Riverdale Recap With Spoilers: Jughead’s Death Gets More Complicated in “How to Get Away With Murder”

Riverdale fans have waited half a season to see how its most-recent mystery – the apparent death of Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) – plays out. The series’ most recent episode caught up to that fateful night, and it’s safe to say that things look pretty dire for Riverdale’s beanie-wearing weirdo. So, where will things go from here? And exactly how culpable are the rest of the Core Four – Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart), Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), and Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) – in what might have happened? Here’s what you need to know about this week’s episode, “Chapter Seventy-One: How to Get Away With Murder.” Obviously, spoilers below! Only look if you want to know!

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Betty, Veronica, and Archie stand in front of the fire in their underwear, as they did in the season finale. They all return home, but give different alibis for where they were to their parents. Betty returns to her room and gets nauseous. The next day, the three of them meet at Pop’s, and talk about the fact that they’d called Charles the night before. Betty argues that the Stonewall Prep kids are trying to frame her for murder, and that they need to pretend that everything is normal.

Archie and Veronica meet to talk about what happened, and Veronica argues that Betty’s incident with Chuck Clayton means she could’ve blacked out and killed Jughead.

Betty calls F.P. and reads off of a script, saying that she hasn’t heard from Jughead since the party. Charles watches over her, and gives her a bug to plant in Stonewall. She meets with Donna and Brett at Stonewall, who argue that Betty blacked out and didn’t remember what happened.

Betty meets with Evelyn in prison. Evelyn confirms that Donna came to visit her, and taunts Betty about having killed Jughead. She visits Charles at his office, where he hasn’t heard anything incriminating off of the bug Betty planted.

Betty convinces Archie to go to Stonewall and fight Brett, who continues to claim that Betty committed the murder. Once Archie leaves, Brett and Donna acknowledge the bug Betty planted, leaving Betty and Charles at square one.

Betty goes home and is confronted by F.P. and Alice, who tracked Jughead’s phone to her pocket. She gives an excuse, and then suggests that they declare Jughead is a missing person. Later, she meets with Archie and Veronica, and suggests that the Stonewall kids planted the phone on her.

Betty gets a call from F.P. about a bloody rock found in the woods, which she thinks the Stonewall kids planted. Betty decides to make a replica using fake blood, which Charles swaps out for the real rock and sends off to Quantico for “testing”.

Veronica thinks that the Stonewall kids are trying to sabotage her getting into college, and decides to confront Betty about everything that happened. Betty admits that she blacked out during Jughead’s murder, because Donna gave her a trigger word. Veronica suggests they have Charles safely use the trigger word on Betty, so she can potentially figure out what she did to Jughead. Charles conducts the exercise, and Betty gets brought back to the night — and realizes that Donna blew a white powder at her face to make her black out. Charles determines what the powder was — and that Betty couldn’t have committed murder while under the influence of it.

Betty meets with Donna in the woods, who accuses Betty of coming up with an elaborate cover-up. Betty meets with Archie and Veronica, and argues that they need to do something unpredictable — organize a search party. They do exactly that, and Archie leads F.P. to Jughead’s body. Betty is taken to the morgue, where she and F.P. correctly identify Jughead.

Betty meets with Donna again, and argues again that Donna really killed Jughead. Betty says there’s no way for them to predict what she’s going to go next, and that she’s going to get revenge on her by any means necessary.

Betty, Archie, and Veronica meet at Pop’s, and determine that the prep kids are scared. They decide to wait for them to make the next move.

Other tidbits from the episode include:

• Archie returns home to find Mary meeting with the college advisor, Brooke, who wants to help Archie get into the Naval academy. Later, Mary apologizes to Archie for suggesting the Naval academy too quickly. She reveals that Brooke has actually become her girlfriend in the months since Fred died. After Jughead’s body is found, Mary tries to comfort Archie about what happened, but he decides to confess something to her instead.
• Veronica returns home, where the rest of the Lodge family is updating Hiram’s will. Veronica is still upset that Hiram didn’t tell her he was dying, and rips up the will. Later, Hiram apologizes for not telling her he’s dying, and says it’s because he didn’t want her to see him as weak. Veronica and Hermosa offer to take charge of Hiram’s estate, which he agrees to. Hermosa suspects that Veronica isn’t telling the truth about her college, but she tells her to back off.

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Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.