In the ‘Riverdale’ recap, Archie gets closer to Hiram’s real business and Jughead calls on Betty to help clear the Southside Serpents…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
This week ‘Riverdale’ did its best impression of ‘The Sopranos’ with Archie getting closer and closer to Hiram Lodge while feeling more and more conflicted about handing over information to the FBI about his girlfriend’s father.
Archie has been tasked by FBI Agent Adams — who may or may not actually be with the FBI —to gather information on Hiram as they are building a case against him and this is the only way Fred Andrews won’t be implicated. Thus far, Archie has been a rather poor informant and he doesn’t endear himself to the agent anymore this week.
Elsewhere, Jughead deals with the fallout from his controversial article damning town founder General Pickens, which resulted in his statue being beheaded and now everyone is looking for the culprit and landing on the front doorstep of the Southside Serpents.
Finally, Chic’s stay at Casa De Cooper still isn’t sitting well with Hal — although it’s clear who makes the final call in that household — and by the end of the episodes there’s a dead body with a lot of blood spilled that needs cleaning up.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Riverdale’ titled ‘Chapter Twenty-Five: The Wicked and the Divine’…
D-Girl
Archie’s internship with Hiram Lodge has officially kicked off as he’s become the errand boy to fetch coffee, dry cleaning and pretty much anything else needed of him. Archie’s not learning much about business but he’s getting an A+ in being Hiram’s lackey. That being said, Archie is getting closer to the Lodge inner circle with his invite to Veronica’s confirmation that’s being held this week.
Catholic confirmations are usually held at a younger age but the Lodge family delayed Veronica’s for a bigger occasion, presumably with Hiram out of jail, while the rest of her family can also make it into town. It’s a special moment for Veronica and she wouldn’t want to be anywhere like that without Archie by her side.
Before the confirmation can begin, however, Hiram pulls Archie aside for a conversation about some news he just received about Riverdale’s favorite redhead paying a visit to Nick St. Clair and handing him a beat down while he was laid up in his hospital bed with two broken legs.
Archie admits he overreacted after finding out what Nick did to Veronica but Hiram’s not angry — in fact he’s impressed that the kid took the initiative to defend his daughter’s honor and seems even happier that he tacked onto Nick’s misery while he was already in the hospital courtesy of a Lodge hit. That leads to Hiram inviting Archie to work his poker game the night before the confirmation — it’s an elite gathering where crime bosses gather to play cards, let’s just call this the executive game.
Meanwhile, Veronica is starting to feel less and less OK with Archie getting closer to her father but even more disturbing is that her boyfriend is finding out more about the family business. Remember, Veronica knows how her father orchestrated the shutdown of Southside High so he could buy the property and his plans to more or less run the Southside Serpents out of town but she hasn’t told Archie any of this information.
Archie is having his own struggles as FBI Agent Adams is pestering him for information and trying to convince him to wear a wire to the poker game or the confirmation. Neither idea is appealing as Archie shuts him down but promises to convey any information he finds out.
Veronica is beginning to have a crisis of conscience and it’s only compounded when Hiram tells her that it’s time to make a decision regarding Archie — either he’s worthy of being in the inner circle or he gets shut out completely.
At the poker game, Archie is doing his best to serve drinks, cut cigars and make sure everybody is well attended to while playing cards. He avoids sweeping away cheese from anybody’s feet as well.
Everything is going fine until a notoriously rowdy Quebec gangster nicknamed Papa Poutine takes a dump on Pop’s cooking and that leads to a nasty exchange with Hiram including a few shots fired at him about working with Fred Andrews, who was sleeping with his wife just a few months ago. The game takes a break while everybody cools off and Archie is left to plunge the clogged toilet.
While he’s in the bathroom, Archie overhears Papa Poutine and another of the regional bosses talk about how Hiram has gotten weak in recent months and his decision making is questionable at best. They believe it’s time to take him out and the best time to do it will be after his daughter’s confirmation the next day.
Archie is now stuck knowing that his girlfriend’s father is about to get whacked while the FBI is breathing down his neck for information to bring him down. What will Archie do?
Serpents Get Out
Last week’s episode of ‘Riverdae’ closed on the statue of town founder General Pickens being beheaded after protests broke out that condemned him as a murderer following an explosive expose Jughead wrote for the school newspaper. It’s not a good sign for Riverdale journalism with the high school paper has more pull than the one owned by Hal Cooper, but that’s another story.
Jughead’s expose has earned a threat from Hiram Lodge’s attorney for defamation, which leads Principal Weatherbee to suspend him and Betty from the paper for running the story in the first place.
To add to the misery, Sheriff Keller is convinced that the Southside Serpents are responsible for beheading the statue and he’s harassing everybody on the southside for answers. Eventually the problem gets so severe that Sheriff Keller hands down eviction notices for everyone living in the trailer park where Jughead resides. Sure it might seem illegal but the land is owned by the town and because so many tenants are behind on rent, the mayor has called for eviction notices on everybody — at least until the head of General Pickens is returned.
F.P. wants answers but he doesn’t like the ones he receives after Tall Boy invites Penny Peabody — the snake charmer who wanted to start running drugs through Riverdale until Jughead carved her up a few weeks back — into the Whyte Wyrm with a way to save the day. She offers to file all sorts of injunctions against the town to ensure no one is kicked out of their homes, but she wants something in return.
Penny reveals her mutilated arm where Jughead literally carved off her serpent tattoo. In return, Penny wants Jughead kicked out of the Serpents and she wants to personally pay him back by cutting off his tattoo.
F.P. is irate to find out his son took those actions against Penny not to mention the way he’s managed to turn the whole town against them with his expose. In other words, Jughead is going to be the death of the Southside Serpents.
With time running out until the club takes a vote to either side with Jughead or Penny, he enlists help from his old gal pal Betty, who is so conflicted that she’s turned into an online camgirl complete with a dark wig and naughty black lingerie, but she quickly transforms back into her normal sell when her ex-boyfriend comes calling.
After a heart to heart where Jughead admits to fooling around with Toni and Betty lies to him by failing to reveal her kiss with Archie, the two of them team up to find General Pickens’ missing head to stop this vendetta against the Serpents.
When they eventually find the head it’s a scrap yard owner who calls in the tip and tells them that it was somebody in a Southside Serpents jacket that dropped it off a few nights ago. A description helps Jughead realize that it was his pal Tall Boy who beheaded the statue and tried to pin it on him.
Back at the Wyrm, F.P. reveals what Jughead discovered and Tall Boy comes clean — he beheaded the statue in an attempt to force the Jones’ boys out of the Serpents so he could take over and the whole thing was orchestrated in conjunction with Hiram Lodge, who wants to take over the south side for his development contract.
It doesn’t take long for the Serpents to vote to pull Tall Boy’s patch and exile him from the group. Jughead is back in good standing with his motorcycle club and before long he’s back in with Betty as well as they end up back at his trailer where the heat of the moment leads to clothes being tossed aside and seemingly everybody’s V card disappears by the end of the night.
A Hit is a Hit
At the confirmation, Veronica is still very conflicted about her role in Lodge Industries and her loyalty to Archie but she finishes the ceremony as expected — mostly thanks to an angelic look from her boyfriend that helps her renounce Satan.
At the party afterwards, Veronica tells her father that she’s decided to keep Archie on the outside looking in when it comes to the family business. Veronica then tries to have a heart to heart with Archie about he father’s dealings but he cuts her off and explains that he already knows Hiram is a gangster. Archie doesn’t seem to care much about what her father does — he just loves her.
For a moment it looks like Archie is out but then he’s pulled back in when he tells Hiram about the plot against him from Papa Poutine. Hiram vows to take care of things before sending Archie back to the party.
Later that night when Archie returns home, he’s greeted by Agent Adams, who is none too happy to report that Papa Poutine was found dead of a gunshot wound to the back of the head in his hotel room. Adams questions Archie if he overheard anything from Hiram Lodge that could prove he was behind it.
Archie lies and says he doesn’t know a thing.
Back at the Lodge house one more present arrives for Veronica’s confirmation but she’s fairly sure the gift is meant for her father. Inside a giant box lies the head of General Pickens’ returned to the man responsible for putting into motion the plan to have it cut off in the first place.
House Guest
In the other side story this week that should lead to a major twist in the next episode, Chic is still living at the Cooper house and he’s even offered to pay rent while he’s staying there. Hal has had enough of this drifter living there and he gives Alice an ultimatum — either Chic goes or he goes.
Needless to say, Hal is sleeping by himself that night.
Meanwhile, Betty walks in on a boy leaving their house after meeting with Chic, who just so happens to be in a bathrobe. Betty wonders if the guy is one of Chic’s clients but he promises he would never give those folks his home address. Instead, Chic says he’s found a job at the local bijou and that was the guy who interviewed him.
Later that night at dinner with no one else at home, Alice answers the door to a skeevy looking guy asking if Chic is around. Chic turns to see the man and he doesn’t look all that happy to find him there.
When Betty arrives home from her tryst with Jughead, she opens the door and finds the hole house is dark minus a few scarce lights. Betty turns the corner to find her mother cleaning up the blood from a dead body laying on the floor. It’s the body of the person who came calling to find Chic — and now he’s dead.
Who is this guy? Who killed him and why? We’ll have to wait until next week’s episode of ‘Riverdale’ to get those answers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjRXuZkeGRA
