Riverdale Finale Recap With Spoilers: The Kids Unite in “Killing Mr. Honey”

After heartwrenching goodbyes, surprising mysteries, and a lot of plot twists, Riverdale‘s fourth season has officially come to a close. The hit The CW series aired its season finale a little bit earlier than planned, after the current COVID-19 pandemic shut down production in March. While there’s definitely a lot of unanswered questions for the series going into the fifth season, it’s clear that the season ended on a pretty significant note. Here’s what you need to know about this week’s episode, “Chapter Seventy-Six: Killing Mr. Honey”. Obviously, spoilers for the episode lurk below! Only look if you want to know!

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Charles, Betty, and Jughead watch the Jason snuff film, and try to figure out what message the voyeur wants to send. Charles later calls Betty into his office, revealing that they also have a snuff film of Midge’s death during Carrie.

Jughead gets a call from someone at the University of Iowa, which wants to accept him — if he can come up with an additional story. Betty delivers a proof of the yearbook to Mr. Honey, but he says the yearbook isn’t going to end up happening because of an arbitrary deadline. She goes to the student lounge, where everyone complains about how Mr. Honey has treated him. Betty begins to fantasize about how they would “get rid” of Mr. Honey — by scaring him into leaving town. One by one, the students begin to suggest how they would help with the scheme. Reggie suggests that, instead, they do a senior prank — gluing him to his chair. Betty still thinks they should have killed him instead.

Jughead decides to use their conversation about “Killing Mr. Honey” as inspiration for his new story for Iowa. In the story, Honey loses his glasses, but still manages to correctly identify all of the kids who kidnapped him. Cheryl watches over Honey while the rest of the kids try to find the glasses, and argues that he’s the first common enemy that all of the Riverdale kids have had. Cheryl blackmails him into making a video absolving all of the kids of their crimes, but he refuses. Archie and Veronica go to watch over Honey, who has passed out on the floor. They determine that he’s dead. They then ducktape him to a chair and try to figure out how to hide his death — and Reggie is surprised to know that everyone has dealt with a dead body outside of him. They bury Honey in a shallow grave, and then turn to planning prom instead. Reggie begins to worry about the murder, and Kevin reveals that a search party is underway for Honey.

Reggie freaks out about the murder in the Bulldogs locker room, until Archie antagonizes him into keeping quiet. Reggie then dies, after the rest of the kids cut the brakes in his car and blame it on an accident. Veronica gets upset about how the rest of the kids treated Reggie.

In the real world, Honey returns to school after the prank with his chair, and cancels prom unless the pranksters come forward. The girls get upset about prom being canceled, and Archie and Betty decide on another option — research Honey’s weakness, and try to exploit him. Betty discovers that Honey has canceled prom at every school he’s been to, which she then relays to the other kids — who then relay it to their parents. The parents then storm Riverdale High and confront Honey, and threaten to ruin his life if he doesn’t reinstate prom. Honey decides to meet with the adults (and Cheryl, as student body president) privately about it. They ultimately make it to Pop’s, where Cheryl announces that prom has been reinstated. The parents tell all of the kids how proud they are of them.

A videotape is delivered to Honey, which appears to ominously tour entirely through Riverdale High. Honey decides to put the school on alert and cancel prom, and Betty, Charles, and Jughead speculate about what it means. Betty decides to watch the video minute by minute, and sees a reflection of a person in the video — who certainly looks like Mr. Honey. Betty, Charles, and Jughead confront him for being a copycat — which he admits to, but under the guise of protecting them.

Honey resigns from being principal, and dramatically leaves Riverdale High with all of his belongings. The kids confront him, and he reveals that he’s going to leave and be Stonewall’s new headmaster. The receptionist tells the kids that Honey was better than he’d seemed, and gives Jughead a letter that Honey was planning to send to the University of Iowa.

Jughead eventually opens the letter, and it makes him realize that he needs to change his story. In the new version of the story, Veronica and Archie call 911 and try to save Honey, and he ends up in the hospital.

Jughead and Betty get a new video — of Veronica’s cabin, where the fictionalized murder of Honey would have taken place. They visit the cabin and find it filled with trash and a makeshift film projector. They find a TV with a VCR inside, which shows people in masks stabbing Mr. Honey to death.

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Riverdale has been renewed for a fifth season.