We continue our recap of the entire Riverdale series with episodes 17 and 18 of the third season, “The Raid” and “Jawbreaker”.
After a short hiatus, we are back to finish out our review of the third season of Riverdale. Catch up on everything you might have missed, including recaps for all of Season 1 and 2, and everything we’ve covered so far in Season 3 using the links below — or just dive right into to our most recent recap below.
Season 1 Recaps:
Episode 1: The River’s Edge
Episodes 2 and 3: Touch of Evil and Body Double
Episodes 4 and 5: The Last Picture Show and Heart of Darkness
Episodes 6 and 7: Faster Pussycats! Kill! Kill! and In a Lonely Place
Episodes 8 and 9: The Outsiders and La Grande Illusion
Episodes 10 and 11: The Lost Weekend and To Riverdale and Back Again
Episodes 12 and 13: Anatomy of a Murder and The Sweet Hereafter
Season 2 Recaps:
Episodes 1 and 2: A Kiss Before Dying and Nighthawks
Episodes 3 and 4: The Watcher in the Woods and The Town That Dreaded Sundown
Episodes 5 and 6: When a Stranger Calls and Death Proof
Episodes 7 and 8: Tales From the Darkside and House of the Devil
Episodes 9 and 10: Silent Night, Deadly Night and The Blackboard Jungle
Episodes 11 and 12: The Wrestler and The Wicked and the Divine
Episodes 13 and 14: The Tell-Tale Heart and The Hills Have Eyes
Episodes 15 and 16: There Will Be Blood and Primary Colors
Episodes 17 and 18: The Noose Tightens and A Night to Remember
Episodes 19 and 20: Prisoners and Shadow of a Doubt
Episodes 21 and 22: Judgement Night and Brave New World
Season 3 Recaps:
Episodes 1 and 2: Labor Day and Fortune and Men’s Eyes
Episodes 3 and 4: As Above, So Below and The Midnight Club
Episodes 5 and 6: The Great Escape and Manhunter
Episodes 7 and 8: The Man in Black and Outbreak
Episodes 9 and 10: No Exit and The Stranger
Episodes 11 and 12: The Red Dahlia and Bizarrodale
Episodes 13 and 14: Requiem for a Welterweight and Fire Walk With Me
Episodes 15 and 16: American Dreams and Big Fun
Episode 17: “The Raid” Synopsis
The Serpents train with FP and Tom Keller in the emptied out school at night, only for Jughead and Sweet Pea to fail their training test because they weren’t watching their backs. Jughead’s then threatened by his mother and told to stand down and keep away from her drug business. Jughead ends up ruining his father’s drug bust of the Gargoyles after threatening a comic shop owner to discover their calling card. Jughead goes rogue and helps the prisoner raid on the Gargoyles by capturing Kurtz. He confronts his mother for arming the Gargoyles and promises that she won’t beat him.
After failing to get Betty’s help when it comes to her parents’ divorce, Veronica and her are invited to a Farm open house to see their refurbished base of operations and learn more about their practices. They attend and are lead through the building by Kevin, but she’s left alone while Betty’s pulled in deeper. Despite her mother’s fears of possible gang violence, Veronica sides with her father when he says Hermione can’t come with him to have a photo taken at the prison’s opening. She pleads with her parents to try and work things out, even threatening to bring in the Monsignor to remind them of the sanctity of marriage, then comforts her mother when she’s threatened with dead fish (by Veronica, hoping her father would help her mother). Hiram denies threatening Hermione, allows her to go to the prison opening, then gets their marriage annulled.
At the open house, Betty’s confronted by her angry and betrayed mother and interviewed by a curious Evelyn Evernever. She convinces Cheryl to infiltrate the Farm as a possible entrant, using technology taken from the Riverdale Register in order to listen in on a microphone implanted into Cheryl’s broach. Edgar coaxes Cheryl into joining them by bringing up her brother, still a sore wound for Cheryl, and she joins the Farm not as a spy but as a genuine convert after hearing her brother speaking to her there. Betty does at least get the interview transcripts from Cheryl, Polly, and Alice away from the Farm, and asks to meet with Edgar.
Archie goes to help Mad Dog at the detention center, since the two are apparently still friends, and learns that it’s being shut down and all the prisoners transferred to Hiram’s new prison in the Southside. Cut off from his family and his parole hearing cancelled, Mad Dog asks for Archie’s help and Archie agrees to give it. He then proceeds to, with Veronica’s help, blackmail the Governor into pardoning the prisoners by threatening to reveal that he went to the fight club matches. Mad Dog and Baby Teeth, at least, are released and they, along with Archie and other prisoners, raid the Gargoyle compound and fight to get them away from Mad Dog’s family. Mad Dog ends up working with Elio as a boxer, insisting that he won’t forget the good Archie’s done for him, and Baby Teeth gets killed by Gargoyles.
Observations
— Hello everyone! Sorry for my absence, I was dealing with my final exams for college. But I’m here and ready to deal with the last few episodes of this awful season.
— Rest in Peace, Baby Teeth. This season did you so dirty with that terrible name.
— The Serpents aren’t good cops, and FP should know this since he was their boss for years upon years.
— I feel bad for Tom, because he’s the only competent officer in Riverdale and his son’s in a cult. He’s like the reverse Alice, in that he cares about the life and survival of his own child.
— Veronica, I know that your parents divorcing is probably very hard for you. But there’s a point where you need to accept that this is going to be for the best.
— Evelyn creeps me out still. Fun fact: Zoe de Grand Maison (Evelyn’s actress), was born when Chad Michael Murray (the actor playing her father Edgar) was thirteen. Little bit strange on the ages there, but I’m sure they can explain it away.
— Jughead and Archie have been hanging out too much. They’re sharing brain cells at this point, and it’s bringing Jughead down.
— Betty is the world’s worst cousin. It’s entirely her fault that Cheryl’s now running with the Farm, because she thought it’d be smart to have her clearly mentally ill cousin go and infiltrate a cult.
— I give it three episodes before someone tries to blow up the prison. I also bet it’ll be Sweet Pea, the boy’s a loose cannon.
— The only good thing with the Leopold and Loeb detention center was the name. Other than that, that place was a hell pit.
— So, the only reason Alice joined the Farm was because she thought she could hear her dead son.
— Riverdale Parents Ranking: Tom, FP, Alice, the Lodges, Edgar.
Quotables
Top cursed lines from this episode:
“It’s like Hockney meets Heaven’s Gate.” – Veronica
Episode 18: “Jawbreaker” Synopsis
Jughead and Archie, upon understanding that Baby Teeth is dead, realize that his death could be someone sending a message that the Gargoyle King is still out there and still out for blood. Archie tries to get his fellow boxers to help avenge BT’s death, and learns about a boxing tournament from Mad Dog. Veronica tries to help him get in, failing to get Elio’s help and pulling in Alice for her assistance for a TV broadcast where Archie challenges the boxing champion Randy Ronson. The fight begins after the boxers mourn BT and Ronson’s drink is spiked with steroid Fizzle Rocks, and Archie accidentally kills Ronson mid-fight.
Jughead finds a Maple Club matchbook in Baby Teeth’s throat and confronts Penelope about it. Apparently BT went to the brothel and the matchbook was complimentary. He also meets a Fizzle Rocks addict mid-trip, who takes the drug because it “enhances his experience”. He and FP decide to ask the addict about it so they can try and get information to find BT’s killer. It turns out that there’s tainted Fizzle Rocks being spread that cause psychosis, as shown by a River Vixen going completely ballistic.
Betty questions Edgar Evernever, revealing that there’s no record of him prior to his existence in Riverdale. He spins a tale of him having been a lost man who was reborn after living on a farm with some kindly farmers and being inspired by them. Betty refuses to believe that her mother can see Charles and tries to get her out of the cult (while doing nothing to fix the fact that she brought Cheryl into the cult by making her be a mole). Her father, the literal serial killer, convinces her to make a fake grave for Charles. This backfires horribly and Betty ends up chloroforming her own mother and locking her in the sex bunker to try and bring her back to normal. After threatening to murder Evelyn in school, listening to her mother’s tape and being enraged by her mother saying she sees darkness in Betty, she gives up and hands her mother back over to Evelyn.
Toni tries to get Cheryl out of the cult, only to get into it herself with her girlfriend after failing to convince her that she can’t talk to her dead brother. Although, like Cheryl, she’s in there as a mole.
Jellybean is kidnapped by the returned Ricky and brought to the Gargoyle King.
Observations
— How is Alice still a reporter?
— Archie murdered somebody, a literal murder. Ronson might have died from drug overdose, yes, but fighting in the ring absolutely didn’t help at all.
— Betty is, one hundred and ten percent, the cause of Cheryl being in this cult and she should be trying to get her the hell out. It shouldn’t be Toni’s responsibility, because Toni didn’t make Cheryl get into the cult. Betty did.
— Also if this season ends with Betty being an orphan, I will genuinely be okay with that.
— Of course there’s spiked Fizzle Rocks! Of course that’s a thing! Please, Riverdale, give me a type of Fizzle Rocks that makes people into cannibals. You can call it “Sunshine” or “Little Green Jacket” or whatever!
— If this season is the one we cross over with Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, that’d probably be the best possible explanation for quite literally any of this. Magic and evil will explain a very good chunk of all of this.
— I’m genuinely surprised they didn’t have anyone singing during this boxing match. No musicals, no pop songs, nothing!
— Honestly, even if it wasn’t for the actions of both her parents and her faux brother, Betty would still probably have a violent streak because goodness gracious this girl is a complete mess.
— I don’t really care about Veronica during this episode. I’m genuinely kind of tired of her in this season. I also don’t care about any sort of relationship will they-won’t they with her and Archie. It’s boring and bland as unseasoned mashed potato.
— I’m happy that Jughead and his dad are bonding.
— Riverdale Parents Ranking: FP, Alice, Penelope, Hal, The Lodges, Edgar.
Quotables
Top cursed lines from this episode:
“Do you think these Louboutins are too flashy for kombucha brewing?” – Cheryl
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