1."The week started like any other. Who would have guessed where I'd be by the end?" I mean, literally all of us would have because the show has been teasing it since last season's finale, but go on Jughead.
2.Mr. Honey tells Archie he won't be able to graduate with his friends and I rarely defend Archie, but considering he lost his father, got mauled by a bear, was in prison for a murder he didn't commit because his girlfriend's dad framed him, was literally attacked in the school bathroom last week by a mercenary and is RUNNING A COMMUNITY CENTER to say the least, like…dude give him a freaking break?
3.A quick update on the Lodge family drama: HiRUM's debilitating neuromuscular disorder (which is totally a real illness and not another HiRUM scheme) is front and center this episode, and the show remembered that Hermosa exists!
4.Hermosa tries to infiltrate Cheryl, Veronica, and Toni's weird rum club??? I can't believe the writers were like, "Forget Jingle Jangle, this show needs a storyline about a family rum war!"
5.This week, the show remembered two things it seemed to have forgotten: 1) That before Archie picked up vigilantism, boxing, wrestling, football and gym ownership, his TRUE LIFE PASSION was music. 2) That Veronica and Archie are dating.
6.I've never heard more mentions of the Ides of March in my entire life, but apparently at Stonewall Prep it's a national holiday.
7.But my absolute favorite part of this episode is when Jughead decides to write a Baxter Brothers book about his experience at Stonewall, and names the fictional version of himself JARHEAD!!!!!! Which is almost as good as when he pitched "the Brown Hood" a few weeks ago.
8.For inexplicable reasons, Archie and HiRUM are cordially interacting, and at this point I feel like Archie is Charlie Brown and HiRUM is Lucy pulling the football away from him EVERY DAMN TIME. Archie also delivers this iconic line with a straight face:
9.VeRUMica (sorry, but it was time) gets caught with a flask of rum AT SCHOOL and says this:
10.Archie says this about VeRUMica's relationship with HiRUM, and….ew:
11.Then, VeRUMica proceeds to give a monologue where she says "Daddy" no fewer than 18 times:
12.Alrighty, now we must get back to Jarhead. After a plagiarism plot that I don't care about, he drops out of Stonewall and then reveals to Betty that he has a plan. This all leads us to an Ides of March party the night that Jarhead is "murdered".
13.Archie and VeRUMica are also invited to the party, because plot, and VeRUMica asks a question Riverdale fans have been asking all season:
14.Jughead puts on the ~classic~ Quill & Skull rabbit mask, and Bret, dressed like this, says this:
15.Betty and Donna have a confrontation, and Donna says she visited Evelyn Evernever in prison (normal!) and learned a new SECRET WORD that apparently makes Betty go Dark Betty and it's not TANGERINE.
16.This leads us, of course, to dead Jughead. We're left to "assume" that Donna triggered Betty to murder him with whatever the new "secret password" is, but this is Riverdale and there are at least 85 different plot lines to explore in the next episode alone. What I'm saying is, nothing is simple in the murder capital of the world.
And that's that for this week! RIP, Jarhead. We hardly knew ya! See you next week.
