The Wednesday, January 31, episode of Riverdale — titled “Chapter Twenty-Five: The Wicked and the Divine” — was firing on all cylinders, with two out-of-nowhere murders and a Bughead reunion that made us feel things. Read on to see what you missed.
Death Returns to Riverdale
The Black Hood may be dunzo (for now), but death just can’t stay out of Riverdale. Archie (KJ Apa) cozied right up to Hiram (Mark Consuelos) leading up to Veronica’s (Camila Mendes) confirmation. Hiram’s crime family was in town for the big event, so he held a poker game and let Archie work the small gathering. Archie overheard one of Hiram’s peers, “Papa Poutine,” conspiring to “remove” Hiram, so he warned his girlfriend’s dad. FBI agent Adams informed Archie after the confirmation that Papa Poutine had been murdered. Archie — who had just told Veronica he didn’t want to know about her family’s dark dealings — covered for Hiram when asked if he thought he was involved in the killing.
Even more out of the blue, a creepy guy showed up at the Cooper house looking for Chic. When Betty (Lili Reinhart) returned home later that night, she found the man’s dead body in the floor, with her mother mopping up his blood and Chic nowhere to be found.
Bughead Reunites for Smoking Sex
Mayor McCoy issued eviction notices for Jughead (Cole Sprouse) and the other Serpents’ trailer park following the beheading of the Pickens statue. Tall Boy brought Penny Peabody back into the fold to “help” and called a vote to kick Jughead out of the Serpents, blaming him for igniting a war with his General Pickens article.
Jughead turned to Betty — when she wasn’t secretly channeling Dark Betty for strangers on her webcam — for help, and she suggested they treat the lost head like a missing persons case, passing out fliers asking for information. The person who found the head described the man who dumped it as a tall Serpent. Jughead and FP (Skeet Ulrich) learned that Tall Boy, at Hiram’s urging, was staging a coup to rid the Serpents of the Jones men. Tall Boy was exiled from the Serpents, and Jughead was put on probation for cutting Penny’s tattoo off.
A victorious Jughead and Betty went back to his home and totally had sex. The only problem is Betty lied about being with someone else since their breakup. She didn’t tell Jughead about her kiss with Archie, although he’d admitted his kiss (and a little more) with Toni. Nevertheless, we’re choosing to relish in Bughead’s (perhaps brief) reunion.
Riverdale airs on The CW Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
