In the ‘Riverdale’ recap, Betty throws a birthday party for Jughead with disastrous consequences while Archie and Veronica get much closer…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Secrets rarely stay hidden forever, especially in a town as small as Riverdale.
The latest episode titled ‘The Lost Weekend’ saw a lot of skeletons in the closet get exposed during a disastrous birthday party thrown for Jughead Jones, who wanted nothing more than to spend the evening with his girlfriend watching a John Landis double feature.
Instead thanks to Cheryl Blossom and Chuck Clayton — the creep ex-football douche who got tossed off the team for slut shaming girls all over Riverdale high — who decided to take out their vengeance on Betty and Veronica while invading Jughead’s unwanted party.
Away from the party this week, Veronica finds out just how vindictive her father can be while questions are raised about her mother’s role in his crimes.
And finally, Archie is faced with his parents divorce two years after his mother decided she no longer wanted to live in Riverdale but his father wasn’t about to leave his hometown. Now they are separating for good but Archie can’t quite accept that he’s really part of a broken home.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Riverdale’ titled ‘The Lost Weekend’…
They Say It’s Your Birthday
This week celebrates Jughead Jones’ birthday except that’s one personal holiday he’d rather everybody forget. As Fred Andrews prepares to leave for a trip, he laments about missing Jughead’s birthday but the crown-cap wearing outsider would rather not even acknowledge the day let alone have anyone remind him about it.
Fred is leaving town to finalize his divorce from Archie’s mom, who left town two years ago but they’ve left things unsettled until now. As much as he wants his dad to be happy, Archie still longs for his parents to work things out and get back together. Of course, Archie is projecting because most of his friends come from splintered homes not to mention his own relationship status has been “it’s complicated” all season long.
Meanwhile, Hiram Lodge’s trial is coming up soon and his attorney is counting on Hermoine and Veronica giving personal testimony that could help sway the jury in his favor, but his doting daughter wants nothing to do with it. After seeing how Hiram’s crimes personally affected people like Ethel Muggs, she can’t sit idly by and pretend that he’s father of the year.
At school, Veronica finds out more of her dad’s secrets when Archie reveals that the Blossom family was behind his incarceration, which means he could also be implicated in the murder of Jason Blossom as an act of revenge. It’s a lot for Veronica to handle.
Archie also tells Betty about Jughead’s upcoming birthday — a date he failed to share with her — but explains that she should be the person to share it with him this year. Despite Archie’s warning that Jughead hates celebrating his birthday, she decides that he deserves a party with his nearest and dearest rather than just enjoying a double feature at the local theater like he does every year.
Just as Betty is starting to put together plans for the big party, she sees Chuck Clayton walk back into school after his suspension ended. Not only does Chuck return to school but his first stop is by Ethel Muggs, which sends Betty into a rage.
She stomps over the lunch table and confronts Chuck, who quickly fires back about her going all “dark Betty” on him again just like the night she forced a confession out of him about the book he was keeping with all the other football players about the girls they scored with in school. Betty is enraged — to the point of digging her nails into her skin again — but Ethel says that Chuck just came to apologize so she turns and walks away.
By this time back at the lunch table, Archie has seen his wayward ex-girlfriend Valerie sitting with her friends, separated from him just like his parents have been for the past two years, and he decides that a party might be just the trick to get everybody out of this funk they’re in currently.
Archie offers to host the party at his house since his father is out of town and the plans are in place for Jughead’s first ever birthday celebration.
Cherry On Top
As Betty continues to plan for Jughead’s birthday, she finds out that her mother has just been hired on as the new advisor for “The Blue and Gold” — the Riverdale school newspaper — before asking her for some advice. Betty wonders if it’s a good idea to disclose all her deepest, darkest secrets with Jughead, considering he’s someone she cares about a great deal and clearly she’s clinging to a lot of baggage that no one knows about. Alice responds by telling her daughter how she told her father everything — and now regrets it. Parent of the year award, coming right up!
Back at home, Archie tells Jughead that Betty will be his date to the movies this year for his birthday before he expresses just how much he hates dealing with this one particular day of the year. It all stems from his damaged childhood when his parents would give him a party and pretend to be happy despite the true dysfunction surrounding them the other 364 days in the year.
As for Veronica, she’s still trying to put all the pieces together about her father’s imprisonment and how the Blossom family played a part. She digs through some paperwork left in the basement and discovers that for the past 75 years, the Blossom family has been making a sizable payment to Lodge Industries. Those payments stopped suddenly five months ago — the exact time when Hiram Lodge went to jail.
As much as Veronica wants to use this evidence, Hermoine reminds her that handing that over in an attempt to free her father could ultimately end up with him in even deeper trouble because it also gives him motive to kill Jason Blossom.
Veronica’s anger finally boils over the next day at school when she erupts on Cheryl Blossom after she gets berated for being late to cheer squad practice. Rather than punch her in the face, Veronica challenges her to a dance off to see who will sit atop the pyramid at the big game that weekend.
Veronica wins, which only further infuriates Cheryl, but at least she got one over on the Blossom family if only for one day. As much as Veronica wants to celebrate, she soon has an even bigger issue when she receives a note from her father from prison where he asks her to testify on his behalf because otherwise his conviction may touch Hermoine as well because she’s not as innocent as everyone may believe.
And finally at the Chock-Lit Shoppe, Cheryl decides on her revenge against Veronica by teaming up with Chuck Clayton, who has just as much payback on his mind when it comes to Betty Cooper.
Secrets and Sins
At the Andrews’ house, Archie is ready to drink his pain away after another call from his father all but seals the deal that his parents are getting divorced. Veronica is no longer in a party mood after the revelation from her father and when Jughead arrives, he’s the least excited of them all because a celebration for his birthday is the last thing he wanted.
Things only turn from bad to worse when Cheryl, Chuck and half the school show up unannounced for a party that was only supposed to be for “inner circle”. Still, Archie has enough liquid courage inside at this point to invite everybody to the house to party the night away.
By this point, Jughead is ready to bolt all together and his father’s arrival at Betty’s request doesn’t exactly sweeten the pot much either. F.P. arrives just in time to see his Southside Serpent prospect Joaquin cuddling up to Kevin Keller, which prompts him to ask for the latest update from the sheriff’s son. Joaquin tells F.P. about the latest connection between the Blossom family and Hiram Lodge. That could be bad news for F.P. and the Serpents considering they worked for Hiram to help him secure the drive-in theater land and if fingers are pointed in his direction for Jason’s murder, it could come back on them as well.
Finally, Jughead and Betty get into a heated discussion about the party because this entire situation spiraled out of control. Betty is upset because she ran into Chuck and he creepily explained how he can’t stop thinking about her ‘dark side’ every night before he goes to bed and Jughead is now irate that she decided to go against his wishes and throw a party for him in the first place. Jughead then says that this party is just further proof of how opposite he and Betty really are and this might just be the best time for them to split before it eventually happens down the road.
This all culminates in Archie trying to reconcile with Valerie, who not only turns him down but then throws a drink in his face. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Cheryl then decides to launch her own party game called “secrets and sins”, which is basically just people shouting at each other while airing everybody’s dirty laundry all at once.
Cheryl reveals that Veronica’s father owns the drive-in theater land, which then leads to Veronica accusing Cheryl of killing her own brother after he probably shunned her desire for twin-cest. Dilton Doiley then tells how he saw Ms. Grundy at Sweetwater River the morning Jason disappeared and a few moments later everybody in school figures out that she was having an affair with Archie.
Chuck then reveals how Betty went cray-cray on him and started calling him Jason while dunking his head under water to get a confession. An irate Jughead finally snaps and punches Chuck, who then returns fire before F.P. intervenes and tosses him out of the party. He then tells the rest of the kids to go home because the celebration is over.
F.P.’s work isn’t finished because he also convinces Jughead to go back for Betty because he’s really just blowing a good thing but giving up on her so easily. Jughead listens to his dad but just before leaving F.P. is confronted by Alice Cooper, who watched all of this unfold from across the street. She tosses accusations his way not to mention saying how he’s crossed over to the wrong side of the tracks, but F.P. is happy to remind Alice that she came from the same exact place not that long ago.
Homecoming
Jughead and Betty make up over a milkshake at Pop’s before she reveals to him that there’s a darkness inside of her that seeps out every now and again and she can’t explain where it comes from. Back at the Andrews’ house, Archie and Veronica lean on each other due to their shared family drama but the moment results in the two of them kissing for the first time since the debut episode.
Things appear to get a little hot and heavy and the next morning Veronica wakes up in Archie’s bed.
Despite a few too many drinks, Veronica is fully clothed and she finds Archie laying on the floor like a perfect gentleman. She gives him a kiss goodbye before sauntering downstairs where she runs into Jughead, who promises to keep all of this a secret.
As Veronica heads home, she runs into Smithers, the friendly doorman at her building, and asks him his opinion on her mother and father. While he doesn’t have much to say about Hiram, he says that Hermoine is nothing but the goods, which leads Veronica to go to her father’s attorney and testify on his behalf. The last thing she wants is to get her mother into trouble due to her grudge against Hiram.
The next day, Veronica receives an expensive string of pearls from her father as a gift — just like the ones she ripped off a few days earlier when finding out how he cost the Muggs’ family every penny they ever earned.
Veronica’s daddy issues eventually lead her to “The Blue and Gold” where she offers to help Betty investigate Jason Blossom’s murder. She also explains how F.P. was once a hired thug for Hiram and that only lends further evidence that perhaps her father hired him to deal with Jason Blossom just like he did to make sure the drive-in land was sold to him.
And finally, Fred Andrews returns home from his trip but he’s not alone. Archie’s mother is right there with him as she greets her son after returning to Riverdale for the first time in two years.
‘Riverdale’ returns with brand new episodes on April 27
https://youtu.be/dHcT44XCE80
