This week on Riverdale, some big, bold moves were made, even if they treaded familiar ground. Spoilers follow! In case you need a refresher on last week’s events first, check out our review here. Now let’s get into this week.

The events of this episode were characterized by mistrust. Fred Andrews, ever the kind, simple family man, fell in with a plan formulated by the Lodges to set him up as the new mayor. Jughead discovered Hiram Lodge’s conspiracy ran deeper than he thought. And Betty, with her family falling apart, began questioning just who her family really was.

So Archie has been going back an forth on his commitment to the Lodge family for a while, as has Veronica. This episode, by placing his father in the middle of it, forced some skepticism out of Archie as to Hiram’s intentions. Always protective, he now wanted Veronica to reveal what Hiram’s plans for Riverdale were exactly. To help him uncover this, he went to Jughead and slipped him some inside information: the secret that Hiram had bought Pop’s rather than just giving him a donation. Completely legal capitalism done in secret is Jughead’s trigger, so he flipped out. He began asking around for information to begin writing a hit piece on Hiram again. He went to Pop Tate, one of his father’s prison buddies, and Smithers, the Lodges’ former butler who Veronica loved so much.

When word of this got back to Hiram, he flipped out as well and went all “wtf, how does this emo kid know about my secret capitalism”. Veronica took the blame for Archie, but later scolded him herself. Attempting to exercise some damage control, Hiram revealed his plan to Archie and Fred: he was going to turn the former Southside High into a private, for-profit prison and build homes in the Southside for all the people who would work there. Fred couldn’t stand the idea of Riverdale being turned into a prison community and withdrew his political partnership. Archie, however, liked the idea, and further committed to put the Lodge family first in a blood oath with Hiram. In the most sacred of pacts a teen can make with his girlfriend’s dad, they cut their hands using the same knife and Hiram symbolically became Archie’s new daddy. For the record, teenagers, never share blood with your girlfriend’s dad, or anyone else if you can help it. Anyway, Hermione replaced Fred as the foremost candidate for mayor, but it seemed at the end like he wasn’t entirely out of the race just yet.

I had a few issues with this plot. Archie’s arc recently has been a question of loyalty. Is he loyal to Hiram or to Veronica, crime or the FBI? He’s done a lot of flip-flopping. Being protective of his father is still very in-character over all, but to once again question the morals of Hiram only to further swear allegiance is an arc we’ve seen many times on the show already. Not to mention, Archie switched sides from his father to Hiram way too quickly. To be fair, Hiram was doing completely legal things in an attempt to make Riverdale a better place, which is perfectly agreeable. Archie wasn’t wrong to agree with him, he just shifted perspectives way too quickly.

This episode also offered some fun, soap-opera style plot twists. When it was discovered that Clifford Blossom, Cheryl’s father who killed himself last season, had a secret will, everyone (including the Coopers) came to hear it read. There, he left his wife their mansion (lol), anyone who was any part Blossom was promised half his money, and Cheryl got the rest. But as Cheryl accepted her father’s inheritance, who should emerge from the shadows but- gasp- her dead father! But not really. Turns out Clifford had a secret twin brother (the second secret brother this season) who ran away when they were young after Clifford threatened to murder him. This was a shock to Cheryl, especially when it seemed that he and her mother had plans for Clifford’s estate. Shady plans… Murderous plans?

After the will reading, Chick refused to get a blood test done to prove he was a Blossom heir. Betty was already suspicious of her brother, but this put her over the edge. Polly returned home with her twin babies and was shocked to learn hey had a strange man living with them who was apparently their brother. She didn’t feel safe at home, so she took her babies and decided to head west. Betty manifested this mistrust by sending a blood sample of Chick’s off to get tested. And what she learned was the opposite of the episode’s other plot twist: Chick is actually NOT her biological brother. So who, she asked, was he exactly?

I really enjoyed the convoluted twisty parts of the episode just because they were more high concept and fun to watch, but the show also spent a lot of time going over old material. At the very least, it set up some good stories for the next episodes to pick up, so I give “There Will Be Blood” 8.3 non-consensual DNA tests out of 10.

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Riverdale airs Wednesday nights at 8 on The CW.

–Weston Sheffield