Riverdale Recap and Review: Homecoming, Upbeat Covers, and (Finally) an Arrest

This Riverdale recap and review covers all of the juicy happenings at homecoming, an unfolding Blossom plot, and finally some new news about the murder.

This week’s Riverdale recap and review delves into the incremental forward movement in Jason Blossom’s murder. We all get a lot of parental dish and the threat of the group splitting up.

Veronica and Archie

Riverdale doesn’t want us to forget that Archie and Veronica are a sort-of thing now. We open with Archie pressing Veronica for a chat about their new status. Because of course he needs to talk all about it and make us regret we ever ‘shipped these two in the first place. Veronica shuts the whole thing down, telling him she “doesn’t have the bandwidth.” She defers to her growing concerns about her father’s involvement with Jason Blossom’s murder.

Conspiracies and Alliances

How is it that Alice Cooper is allowed to camp out at school and recruit high schoolers for her investigations? This seems so wildly inappropriate and ridiculous, I almost can’t take it seriously. Veronica is on board completely. She’s a woman obsessed, and she needs to get to the bottom of her father’s involvement.

Veronica and Archie team up to do a little breaking and entering in their Homecoming outfits. They search FP’s trailer, only to come up empty handed. Of course, they’re prompted by Alice Cooper, but Veronica is set to find a link between FP and her father, Hiram. She seems disappointed when the newly cleaned and painted trailer doesn’t yield any damning evidence.

A Room Full of Red Wigs

Over at the creepy Blossom mansion, these weirdos are scheming something up. It looks like they have more to do with Jason’s murder than they let on. I’ll pin it on the dosed shake they give Polly after she stumbles on Mr. Blossom’s room filled with red wigs.

Polly tricks Cheryl into helping her snoop, and she finds the ring Jason gave to Polly. Now we kind of think Jason’s parents might be involved in his murder, and Cheryl is trying to cover something up. She claims to have flushed the ring, but of course she didn’t

Penelope Blossom utters a cryptic, “nothing’s lost forever, everything comes back.” This coupled with the title “To Riverdale and Back Again” might be a strong foreshadow to what’s to come. Namely: a season two story arc that includes zombies and a nod to Afterlife with Archie.

FP is too Cute for Everybody to Gang Up on

Everybody thinks Jughead’s dad, FP, is the murderer. Alice invites him over for a very awkward pre-dance dinner. She interrogates him over roast chicken, stalling him long enough for Veronica and Archie to complete their mission.

A freshly shaved and on-the-wagon FP remains gracefully fields Alice’s questions until her hubs shows up. FP then turns the talk to a memory he has of the Coopers arguing before their very own Homecoming dance, all those many years ago. We never get the whole story, but we can tell by Alice’s reaction that she doesn’t want whatever it is out. Jughead and Betty excuse themselves to the dance, and Jughead is really the only one who doesn’t know that everyone has targeted his dad as Jason’s killer.

Kids in America

We do get a snazzy cover of Archie and Veronica singing “Kids in America,” and it was fun. Although watching these two on stage together brings out Dark Betty, and she starts to wig out a little.

Maybe as a way to get back at them, or because she just really wanted him to know, she tattles to Jughead as soon as she learns what they’ve all been doing behind his back. Her plan backfired as Jughead lumped her in with all the others, and of course he feels betrayed and lied to. For good reason. He’s probably the smartest, most level-headed of the bunch, but they constantly treat him like a fragile bird. It’s exhausting.

Mary Andrews is the Worst

Archie’s mom is back, and as much as I’m thankful for Molly Ringwald, I’m already weary of the problems her character is causing. Mary Andrews’ return throws a wrench in my Hermione/Fred ‘shipping game, and it just doesn’t make good sense. She claims she came back because of “the divorce,” but what does that even mean?

She tries to convince Archie to move back to Chicago because it’s safer, if you can even believe that line of reason.

I do like that she gives Alice Cooper a little bit of push back. There’s a lot of history here, and this show is hammering this theme pretty heavily. Situating it at a homecoming dance, naming it after an Archie reunion movie, and focusing so heavily on the ties that bind the adults, make me think they’re nudging us in a particular direction.

The Arrest

The police were tipped off — not by Alice Cooper, by the way — and they run to search his trailer. They find a gun in lockbox and immediately arrest FP for the murder of Jason Blossom. The only problem with this, is the box wasn’t there when Veronica and Archie searched his place. He’s obviously being framed, but we don’t know by whom yet.

Check back here every Friday for my weekly dish on all things Riverdale.

Riverdale airs at 9/8c Thursdays on The CW.

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