In the ‘Riverdale’ recap, Archie finds out some disturbing news while Betty campaigns to save Pop’s from shutting down…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The whodunit murder of Jason Blossom dominated ‘Riverdale’ season one so it only makes sense that the ante would get upped with a full blown serial killer on the loose during season two.
The shooting of Fred Andrews that no one seems to believe was just a random act of violence has now been followed up by the murder of former Riverdale High teacher Ms. Grundy. In the latest episode titled ‘Nighthawks’, two more Riverdale students are gunned down by the same assailant so the body count is only growing with each passing week.
What’s not clear, however, is what motive lies behind these gruesome murders with only Archie Andrews truly believing everything is connected. Sadly, Archie’s mind is in a fragile and sleep deprived state these days after pledging to personally protect his father while storming a vendetta of his own to stop the murderer should he ever try to kill again.
Archie’s problems are only compounded by episode end with a deadly combination being added to an already volatile mix in his mind.
Elsewhere this week, Betty goes on a personal crusade to save Pop’s Chock-Lit-Shoppe, which has been struggling ever since Fred Andrews was gunned down in broad daylight, but it’s going to require her to go dark again to get things done.
As for Veronica, she’s trying to re-adjust to life now that her father is out of prison while Jughead is trying to stop his own father from going to jail for the next 20 years.
All this and plenty more as we recap the latest episode of ‘Riverdale’ titled ‘Chapter Fifteen: Nighthawks’….
Dream Warrior
Ever since Fred Andrews returned home from the hospital, Archie has been standing vigil by stalking the bottom floor of their house armed with a baseball bat just waiting for the assailant who shot his father to return to finish the job. Of course, Archie has been so determined to beat down the criminal that he’s been forced to swill down energy drinks at 7 o’clock in the morning before school.
His day starts with a trip to the police station where he’s badgering Sheriff Keller for the latest leads on his father’s shooting. Archie has even started handing out ‘have you seen this man?’ flyers with nothing but a hooded man drawn on the picture. Either Archie is depending on the world’s worst description to catch a potential killer or he’s so sleep deprived that he thinks someone will differentiate between people wearing ski masks in town.
It’s not lost on his friends either that Archie hasn’t been himself these past few days as he’s given up sleep for the sake of watching over his dad. Even Betty still leers through Archie’s window from time to time and she’s noticed that he’s no longer even staying in his own bedroom.
While Veronica suggests perhaps a visit with the school counselor might help Archie put things back into order in his life, he’s more interested in a permanent solution to help him stay awake to battle the boogeyman that’s been haunting his dreams ever since his dad was shot. That leads Archie to a visit to his old pal Reggie, who apparently is the new drug dealer in town.
Reggie is not only handing out uppers, but he’s dishing a new drug called ‘Jingle-Jangle’ to all the kids in school. The drug gives you a jolt of adrenaline and apparently a shot somewhere downstairs as well and he’s selling it to a lot of the kids around Riverdale High including Moose and his new girlfriend Midge…there’s a reason for mentioning these two fairly secondary characters but we’ll get to that later.
Archie also approaches Reggie about getting his hands on some Jingle-Jangle, which results in his biggest rival showing up at his house wearing a ski mask as a prank — because that’s a good idea — before handing over the drugs that will keep Riverdale High’s resident jock/poet awake for days at a time without blinking.
Archie’s paranoia about the person coming after his father is only compounded when news is released at school that former teacher — and his former lover — Ms. Grundy has been strangled and killed at her new home just one town over in Greendale. She was strangled with a cello bow — the same one that Archie gifted her before she was run out of town.
Of course, Archie is convinced this ties back to his father’s shooting and that Ms. Grundy was targeted because of her connection to him. He then turns to Betty’s mother Alice Cooper to do some digging on the cause of death to find out what exactly happened on the night of Ms. Grundy’s murder.
Alice investigates by paying off the coroner and returns to tell Archie that proof exists that this was a crime of passion. There were no signs of forced entry at Ms. Grundy’s house and the cello bow being used was a sign that the killer was likely knew her as he attacked the music teacher with something so personal to her.
Archie tries to blame Grundy’s ex-husband, who she confided in him was a violent man, which led to her move to Riverdale in the first place but Sheriff Keller immediately rules him out as a suspect thanks to an air tight alibi. Still, Archie is uneasy about Ms. Grundy’s killing so close to his father’s own shooting, but everything points to her death not being connected to what happened at Pop’s just a few days ago.
By the end of the episode, however, Archie might have a new reason to believe that this killer is targeting him and anyone he touches in life.
Snake Charmer
While Archie is dealing with the fallout from his father’s shooting, Jughead is trying to reconcile with his own dad facing multiple years in prison for his part in covering up Jason Blossom’s murder. With Clifford Blossom taking his own life, Jughead believes that the legal system is trying to make an example out of F.P. so that someone gets punished for Jason’s death.
Sadly, F.P.’s court appointed lawyer can only off a plea deal that will see him in jail for the next 20 years. That doesn’t sit well with Jughead so he turns to his new family at the Southside Serpents for advice on how to help his father.
At first, Jughead suggests a jail break but his new Serpent pal turns him towards a friend of the motorcycle club to help with F.P.’s plight. She’s called a ‘snake charmer’ and her name is Penny Peabody.
It seems Ms. Peabody was sent to law school on the Serpent’s dime so she could help them out of any legal entanglements, which there are plenty these days, so she remains on a permanent retainer to help them whenever the time comes that they need it. Jughead pays her a visit and Penny can’t offer her legal services but she does give him some advice on how to help his father avoid a lengthy jail sentence.
She suggests if the victim’s family can forgive F.P. for his actions in open court that might lead the judge to offer him a lesser sentence or perhaps even give him time served considering the fact that he’s already been sitting in jail for quite some time.
Unfortunately, Jughead and Betty’s request is quickly shot down when they pay a visit to Cheryl and her invalid mother as they are now staying in the greenhouse next door to the burnt down Thorn Hill residence. Cheryl and Penelope both bristle at the idea of helping F.P. escape the charges and Jughead leaves disappointed that his father is probably going to spend the next two decades behind bars.
That’s when Betty has an idea of her own to help Jughead’s dad.
She confronts Cheryl in the locker room — and threatens to release the video of her father shooting her brother dead. See Cheryl and her mother are just looking for closure in this case so they can stop having the Blossom named dragged through the mud, but the video surfacing of her father killing her brother would only lead to irreparable harm to the family name.
Cheryl agrees to testify in open court for F.P.’s benefit if Betty agrees to hand over the video and all the copies she’s made since the original fell into her hands.
The blackmail scheme works as Cheryl puts on a performance of a lifetime in front of the judge offering forgiveness for F.P.’s crimes. When the judges says that still doesn’t excuse what’s been done, Cheryl then cooks up one more lie to perjure herself on the stand by saying she overheard her father threaten to hurt Jughead if F.P. didn’t comply with his every order.
That’s enough for the judge to suggest that the prosecution look at a new plea deal for F.P. Jones and Jughead is elated that his father might get to come home sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, Jughead gets a call from his dad later that night in a frantic state after learning that his son went to the ‘snake charmer’ for help. Jughead informs his dad that he didn’t pay her any money but instead she just said that she might call upon him for a favor in the future.
F.P. seems more scared than ever now that his son owes this snake charmer a favor because Penny Peabody is nothing but bad news and her help comes at such a high cost that it appears he would have rather rotted in jail for the next 20 years than to see Jughead under her thumb right now.
Daddy’s Girl
The return of Hiram Lodge hasn’t exactly sat well with his daughter Veronica, who was convinced that her father was the devil incarnate after all the misdeeds she learned about him during the first season while he was locked up in jail. Hiram is now home again but Veronica has been brushing him off at every turn, instead focusing her attention on Archie, the River Vixens and any other excuse she might find to leave the house early in the morning and then not to return until well after dinner time.
Hiram does his best to reconnect with his daughter, buts she’s not having any of it. She had the wool pulled over her eyes for too many years and now that his secrets have been exposed, Veronica refuses to no longer acknowledge that her father was a special kind of monster.
During one family dinner, Veronica even lashes out by revealing the letter she received from her father’s lawyer with a not so subtle threat that if she didn’t testify on his behalf that he might be forced to reveal her mother’s connections to his criminal dealings as well. Veronica ultimately complied but she shows the letter hoping that her mother Hermoine will realize what kind of person she married.
That’s when Hermoine reveals that she’s the one who wrote the letter to convince Veronica to do the right thing for her father. Of course, she’s stunned that her mother would go to such depths, but Hermoine did forge her signature on documents a season ago so she’s not all that surprised. It turns out, however, that Hermoine was covering up for Hiram because he absolutely wrote that letter. She took the blame so that Hiram’s already fractured relationship with his daughter wouldn’t shatter into a million pieces.
Meanwhile, Pop’s Chock-Lit-Shoppe is on the verge of closing after the shooting of Fred Andrews. His staff all quit and times are so tight that Pop is considering either shuttering the doors or selling off to an anonymous bidder willing to take the place off his hands.
That infuriates Betty to no end so she makes it her personal mission to save their favorite hangout. She attempts to get help from the mayor, but she quickly shoots down that idea in favor of Pop’s closing for good. That’s when Betty turns to a fundraiser to help Pop keep his business.
She pulls in all of her friends to help out as servers, cooks and waitresses and then coaxes the River Vixens into a performance at the restaurant along with Josie and the Pussycats — with Cheryl Blossom filling in for one missing pussycat — where they do a rendition of “Milkshake” to a packed house at the Chock-Lit-Shoppe.
Even Archie shows up to give his support even though he’s still clearly haunted by the place after watching his father get shot.
Alice Cooper is also there to enjoy one more root beer float but she can’t help but notice all the nefarious activities taking place in and around Pop’s. She witnesses the arrival of the Southside Serpents into the restaurant as they’ve crossed over the tracks and seemingly staked a claim on the north side as well and she sees Reggie dealing drugs out of his car.
Still in the end, Pop is able to save his restaurant thanks to a generous donation from Hiram Lodge, which helps pave the way for a reunion with his daughter as she decides to give their family one more chance after seeing her father commit such a selfless act. Sadly, Hiram later reveals that he actually bought the place and opted to leave Pop as the manager of the restaurant that he no longer owns.
When the Lodge family arrives home, Veronica discovers that her favorite doorman Smithers is no longer there — he’s gone home to care for an ailing parent but in reality we’re not quite sure what happened to him. Smithers didn’t exactly speak glowing praises about Hiram and he overheard a conversation with Veronica that may have cost him a job and perhaps his life as well.
And finally, Betty hands over the video of Jason’s murder to his sister as Cheryl proclaims that the seemingly sweet Ms. Cooper is actually a stone cold bitch. Betty smirks because Cheryl has no idea just how dark she can go when it’s time to get what she wants.
Things that Go Bump in the Night
Archie still isn’t sold that the killer who went after Ms. Grundy isn’t somehow connected back to his father’s shooting and that’s going to keep him on high alert for days. With a pocket full of Jingle-Jangle courtesy of Reggie, Archie is ready for his all night shift but if he’s going to face off with a gun toting murderer, he needs more than a baseball bat for protection.
That’s when Archie meets up with Dilton Doiley — the gun obsessed scout leader from a season ago — who shows up with a backpack full of hardware. Archie picks out his favorite gun and promises that he’s just getting this to protect his father from the killer.
There’s no chance this ends well.
Unfortunately, Archie’s suspicions about the crimes being connected will only multiply after he finds out about the final scene in this week’s episode as Moose and Midge are sitting alone in a car, taking hits of Jingle-Jangle and preparing for an epic make out session when the masked assailant shows up at the window and fires his weapon multiple times, presumably killing them both.
Archie will undoubtedly be shaken to his core with this latest news and now it’s clear more than ever before that Riverdale has a serial killer on its hands.
SOUNDTRACK:
“Milkshake” by Josie and and the Pussycats (cover of the track by Kelis)
“Season of the Witch” by Donovan
“No Sleep” by Snow Culture
“Lights Out” by Royal Blood
‘Riverdale’ returns with a brand new episode next Wednesday night at 8pm ET on the CW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxPLuVEkOVE&feature=em-uploademail
