Riverdale Recap: Sin City

Dave Nemetz

Updated Thu, February 1, 2018 at 1:59 AM UTC

Need to catch up? Check out our previous Riverdale recap here.

It’s a good thing Veronica went to confession, because there was a whole lot of sinning going on this week on Riverdale.

Ronnie is getting ready for her Catholic confirmation — a ceremony normally reserved for preteens, but never mind — and Hiram is inviting all his shady business associates to town for the celebration. He’s also giving Archie a crash course in business: i.e., having Archie fetch his dry-cleaning. He heard about Archie beating up Nick St. Clair… and he’s impressed by the kid’s initiative! In fact, he asks Archie to help him host a poker game for his out-of-town guests. And though Veronica warns Archie that these guests are guys “you don’t want to cross,” Archie — always about 50 percent more na?ve than he should be — agrees to help out.

Dressed in a bowtie and vest like a Vegas blackjack dealer, Archie pours drinks and cuts cigars while Hiram and his cronies play cards. But he also overhears one of the guys — a Canadian businessman (hilariously) nicknamed Poppa Poutine — talking about how Hiram’s gotten soft and sloppy… and conspiring to have Hiram “removed” after Ronnie’s confirmation. Archie warns Hiram about Poppa Poutine’s plan, and Hiram thanks him — but later, Archie’s FBI pal Agent Adams tells him that Poppa Poutine was found dead, shot in the back of the head in his hotel room. Yikes… guess Hiram really does always win, huh?

DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD

| Jughead needs to know who chopped the head off that statue of General Pickens… especially after Sheriff Keller posts eviction notices on every trailer in his community, using unpaid rent as an excuse to kick out the Serpents. And even the Serpents are mad at him, with Penny back and telling everyone how Jughead sliced her Serpent tattoo off her arm (ew) and Tall Boy blaming him for everything. So he turns to Betty, and they go back into sleuthing mode together. (Just like old times!)

They get a tip from an old junkyard owner, who found the severed statue head in an old fridge. He also noticed somebody lurking nearby wearing a Serpent jacket… and he was quite tall, too. Jughead takes the head back to the Whyte Wyrm and confronts Tall Boy, who admits he chopped off the head to stir up chaos — at Hiram’s suggestion. Tall Boy gets stripped of his Serpent jacket and exiled, and Hiram gets a gift in the mail: the severed statue head. Best of all, it all leads to a steamy Bughead reunion, with him unzipping her dress and her telling him, “I want all of you… tonight.” But that’s not all Betty’s up to this week…

Riverdale Season 2 Episode 12 Dark Betty

TOO DARK, BETTY!

| Betty is scaring me, you guys: She’s pulled her Dark Betty wig out of storage and is following in Chic’s webcam footsteps, chatting up guys online. When she spots a strange guy emerging from Chic’s bedroom, Chic reassures her he’d never bring a client home with him: “Boundaries are key. They keep you alive.” Yeah, about that: While Betty’s out at Veronica’s confirmation, another strange guy comes to the Coopers’ door and asks Alice where Chic is… and when Betty comes home, she finds Alice wiping up blood (!), with the stranger lying dead on the living room floor (!!). Can someone please reset Riverdale’s “__ Days Without a Murder” sign to zero?

Yearbook Notes:

* I’m not the only one who’s highly uncomfortable with this Dark Betty webcam storyline, am I? This is an underage girl dressing up and chatting with guys online… and guys don’t look up webcam girls just to “chat.”

* “Elizabeth, did you lock the front door?” That Alice, she’s always a stickler for the house rules… even when there’s a corpse on the floor.

* LOL at Jughead admitting to Betty that he and Toni did fool around one night: “She gave me a… tattoo.”

* No Cheryl Blossom this week? Boo.

* Was that a rotary phone I heard clacking in Hiram’s study? Man, this show is really enamored with outdated technology.

* Veronica asking Josie if she knows “‘Bitter Sweet Symphony,’ from the Cruel Intentions soundtrack” was like a knife to my ’90s-loving heart. Long live The Verve!

Got thoughts on tonight’s Riverdale? Grab a booth in the comments below.

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Riverdale Recap: Sin City

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