Tonight’s Riverdale had a slew of new surprises for viewers to take in — including the answer to one of this season’s biggest questions.
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Spoilers for tonight’s episode of Riverdale, “There Will Be Blood”, below!
The episode centered heavily around the dealings of the Lodge family, who were attempting to get Fred Andrews (Luke Perry) to run for city mayor. Simultaneously, Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) was investigating Hiram’s recent acquisitions around Riverdale, wondering exactly what he could be planning for the town.
Ultimately, Jughead was given a lead, when Smithers (Tom McBeath) tipped him off to Hiram visiting the Shankshaw prison (which, by the way, might be the least subtle name for a prison ever) and doing some sort of shady business. Jughead and FP (Skeet Ulrich) visited the prison, where they discovered the truth about Hiram, which Jughead quickly wrote up to publish in the Blue and Gold.
Hiram quickly realized that Jughead was going to expose him, and decided to get out in front of it and tell Fred and Archie (K.J. Apa) the truth. Ultimately, Jughead ultimately didn’t get to publish his story with Principal Weatherbee somewhat shooting it down. (By the way, this feels like a question for another day, but couldn’t Jughead have just published it online?)
But in the process, Fred and Archie were exposed to the truth — Hiram bought the land at Southside High to turn it into a for-profit prison, and the SoDale housing development will be where the prison’s employees live.
Fred quickly turned against the idea, explaining that he wouldn’t want to run for mayor and possibly allow this to happen. But Hiram clearly had another plan up their sleeve – he decided to run Hermione for mayor instead, and ended up having Archie swear fealty to the family through a blood oath (yes, really).
So, after spending all season wondering exactly what Hiram’s shady plans were for Riverdale, we’ve finally got the beginnings of an answer. But what could it mean going forward?
Well, it’s too early to tell, but there are plenty of (admittedly, kind of bleak) possibilities. The idea of transforming the small, quaint town into the setting of a prison is certainly a little bit darker than fans might’ve been expecting of Hiram (especially since, in the recent comics, his building developments mainly involve some sort of fancy apartments or shopping malls).
It also begs the question if the for-profit prison is somehow a small part of Hiram’s overall plan for Riverdale. And how exactly would the current residents of the town factor into that? Riverdale fans will just have to stay tuned to find out.
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
