom all the same. Veronica is then comforted by Betty.
After the shocking events of the trial, Fred Andrews and a few others are shown planning to get Archie back since he is innocent. Veronica asks her father if he’s happy since Hiram got what he wanted, Archie put away so that he and Veronica wouldn’t see each other. He tries to feed her something about how “[she] chose that boy over blood,” but Veronica doesn’t listen. She tells Hiram that he doesn’t have a daughter anymore.
This boy, Dilton, has been bugging Jughead all episode about this game similar to Dungeons and Dragons, and he’s so paranoid that he leaves Jughead a map with symbols. Near the end of the episode, Jughead investigates the map, and it is revealed that the map that was left for him is, in fact, a map of Riverdale. I don’t know what this could all mean, so it will be interesting to see where this goes.
At the same time, Betty goes out into her backyard to see Alice and Polly with people from the farm, and the two of them are holding Polly’s twins over a fire. It looks like they are going to drop them in, but when Polly and Alice let go, the twins float above the fire. Betty, who’s been witnessing this, drops to the floor and, I’ll be honest, I thought she was just going to pass out, but then she started convulsing, and it was terrifying.
That was how the episode ended, and I still can’t stop thinking about it.
I have a few questions, such as will Betty be okay? How will Archie survive in juvy? Will his father get him out? What did the game that those two boys were playing mean?
We’ll find out next week, when Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW.