In the ‘Riverdale’ recap, Archie goes hunting for the people out to sabotage his dad’s business while Polly tries to find a home between the Coopers and the Blossoms…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It’s only been two weeks since ‘Riverdale’ was on with a new episode but it feels like a lot more time has passed since we caught up with Archie and the rest of his cast of characters so let’s review.
Polly Cooper has been found and she’s carrying Jason Blossom’s child, which caught her in a tug of war between her and Jason’s family. It ended with Polly staying at the Lodge’s apartment while she figured out if either the Cooper’s or the Blossom’s actually cared enough about her to take care of both mother and child.
Meanwhile, Fred Andrews “won” a bid to do the construction on the old site of the drive-in while never knowing that he was handed the job by his new love interest Hermoine Lodge after she fudged some paperwork at the same time as she’s keeping it a secret that her husband Hiram is the one who actually purchased the land.
And in the final scenes of the last episode that aired, we discovered that F.P. Jones aka Jughead’s father and member of the notorious Southside Serpents, was actually holding onto Jason Blossom’s letterman’s jacket that was supposedly burned up when his car was set on fire a few weeks ago.
All caught up?
With that let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Riverdale’ titled ‘The Outsiders’…
Crumbling Foundations
As much as Fred Andrews wants to celebrate the bid to do the construction on the old Riverdale drive-in that basically saved his business from going under, that job had a lot more strings attached than he ever possibly realized.
On the first day of the job, Fred is confronted by his foreman who tells him that the entire crew has been hired away by Cliff Blossom with a minimum two-year contract that will keep them busy, working and paid. An offer like that is just too sweet to pass up and Fred has to say goodbye to his entire team.
With no one to work for him, Fred is now in danger of losing the bid if his construction on the site falls behind.
Fred confronts Cliff Blossom, who tells him that the land was supposed to be sold to him until a mysterious third party swooped in from out of nowhere to purchase the property instead. His hope is now to drive Fred off the land and force the entire site into foreclosure, which would then allow him to buy the property at pennies on the dollar. If it just so happens that Fred goes out of business, well that’s just too bad.
Watching his dad twist in the wind forces Archie to charge into action as he grabs up all his buff friends from school and they volunteer to help out on the job site until he can find a new crew to do the work. Everybody pitches in to start the construction job but the problems persist at the end of the day when Moose gets jumped by a couple of thugs after they take pipes to the generator powering the entire site.
Considering the drive-in used to be a hangout for the Southside Serpents, Archie and the gang start to wonder if they didn’t come back for retribution and that’s who assaulted Moose to send a strong message to his father.
Archie decides to take matters into his own hands with some help from Kevin Keller’s boyfriend Joaquin, who happens to be a junior member of the serpents. He rounds up Moose and a couple of others to stake out the bar where the serpents hang out in hopes that they could identify the people who crashed the site.
Sadly, when Archie asks Jughead to join him he politely declines due to the inside knowledge that his father is the leader of the Southside Serpents, but because he doesn’t disclose that information his friend just thinks he’s not going to be there when he needs him most.
Rosemary’s Shower
With Polly back in Riverdale, the police finally have a chance to question her about what was happening with Jason just before his death.
She confirms that Jason had gotten mixed up with the Southside Serpents as a drug mule to make a big score of cash so they could escape town and get away from their parents. Unfortunately, she never got the chance to meet him because her parents locked her away and he never made it to the drug buy because somebody killed him.
Clearly, Polly is down in the dumps considering everything that’s been happening so Betty decides that putting on a baby shower might be a great pick me up. Not to mention Betty hopes that the baby shower could potentially reunite her family as well as make things a little less hostile between the Coopers and the Blossoms.
While it takes some convincing to get everyone on board, Alice Cooper and Penelope Blossom both agree to make an appearance to support Polly in her time of need. The kind gesture even convinces Polly to name Betty as her child’s godmother in case anything ever happens to her.
The party is going as well as could be expected including some thoughtful gift giving from both sets of future grandparents, as well as a prediction from Nana Rose telling her would be granddaughter-in-law that she’s going to have twins, but when Penelope mentions that Polly would be much more comfortable living at Thornhill with the Blossom family, it sends Alice Cooper into a rage.
The two mothers start sparring in the middle of the party until Polly finally erupts and blames both of them for being locked in this situation in the first place. Alice Cooper didn’t want her to have this child and the Blossom’s were so cruel to Jason that he wanted to get away from them forever.
Afterwards, Alice talks to her daughter and that’s when Polly drops another bombshell when she reveals that her father, Hal Cooper, tried to convince her to have an abortion as soon as he found out she was pregnant. Of course, Hal failed to tell his wife any of this so needless to say Alice is not happy.
When she confronts him about it, Hal tells her that there was no way in hell any daughter of his was going to have a baby with Blossom blood in it. The argument boils over as Alice tells Hal to get out of the house and don’t come back. Hal’s exodus will hopefully convince Polly to come home where she belongs, but Alice’s plan backfires.
In the end, Polly shows up at the doorstep at Thornhill where she’s greeted by Cliff and Penelope Blossom, who welcome her with opens arms and a lavish home to provide for her — at least until the baby is born.
Snake Bitten
Archie, Moose, Kevin and Joaquin go to the dive bar where the Southside Serpents call home in an effort to identify the men responsible for trashing his father’s construction site. When they get inside, Archie tries to play it cool but when Moose thinks he might have spotted one of the guys who attacked him, the red-headed wonder goes after him like a bull in a china shop.
Just when Archie is about to get punched, F.P. Jones emerges from upstairs and tells his guys to take it easy. Spotting F.P. in the Serpent’s cut lets Archie know that Jughead’s father runs with the biker gang and that also explains why his friend didn’t want to come along with them tonight.
F.P. takes Archie and the others outside while also denying that he had anything to do with the incident at the construction site. A few seconds later, Fred shows up because F.P. called him the second he saw Archie walk into the bar. F.P. tells Fred the same thing that the Southside Serpents played no part in assaulting Moose or trashing his site — and don’t forget they were the ones hired by Hiram Lodge in the first place to drive down the value of the drive-in so clearly they wouldn’t be the people irritated that it got torn down.
Before Fred can take Archie home, he bolts for the baby shower where he confronts Jughead and reveals that his father is a member of the Serpents. Of course nobody knew that information, especially not Archie or Jughead’s new girlfriend Betty. Archie storms off in anger that his best friend lied to him about something so important.
Now that the secret is out about F.P. but more importantly confirmation from Polly that Jason was dealing drugs for the Serpents it sends Jughead and Betty to his father’s trailer looking for answers.
F.P. admits that they hired Jason as a one time mule to carry the drugs because no one would ever suspect the star quarterback of Riverdale High would be carrying anything. Unfortunately he never made it to the destination and F.P. claims that they just thought he left with the drugs until he turned up dead days later. F.P. also promises that he had nothing to do with Jason’s death.
Jughead and Betty do manage to mention to F.P. that Polly told the cops about the Serpents’ drug operation, which will soon bring the heat down on them. After leaving the trailer, Jughead tells Betty that he believes his dad had nothing to do with Jason’s death and she stands by his side.
Back at the Andrews’ residence, Archie and Jughead come to an understanding because it was clear he was embarrassed that his father was a member of the most notorious biker gang in town.
As much as Jughead wants his faith restored in his dead, F.P. isn’t making things very easy after we discover that he’s holding onto Jason’s letterman jacket as “insurance” if the cops get too close to their operation. He hands over that evidence to Joaquin, who is in charge of stashing it somewhere safe. F.P. also reveals that Joaquin was a plant with Kevin Keller to keep someone close to the chief of police in town. Of course, Joaquin is starting to feel a little guilty about the whole arrangement because Kevin clearly has feelings for him, but F.P. reminds him that everybody has a part to play and this is his.
As shady as F.P. continues to be, the next day at the Andrews construction site with no one to work, he shows up with an entire crew of the Serpents who agree to take on jobs with him. Fred is thankful for the helping hand as F.P. takes over as foreman with the Serpents now serving as security on the job site to make sure nothing else goes awry.
Before starting his day, F.P. pulls Hermoine to the side to give her some information.
He did some digging and found out that the guys who roughed up Moose and tried to trash Fred’s construction site were from Montreal — the same place where her husband Hiram did a lot of business before going to prison. It seems someone told Hiram Lodge that his wife has been sneaking around with Fred Andrews and the beat down was a message that he sees all even if he’s far away behind bars.
Somebody with loose lips has been talking about Hermoine’s loose lips and it’s getting everybody into trouble.
SOUNDTRACK
“You Don’t Own Me” by Grace and G-Eazy
“Into the Black” by Chromatics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w8fQ90hBP4
‘Riverdale’ returns with a brand new episode next Thursday night at 9pm ET on the CW.
