*Warning: Spoilers ahead*
Last week on Riverdale, Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Munro) returned as the Black Hood and attacked Betty (Lili Reinhart) during the high school prom. And now, Jughead (Cole Sprouse) got one step closer to discovering the true identity of the Gargoyle King.
Here’s what went down on Chapter Fifty-Six, titled “The Dark Secret of Harvest House.”
Veronica (Camila Mendes) is still livid about her discovery at the end of Chapter Fifty-Five—she doesn’t own La Bonne Nuit. Although her dad, Hiram (Mark Consuelos), made her sign a deed, it was fake. He’s the sole owner. And to top it off, he wants to buy the entire town of Riverdale.
So, Veronica turns to Archie’s (KJ Apa) mom, Mary (Molly Ringwald), for legal advice. Mary tracks down a detective who wants Hiram in jail, like, yesterday. However, she needs to catch him committing a crime in real time, so Veronica devises a plan.
Cue Archie bursting into one of Hiram’s steam room sessions and confronting him for wanting to buy “my town.” Archie dares him to put it all on the table and challenges him to a boxing match at his gym, El Royale.
The spar is pretty even until the end when Hiram pulls ahead and pounds Archie into the ground. Right when he’s about to throw the final punch, Sheriff FP (Skeet Ulrich) stops the match and arrests Hiram for holding an illegal boxing match. Savage.
At The Farm, Edgar (Chad Michael Murray) sits down with Betty and explains that her mom, Alice (Mädchen Amick), and her sister, Polly (Tiera Skovbye), have something to tell her. When Betty was younger, she tested positive for what Polly refers to as “the serial killer gene,” which means she has a “predisposition to violence.”
The worst part? Her dad, who was an actual serial killer, didn’t have the gene, so Betty’s no joke. As a result, Edgar puts her through a series of therapy sessions in which she talks to her alter ego, Dark Betty, who reminds her of every sin she committed as a child, like drowning her family cat and pushing her sister down the stairs.
“I am real, Elizabeth Cooper,” Dark Betty says. “You are the illusion.”
Right on cue, Betty is back with Edgar.
In her next therapy session, Betty brings earplugs in an attempt to dull the hypnosis, and it works. Sorta. When Betty fades out of consciousness, she comes face to face with…Polly.
“You’re a killer, just like dad,” she tells Betty. “And it’s time you embrace that.”
Elsewhere, Betty is growing more and more concerned about Edgar’s practices. It all starts when Fangs (Drew Ray Tanner) suggests that Edgar inflicted pain on him during a therapy session. After Betty lifts Kevin’s (Casey Cott) shirt, revealing a large scar, she snoops around Evelyn’s (Zoé De Grand Maison) room and discovers that Evelyn is on anti-rejection medication, which means those scars are from kidney transplants. Just let that sink in.
Jughead can’t get over the fact that some rando gave Betty an envelope during prom, demanding she meet the Gargoyle King in the hallway. So, he tries to track down the person who delivered the message, and while it seems promising at first, his search leads him to Ethyl (Shannon Purser).
Although she refuses to reveal the identity of the Gargoyle King, Ethyl does admit to luring Betty into the hallway. When Jughead demands she take him to the Gargoyle King, she leads him into the woods, where they stumble upon the Black Hood and barely manage to escape after locking him in an abandoned bus.
At the police station, Jughead promises Ethyl that he won’t let the Black Hood hurt her. As a thank you, she tells him the name of the Gargoyle King: Jason Blossom (Trevor Stines).
The episode concludes with a brief—yet important—montage. Here are the key takeaways:
Is Jason Blossom back…for good? Guess we’ll have to wait until the season three finale of Riverdale airs next Wednesday, May 15, on The CW.
