Riverdale When A Stranger Calls

So it's been a while and I've missed a few recaps but I'm happy to be caught up again on the goings- on in Riverdale, that sleepy little... well, maybe not so much now. After last week's episode in which north siders and south siders engaged in a Outsiders- style rumble (in the rain no less) we ended with a shocking revelation- the Black Hood called Betty to chat. What is his deal with her, and is the killer someone we know?
   

Spoilers for this episode.

So the Black Hood threatens Betty by telling her he knows where Polly is, and he'll kill her if she goes to the police or tells Jugs. Betty turns to Archie as the only person she can tell, and he tells her he won't let her go through this alone. Do I see a future rift coming here between Betty and Jugs? Hiram Lodge meanwhile is not happy with the article Betty's mom wrote, lambasting the Southside, and talks about needing investors for a development he has yada yada. Boring. But hey, one of his super- rich acquaintances is coming to the open house for the project, and Nicky will be there- an old friend of Veronica's, This should be fun. 

Jugs meanwhile is being pulled both ways by the Serpents and his friends on the north side. After the rumble last week Sweet Pea and some of the other Serpents got dragged in by police, and they want a little payback. They're building a pipebomb which they want to use on the newspaper office. Ooh that will make things better! So Jugs puts on his Southside Serpents jacket and informs Tall Boy and Sweet Pea he wants to be a Serpent- no more messing around. Tall Boy says that's great but there's a little matter of an initiation first. Of course there is. 

The Black Hood meanwhile calls Betty again and they have a nice little convo, he tells her that her mom is a problem. He wants Betty to publish an article he sends her about her mom, who apparently was from the Southside and was arrested many moons ago. Ooh the theories that Alice was a Southsider originally appear to have been true. Betty tells him she wants something too, and he proposes that if she does what he wants, he will let her ask him a question. Creepy conversation, that.

So the initiation turns out to be... caring for Hot Dog, who is apparently the Serpents' mascot. Cute dog, I'll say that. And Betty and Archie are on opposite sides of whether to publish the Hood's article. Betty changes her tune though when her mom practically accuses her of forging the Black Hood's letter which the police were examining. Sending it out causes a firestorm of course, but it does serve the purpose of satisfying the Hood.  He calls her again and tells her she needs to cut the others out of her life, starting with Vee. Speaking of whom, Vee is under her father's orders to keep Nick St. Clair happy, so we have the inevitable party where moral choices have to be made.

Sure enough at the hotel party that Nick throws it comes down to who takes Jingle Jangle and who doesn't. Betty declines, but Archie steps up after the typical Nick wheedling. Betty then goes off on Veronica after getting fed up watching her and Arch grinding away to the music- and I mean she goes off. Veronica then has to fend off Nick, who not-so-subtly implies that his support for her dad's business venture is dependent on her cooperating with him. Why exactly does Hiram Lodge require his friend's son's approval? It's a mystery.

Betty is devastated at what she said to Vee, but she tells the Hood when he calls her that she did what he asked. He then tells her to do the same to Jughead, and she can't bear to. She asks Archie to do it for her, and I have to say watching her struggle with this was quite moving- Lili Reinhart is really selling the turmoil and this whole storyline is getting uncomfortably dark. Meanwhile at the open house Nick apologizes to Veronica, admitting he's been in rehab for three months, and then Cheryl arrives and promptly catches his eye. He gets her a drink and promptly roofies it... this guy is a bastard. And thankfully Veronica and the Pussycats see it happening- he takes Cheryl upstairs when she goes out and they arrive in the nick of time, before he can rape her.

 As so often on this show they do a great job with the musical montage, the Pussycats singing as we cut back and forth to them putting a stomping on Nick (I hope they broke some bones) and Jughead getting the crap beat out of him in his Serpents initiation. Tough to watch. Meanwhile Betty cries home all alone, knowing it's over with Jugs, and when the Hood calls her he tells her to go to an abandoned house on the edge of Fox Forest.  Once there she will have her answer. All she finds is a hood though, and someone's there but she flees, in a rather confusing scene. And then... he calls her again, tells her he knows she's been telling Archie about their conversations, and will kill her sister Polly unless she gives him another name. 

Random Thoughts

"I don't judge you, Alice. It was years ago." Pop tells Alice when she walks in. To say she is blindsided by her mug shot being published would be an understatement!  

Lollipop by the Chordettes is Betty's ringtone. Seriously. 

"The face under the hood. Would I recognize it?" asks Betty of the Hood, and he tells her "yes." 

"I'm Riverdale's resident It Girl, Cheryl Blossom," Cheryl informs Nick. 

"Nick. St. Clair." The name Betty gives to the Hood.