Riverdale‘s season 2 premiere is right around the corner and now is the perfect time to have a refresher of the most important and craziest moments of last season.
Jughead’s sad home life
Since the start of the series Jughead’s home life has been an intriguing piece of the Riverdale puzzle. Self-acclaimed town biographer, Jughead throughout the season proved to not be a weak and one dimensional character. From his alcoholic father to his absent mother, Jughead’s home life has been less than ideal.
At the end of season 1, his father, F.P. is sent to jail for being involved with the murder of Jason Blossom and Jughead is handed over a Southside Serpent jacket, all the while confessing his love to Betty and patching up his friendship with Archie. Will Jughead officially be a Serpent? Now that his father is gone, where will he live? After all that Jughead has been through, season 2 does not seem like things are getting any better.
Dark Betty
Betty Cooper has gone through a lot over the course of this past season. Her first major hurdle was discovering her older sister Polly was one of the many listed in a book of sexual conquests kept by the school’s popular football players. After Veronica herself realizes she is in the book, she and Betty seek revenge so no one else falls victim to the football team’s actions. Feeling personally victimized by the actions towards her sister, Betty reveals ‘Dark Betty.’ Wearing seducing clothing, a black wig, and what seems to be an overall personality change, Betty nearly drowns the head football player, Chuck.
This moment has become one of the most iconic moments in the so far short history of the show. Questions began to emerge about the origin of this persona and hints of possible mental illness were scattered about later in the season. Interviews with actress Lili Reinhart suggests mental illness possibly will come into play. At the same time subtle hints of a more supernatural element will come into play when both executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Lili Reinhart tweeting ambiguous pictures of the supernatural Archie spin off comics, Afterlife with Archie and Jughead: The Hunger.
Incest
Ever since the introduction of the red-headed twins, the series seemed to enjoy making strange hints at the true nature of their relationship. How close were they exactly?
Eventually Cheryl is outright accused of being in love with Jason but then the show seemed to debunk any form of incest between the siblings. Jason was in fact in love with Polly, who is now pregnant with his children.
And then, of course Riverdale being Riverdale, the show overthrows all of those low-key incests hints we thought were between Cheryl and Jason and gives us a huge reveal; Jason and Polly are actually the ones who were performing incest! While this is certainly not quite the level of Game of Thrones (they are revealed to be third cousins) the murkiest thing to happen out of this reveal was Jason and Cheryl’s mother’s comment: “Nothing can be more purely Blossom than those babies”.
Apparently Betty’s great-grandfather used to be in the maple syrup business with Cheryl and Jason’s great-grandfather, that is until the latter is murdered. And alas, the key detail of the story was the two great-grandfathers weren’t just business partners, but were brothers! The Cooper family used to be the Blossoms but changed their names to distance themselves after the murder scandal.
I mean from what we know about the Blossom family, who wouldn’t?
Clifford Blossom killed Jason
Who killed Jason Blossom? The question from the beginning. The whole reason we are here. Well it was finally answered at the end of season 1, and while the actual killing part seems pretty straight forward, the exact ‘why’ seems more complicated.
Video evidence is found of the killing and Jason’s father is the one who shoots him dead.
Needing money to skip town with Polly, Jason approached F.P. and the two of them made a deal: in exchange for providing Jason with a ride and money F.P. asked that Jason make a drug delivery on behalf of the Southside Serpents. Jason agreed and made the plan with his sister, Cheryl, to stage his death, after which he and Polly would meet across the river and drive away. All was going according to plan until F.P, having learned that Jason was Clifford Blossom’s son, decided to kidnap Jason and hold him for ransom.
F.P. and another Southside Serpent, Mustang, bring Jason to the basement of the White Wyrm where they tie him up. F.P. informs Clifford Blossom that they’re holding his son, explaining that in exchange for a ransom, he would be released.
Pretty straight forward? Well here is where it gets tricky.
Unexpectedly, Clifford doesn’t pay off the Serpents in exchange for the release of his son, he instead shoots Jason at point blank range.
The gruesome scene is left for F.P. and Mustang to clean up. They wrap Jason’s body in plastic and stick it in a freezer before eventually dumping the body into the Sweetwater River.
Ultimately Clifford commits suicide once the truth comes out, and what started off as a ‘whodunit’ now has turned into a ‘…whydunit?’.
Cheryl 2.0
From the beginning Cheryl was the one to watch. In fact, it was hard not to. Cheryl continuously flirted between being insanely horrible and overcome with grief, it was often hard to figure her out.
After having a bit of a breakdown after finding out her own father killed her beloved twin, Cheryl attempts to drown herself in the icy waters of Sweetwater River. Archie ends up saving her, and then her house burns down.
Riverdale‘s executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa notes in an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Cheryl baptizes herself in the ice before stepping out of the flames “like a phoenix.” For it’s not herself that needs to go, it’s everything else. By surviving these two elements of ice and fire (Game of Thrones anyone?) she has become what could be seen as Cheryl 2.0.: a Cheryl who is now sure of the path she needs to take. No longer bond to the fancy brooches and the Silent Hill-esque mansion, Cheryl is onto bigger and better things. Horrible things? Probably, but at least she’ll be in complete control.
Fred Andrews gets shot
And the most shocking moment of the season? Another (attempted?) murder!
The first season closed with one of the most dramatic moments of the entire series. In fact the finale was full of surprises: Possible arson, near drownings, and Jughead finally eating a burger.
Much like the start of the season, Archie is at Pop’s Chocklit Shoppe. But instead of meeting Betty for a milkshake, he is meeting his dad Fred. Before we know it, a masked gunman barges in seemingly to rob the diner and shoots Fred in the chest.
Who can be surprised season 1 ended on a cliffhanger? Clearly one mysterious shooting is not enough for this small town. Many questions remain. Who is the shooter? The Southside Serpents? A completely random guy who didn’t realize what town he walked into?
I have a feeling this is not a quick open and shut case. It is Riverdale, after all.