Welcome back all you Riverdale fans! Detective fiction has always been my #1 genre, Sherlock Holmes especially. This is why DC characters like The Question, Elongated Man, and Batman rank high on my list of favs, though Batman really could use a shot of detective these days. Riverdale rides high when operating in this, or a more horrific, genre.
It’s pulpy and formulaic but that’s often the point. It’s knowing what’s coming and trying to see past the twists and obfuscations, of peering into the dark long enough to make out shapes, that make it fun and engrossing. That’s why the episodes since Jughead’s “death” have worked so damn well. I’m saying this with not even a hint of irony: “To Die For” was a damn fine episode and I can’t wait to see where we go from here.
And as always, spoilers ahead.
1. A Documentary in Scarlet
Show of hands, who was expecting Ms. Smith neé Cooper to make a documentary about the death of Jughead? Anyone? I certainly wasn’t but I appreciate its presence. It makes the episode feel more dynamic, giving side characters time to shine and give us some amazing lines; Reggie’s statement about him being mad that, if Jug is faking his death, it’s the most legendary senior prank ever, was gold. It’s also a conceit that, while not followed to its natural conclusion ala the first episode of this season of Legends of Tomorrow, is still effective.
2. The Red-Headed League
I don’t like the bullshit relationship drama. I hate it. All you Barchie (euch, shipping names always sound so gross) stans out there, are you happy now? Are you happy that the show is trying to drive a wedge between Veronica & Archie in a Betty/Archie shaped forbidden romance? It’s frustrating to watch and I don’t even care about who’s dating who. I was all for Reggie and Veronica, remember?
In fact, in that very review, I profess that I’ve always been more for Betty & Archie than Veronica. So. . .why am I so pissed here? Well, it’s needless. We’ve got plenty of dramatic plot points going on in the larger narratives: Charles’ secret bullshit, the preppies, the death of Chipping & other Baxter related people, Veronica v. Hermosa and Archie losing the trust of the community for his gym. We don’t need more manufactured drama between the main characters. Let the side characters shine a bit more. I say it a lot but Riverdale really does do its side characters dirty.
3. The Adventure of the Second Stain
I think it’s safe to agree that Donna is far scarier than any of the big villains we’ve had thus far. They’re all classic representations of archetypes. Penelope is the schemer in the shadows with a flair for the dramatic. Hal was your prototypical slasher. Mr. Blossom was an old money man who’s flashiest crime was an attempt to cover up the quieter ones. Hiram is a mob boss turned “legit” “businessman” and Edgar was a cult leader. But Donna. . .Donna’s far more conniving and successful than any of them.
She’s manipulative to the extreme, completely aware of the way society views her and utilizes that to her advantage while also taking pleasure in psychologically torturing people until they commit suicide or walk into a trap and get killed all while her friends and toadies do the same. It’s both ancient and modern in that she represents the ways power structures craft the rules to get away with any abuse while punishing those without, a reality as old as human society, and wholly modern because she doesn’t fit the old molds of her archetype; Brett fits it far better.
That’s also what makes her slowly unraveling over the course of the episode all the more unnerving. She always has things together and now that she doesn’t, she’s starting to feel cornered. And we all know what happens when a perfectly composed yet vicious creature gets cornered, don’t we?
You get a dead Jonathan is what.
4. The Scandal in Barnard
Hermosa is so fucking smug, I can’t wait for her to get her comeuppance. Every time she’s on screen, she drips this superiority over Veronica behind a thinly veiled disgust of her half-sister for her hatred of their mob boss father. Hermosa is the next generation of Hiram, she knows it, and wants Veronica to know it too. I don’t know where this is going but I have a feeling in my gut that Hermosa is going to make a play sooner rather than later and it’s not gonna end well for Veronica.
Continued below5. The Adventure of the (Not So) Empty Bunker
*deep inhale*
I FUCKING CALLED IT! HAHA! VINDICATION! It feels very good to have seen through most of the red herrings this season and to know my distrust of Riverdale cliffhangers has once again borne fruit. I’m a little bummed they didn’t go through with it, considering how fucking metal it would’ve been to kill off a principle character in this way, but I’m more glad to have been right. And yes, I did bury this to point five so as to maximize spoiler avoidance.
I do have to admit I wavered in my last two predictions. The show successfully got me to believe Betty knew nothing of Jug’s plan and I never did figure out how they faked the body. I thought I might have another episode to figure that out, and technically, I still do, since we don’t know how they faked the body at the bottom of the ravine, the body in the morgue, and the question remains when Betty & Jug put the plan together. My money is on it being after Jug got brained.
Here’s how I think it went down. Jug was going to confront Brett in the woods, maybe he had a plan, maybe he didn’t. He got brained by one of the crew and the scene was set after Betty’s date with Donna’s poisoned hand. Once Veronica and Betty found Jug, they saw he wasn’t breathing. One of them performed CPR or Jug woke up. The four preppies were long gone so as to have plausible deniability about not knowing what was going on. This is when Jug and Betty come up with the plan to get the preppies.
They have to make it look like Jug is actually dead and that they believe he’s dead. Jug goes into hiding while they dispose of the rock and their bloody clothes, some pieces may have been used to apply pressure to the wound. They all scatter and go home, with their uncoordinated stories either on purpose or by accident. Betty & Jug hope to catch the preppies without a body but are clearly outmatched and so we get Betty telling Arch & Veronica that a body needs to be found.
Jug goes to the bottom of the ravine and pretends to be dead, complete with corpse make-up and him holding his breath. This is the only way this ruse works unless they have an eerily similar body. It’s dark so that’s easy to fake and if Sheriff Jones is in on it at this point, which he’d have to be, otherwise he’d notice the breathing or a body that is clearly not his son, he helps sell the ruse with the coroner offering a fake death certificate. Donna & Brett bust in but barely get a glimpse. We, however, see that it was clearly Jughead, which makes me think Jug was standing in. As for the funeral, maybe they put Jug in the casket or maybe there really was no one in it. Either way, that was most likely too close for comfort.
In this time, Jughead stewed on what could be driving these preppies other than the power trip. He put the pieces together as to what the Quill & Skull conspiracy was, how DuPont fits into the whole thing, and why Chipping killed himself. Most likely, it was the inauguration tapes used as blackmail combined with the threat of, you either kill yourself or we’ll do it for you, like all those other former Baxter Brothers writers who have reached the end of their contract; DuPont, and Jug’s grandfather, are the only two writers still alive after all. Donna Sweet’s secret dossier being the lynchpin is the final clue but I have no clue what it could be. Maybe she’s DuPont’s daughter? The “not so sweet” line got me on the different last names train.
That’s my theory. We’ll see how it holds up next week.
Also, this episode almost had me. It almost got me to believe Jug was dead. Opening with an epithet was brilliant, forgoing his narration a smart move, and the fact that Donna was so insistent on Jug being alive, as if they were lampshading fan (and reviewers like me’s) theories, made me doubt myself. They tipped their hand when Betty read a passage from, perhaps the most famous story with a faked death: Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem.”
Continued belowYou don’t just drop that fucking story in a season about murder mysteries and not expect people to pick up on its meaning.
But also, I’m shocked they revealed him being alive this week instead of later in the season. They had two pretty damning motives set up this episode for Betty and I expected them to deal with those: Yale and the (fake) Archie tryst. I also thought that her getting into Yale was a ploy by Donna or Brett to provide one of these motives. Seems I was thinking too complicated.
The question remains: where do we go from here? There are still at least 6 more episodes after the big reveal scene, a staple I am eagerly awaiting, so it’s pretty obvious that this won’t be fully resolved next week. I expect that the resolution to Charles’ machinations will become the focus while Donna & Brett try to reframe the narrative against Betty & Co. We haven’t gotten the police line-up yet so it’s possible they’ll try to accuse Betty of the death of Jonathan or, if they end up working with Charles, the body from way back in season two.
Whatever ends up happening, I’m ready to have it all laid out in flashback with questions, incredulity, and ejaculations. No, not that kind. Ew. Get your head out of the gutter.
That about does it for now! What did you all think of the big reveal? Did you see it coming or was it a shock? What are your theories on how it was pulled off and what was in the Donna envelope? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you all in a week for the possible wrap up of this plot. Until then, keep faking your deaths Riverdale.
Best Line of the Night:
Cheryl: “I’m sorry I called Jughead a hobo that one time.”
Alice: “. . .Is that it?”
Cheryl (after a lengthy pause): “I’m really sorry I called Jughead a hobo that one time.”
