There’s only one more episode of Riverdale in the Archie Comics adaptation’s first season — and it’s less than 24 hours away.
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Last week might have solved the question of who killed Jason Blossom, but it left plenty un-answered, and set up a lot of things that will be addressed either tonight, or as the acclaimed mystery-drama heads into its second season.
What do we hope to find out tomorrow night?
Read on…!
Archie (KJ Apa) and Veronica (Camila Mendes) continue to grow closer.Betty (Lili Reinhart) is tired of her family acting as if nothing has happened and confronts her mother.Jughead (Cole Sprouse) finds himself in an unexpected situation, leaving Archie and the gang scrambling.Hermione (Marisol Nichols) makes Fred (Luke Perry) an offer that seems too good to be true.Meanwhile, the truth about Blossom’s family business is revealed leaving Cheryl (Madelain Petsch) to take matters into her own hands. Madchen Amick and Ashleigh Murray also star.
Lee Toland Krieger directed the episode written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.
Riverdale stars KJ Apa as Archie, Cole Sprouse as Jughead, Lili Reinhart as Betty Cooper, Camilla Mendes as Veronica Lodge, and Luke Perry as Archie’s father Fred Andrews, among others. The series’ showrunner is Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Archie Entertainment’s Chief Creative Officer and the writer of Afterlife With Archie, the publisher’s wildly popular zombie series.
More Riverdale news:
- Archie Performs With Josie And The Pussycats In Riverdale Season Finale Clip
- How Will Incest Revelation Impact Riverdale?
- Riverdale: The Movies That Inspired Season 1
- Riverdale: How Will Cheryl React To Learning [SPOILER] Killed Jason Blossom?
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch Easter Egg Revealed in the Riverdale Finale
WHY?
Now that we know who killed Jason Blossom, as Jughead pointed out in last week’s narration, the real question is why. Unfortunately, that’s an answer Clifford Blossom may have taken with him to the grave.
This is a question we don’t expect the Riverdale finale to answer: it seems more likely it will help propel the narrative forward going into season 2. Still, it would be nice to get a nice, tidy bow on top of the Jason Blossom story.
WHY FP?
It seems likely that Clifford Blossom was spooked by what Polly and Cheryl found while investigating the Blossoms, leading him to frame FP Jones for the murder. And given how quickly and effectively that was done, it seems likely FP was always his backup plan.
(It also seems plausible FP already knew this, and was prepared for it with the jacket and the surveillance video, his own backup plan.)
How did all of that come together? Was FP always a knowing patsy, and the threats against his son merely used because Clifford found out about the jacket?
Was implicating Jughead earlier in the season an earlier move to make this happen, or was it just something being used to make FP more pliable? Or neither?
WHO PLANTED THE EVIDENCE?
Plenty of people are asking how Clifford Blossom got in to talk to FP in the jail and let him know that he had to confess or Jughead was in danger; we’re not concerned about that one. After all, we were told early in the season that “Sheriff Keller answers to a higher power than God: The Blossoms.”
No, what we’re wondering is who planted the evidence on FP. Was it Keller himself? One of his deputies? One of the Serpents? Given how much they seem to prize loyalty, betraying one of their own like that is probably a very bad idea for anybody who might get caught.
Somebody had to have access to FP’s apartment — either in the very narrow window between when Archie and Veronica left and the arrival of the cops, or else DURING the police raid on FP’s residence.
But that lockbox was a pretty decent size; it would be difficult to imagine one of the deputies sneaking something that size into the room unnoticed, which suggests that it happened either before the police arrived…or it was Sheriff Keller, someone that none of the deputies would question.
The Keller theory may jive with the idea that Keller had something to do with alerting the Serpents so that the car could be burned — after all, somebody managed to do that between when Betty & Jughead alerted Keller and when they led him to the car. He was also pretty keen to pin it all on Jughead and walk away the next week, right up until Fred falsified testimony to exonerate Jug.
(Also, who thinks that is going to come up again, with Keller talking about pressing all manner of charges against FP? Speaking of which…)
WHAT HAPPENS TO JUGHEAD?
What’s going to happen with Jughead now?
While TV logic tends to dictate that being blackmailed by the murderer was enough to get FP out of jail, Sheriff Keller indicated to Archie last week that he planned to throw the book at Jones for everything he could think of, including obstructing his investigation, tampering with the body, and more.
We already know that Jughead’s mom didn’t really want him to come stay with her and Jelly Bean in Ohio…but she didn’t know at the time that her ex-husband was in jail for murder. Now that it seems likely some of these charges will stick and he won’t be back on the street next week, what does that mean for Jughead?
Fred seemed reluctant to take on custody of Jug when it looked like FP was the killer, so who’s to say that he’d be any more willing now — assuming, of course, that Jughead’s mom would even be up for that?
HOW DOES ANYONE MOVE ON FROM HERE?
There are a lot of relationships that are going to be fundamentally changed by the revelation that Clifford was the killer, by his suicide and apparent confession that he had been dealing drugs in the maple syrup, and by the realization that Hal, Polly, and Betty are Blossoms by blood.
Will the Coopers suddenly come under the scrutiny of the Blossom board as potential successors to Clifford Blossom, now that Jason is gone and Cheryl has been established as too unstable for them?
Will it change Cheryl — who lives and dies by her family name — at all to know that she has blood relatives of whom she was previously unaware?
Before he died, Penelope took Cheryl into the barn and showed her the “secret” of the family business — and after that door closed, it cut away. So was it really a deathbed confession by Clifford that put that out into the world, or was that something Penelope did?
That asked — is it possible Penelope and/or Cheryl was responsible for Clifford’s death? It looks like a suicide, but those are two cutthroat women and he took away the only thing either of them really valued in the world.
Those drugs — does that explain the payments between Blossom and Lodge? Have they been in unsavory business together for years?
