Now that Riverdale is back from midseason hiatus, there’s really no indication of how over-the-top things could go. The beloved The CW series has quite a lot going on in its fourth season, and this week’s episode was certainly no exception. Here’s what you need to know about what happened in this week’s episode, “Chapter Sixty-Eight: Quiz Show”.
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Betty frantically prepares for Riverdale’s place in the “quiz show” tournament, hoping to beat Stonewall’s team — and, by extension, Brett. Betty visits Jughead at Stonewall and they have sex, and Jughead unintentionally reveals to Betty that he got accepted to Yale. When Betty leaves, Brett tells her that he’s also gotten accepted to Yale — and threatens to beat them in the quiz show finals.
DuPont tells Jughead that the Baxter Brothers committee wants him to come up with a different mystery for his book — potentially one around a serial killer. Instead of drawing from his personal story of the Black Hood, Jughead asks Charles for files on worse serial killers. Jughead meets with the committee, who reject his ideas — until he begins to suggest something loosely inspired by The Black Hood, a serial killer called The Brown Hood.
Riverdale High’s team does well in the semifinals. During an intermission, Betty pulls Charles aside and asks for advice — both on Brett, and on not getting accepted to Yale. Charles finds dirt on Brett – that his father paid for him to get good test scores. Brett mentions that Jughead is writing the Brown Hood story, which makes her upset. She accuses him of lying about her about everything, and of using Stonewall to elevate his own privilege.
Charles later tells Betty that she was turned down from Yale because of her ties to the Black Hood, and the bad press it could potentially cause. Betty visits Hal’s grave, upset that he’s still torturing her even from the afterlife. She takes a sickle to his gravesite, smashing it to pieces. Alice arrives and comforts her. Jughead confronts Brett about telling Betty, and he claims it was just to get an upper hand in the quiz show contest. Jughead visits Betty and offers to help her get into Yale.
At the Quiz Show finals, Jughead introduces Betty to his Yale recruiter, and that she’ll get another shot at admission if she wins the contest. Alice tells Betty she left a present for her in the green room — a list of questions and answers for the Quiz Show. Betty doesn’t look at the answers, and the contest goes on, with both Riverdale and Stonewall being tied. Brett loses the final question, which Betty gets right, leading to them winning the contest. After the contest, Betty reveals to Alice that she didn’t actually look at the answers.
At school, Betty is applauded for winning the Quiz Show — only for Mr. Honey to accuse her of cheating anyway. Betty comes home and tells Alice – who has also been fired for lending her the answers – what happened. The victory has been turned over to Stonewall, and Betty is now suspended. Jughead confronts Brett about what happened, and challenges him to an old-fashioned duel.
In a flashback to four weeks later, Betty meets with Archie at Pop’s. She tells him that Jughead is “never” coming back, and she doesn’t know what to do.
Other tidbits from the episode include:
- Veronica and Cheryl bring their maple rum to the school science teacher, asking him to confirm that it’s different enough from Lodge Rum. They bring their findings to Hiram, proving that he legally can’t sue them anymore. Later, they suggest reopening the speakeasy as a dance club — where they also secretly run their rum business. They run the dance club, but Hiram quickly issues a raid on the building. He finds their secret stash of rum, and destroys it. Cheryl suggests that they continue to keep the former speakeasy a night club, and run the rum business out of her mom’s former brothel. Veronica questions if they’re stretching themselves too thin, which leads them to enlist Penelope to help. They run the new brothel as a social club without a hitch – and put Penelope on house arrest and in a mask to run it while they’re at school.
- Frank gets anxious about beginning his job at Andrews Construction. Archie gives him Fred’s toolbelt, which he eventually accepts. Tom Keller pulls Archie aside at the construction company, and argues that Frank might not be able to be trusted. Later in the day, Tom tells Archie that the construction company’s finances are bad. Archie goes home to see Frank and the other guys drinking beer and telling stories. He asks about the finances, but Frank brushes it off. The next day, Tom offers the company a job with Hiram’s prison, but Archie wants to turn it down. Later, one of the other workers asks Archie about turning down the prison job, and says that everyone is on the verge of quitting over it.
- A fight breaks out between Tom and Frank. Frank later reveals to Archie that he has been gambling away the company’s money, as a way to potentially pay the Christmas bonuses. Frank manages to get the bonus money, but Archie still confronts him for stealing it to begin with. Archie asks Tom to come back to the company, but he turns it down.
- Fangs apologizes to Kevin for what happened to both of them under Edgar. Kevin accepts it, but immediately goes on an Internet date – or really, a hookup – with another guy. The guy asks Kevin if he’s interested in getting into the competitive endurance tickling community, and he reluctantly accepts. They decide to make a video, and Kevin realizes it might not need to be a one-time thing. Kevin reaches out to Fangs about joining him in a video.
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Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
