After last week’s BONKERS ep, we are back again this week, maybe one week closer to finding out who THE BLACK HOOD IS.

Sadly, Kelli won’t be joining us this week because of Mother’s Day obligations, so Mary is flying solo. Please enjoy this action-packed recap, written-as-watched to capture the moment by moment drama.

Judgement Night!

The BH STORMS INTO THISTLEHOUSE, swinging an axe in a scene reminiscent of The Shining. Cheryl, unlike every horror movie girl ever, runs out the window and GRABS HER BOW AND ARROW. She still talks like a Victorian princess, but she looks so badass in her Little Red Riding Hood cloak, shooting her bow. The BH runs like the little turd he is.

Jughead runs to the hospital and tries to get Fangs some help. It’s stupid that a nurse does not IMMEDIATELY run to Fangs because, hello, he has a gunshot wound. That sort of thing gets treated ASAP.

Betty gets a call from Cheryl, who super calmly says she has been attacked by the BH, but luckily she got to her hunting set and hunting cape. I want to take a moment to analyze this. She had to be appropriately dressed to defend herself. I am constantly in awe of our queen. Let’s take a moment to think about her wardrobe and how perfect she is.

Okay, I think I’m recovered now. Cheryl said she wounded the BH, but she doesn’t know if it was Hal or not.

Alice Cooper calls Betty and asks if she can come help at the Register, you know, because “if it bleeds, it leads.” The town is in turmoil because of the riot, and Fred and Veronica are going to go find Archie. Except...Andre appears out of nowhere to pick up Veronica. *sigh*

Hermione and Hiram are drinking wine and being dramatic again. They just want to keep Veronica safe. Hermione questions Hiram, asking him if he’s keeping anything from her. Hiram is wearing a leather jacket and I’m wondering...are we supposed to believe he’s the BH? Hm….

The new sheriff is already hating on the Serpents, bragging about how he arrested a few of them. Ugh. Okay cool.

Reggie calls Hiram and cries about how everyone thinks he shot Fangs, but oh, he didn’t! In typical Hiram fashion, he says, LOL sorry, I can’t help you.

Veronica runs into Mrs. Klump, Midge’s mom. Mrs. Klump, dazed, admits that MAYBE SHE KILLED FANGS.

Hermione says to Betty and Alice that she wants to offer a ONE MILLION DOLLAR bounty to whoever can find the BH and, preferably, KILL HIM. Betty, appropriately, questions if this is even legal. I’m no expert, but I don’t think it is TBH.

Betty seems to be attempting to protect Hal, saying that if anyone else finds him first he’s dead. Uh...is she going to save him even if he’s a serial killer?

Archie talks to Ronnie with the classic line, “Hey. Can I call you back? A riot kind of broke out.”

Ronnie finds out about the bounty and freaks out. “Are you and Dad trying to turn Riverdale into Gotham City?!” Jenni, my roommate with all the good quips, says that this is the crossover we deserve.  Technically, Archie has interacted with heroes before, so this isn’t totally out of the question, is it??

Sweet Pea has gone bonkers and tries to burn the school down. Archie is going to fight with his old trusty bat, but then the principle walks out, angry and also armed with a bat!

Betty finds bloody handprints at home, and...that’s pretty much all the evidence I need to call it. Hal is bad, and likely the BH.

Pop calls Archie and says that Reggie is at the diner and needs help. Uh, sorry, but Reggie needs to take care of his own problems.

FP calls Betty and says that Hal just got admitted into the ER. Eeeeek.

Veronica yells at Hermione about the bounty, raging that she’s not going to let the family spend money that was meant for her. Veronica locks herself in the study to look for the money, digging through Hiram’s desk. She finds, in a secret drawer...a folder titled October Surprise. It’s images of Fred Andrews KISSING HERMIONE. The whole affair (if we can even call it that) between Hermione and Fred is documented and a news story is already typed up presumably to incriminate Fred against election.

There’s a bit of a ruckus outside Pops and it’s...THE GHOULIES. We didn’t miss them, yet here they are, wearing weird face paint like they just walked out of a Mad Max movie. The boys locked in Pop’s barricade the door and there’s some sexy lighting going on. Pop’s says he doesn’t have a gun, but boy does he know how to make a malatov cocktail. And so they start throwing bombs from the roof. It’s just a normal old night in Riverdale, small town America.

The cops show up just in time, and no one has to really light anything on fire. Sheriff—I mean ex-sheriff Keller—shoots his shotgun a little and it scares the Ghoulies off. Poor babies.

FP, Keller, and Fred all go inside to talk to the boys and Pop. Kevin takes a picture and says what we were all thinking, “Hot Riverdale Dads to the Rescue.”

Jughead confronts Sweet Pea and it’s awkward. Sweet Pea seems to think that Jughead was their leader, but I was never under the impression that he was. They have a testosterone filled stand-off.

Veronica immediately tells Hermione about the article she found. Hermione seems to have known about the whole October Surprise. Veronica tells Hermione that she’s only a means to an end for Hiram, and that ALL he has done was put her in harm’s way. Basically, Hiram uses people. But this isn’t anything we didn’t already know.

A scary man comes in and confronts Pop. It is SMALL FRY. Well, I’m guessing it’s Small Fry since we heard about him last episode and he has the most ridiculous name.

Betty goes to the hospital to see her dad, but it’s not him in the bed when she gets there. It’s the doctor! The BH says, via hospital phone, that the doctor asked too many questions so he had to die. The BH says that Betty needs to come home, and that Alice is there. The BH says if she doesn’t come home in ten minutes he’ll slit Alice’s throat in the middle of the living room, which is an oddly specific threat. Was the kitchen too easy of a cleanup?

Penny calls at the least opportune moment and says that if Jughead doesn’t come meet her immediately she’life start cutting Toni. This is getting out of hand.

At home, Alice seems totally chill and Betty panics, trying to get Alice out of the house. Alice says that they’re all going to watch some old home movies together. Totally normal thing. Hal is being creepy as hell, hooking up an old projector because apparently we are living in the 1950s.

The video is of Hal as a little kid, and someone is asking him if he knows why his dad killed the Conway family. Apparently, Hal’s dad killed an entire family because they were sinners. The speaker, I’m guessing his mom?, coaches the kid on how to grow up and be a serial killer. It’s all weird.

Hal makes Alice record him talking. He’s yelling now and it’s just a lot. Hal confesses that Betty’s Great-Grandfather was not murdered by just anyone, but his son, who then took on the Cooper name to, IDK, not be a sinner? The Conways knew about the whole Cooper-killer secret, or maybe that they were actually Blossoms, and so they had to die too. Stay with me here, this is nuts.

So one person got away, Svenson the janitor, and years and years later Hal had him killed in order to close any loose ends, but like...it took such a long time, didn’t it? Like, has Hal just been thinking about this for years and years or what?

Hal says HE HAS A DARKNESS that now lives in Betty. Hal tries to pass on the mantle in a weird way, by implicating that Betty is going to be nothing more than he is: a killer. He makes Betty confess that he’s the BH. Betty is really really good at having tearful eyes and not actually crying. It’s a talent.

Betty recalls all of the crimes of the BH, and Hal says that he didn’t anyone at the debate. The rest were him, but he can’t take credit for that.

Archie goes home with Fred and finds the back door unlocked. Huh. Weird. He walks around his completely unlit, dark house, sensing something strange, and then a hooded dude jumps out and fights with Archie! Fred hits the fake BH in the head, but he gets up again and SHOOTS FRED. It’s all happening again! But Fred has on a bulletproof vest, so our anxiety is short lived.

Back at the ranch, Betty asks Hal why he became the BH. Uh, duh, it was because everyone is a sinner. Betty’s speech about “doing better” awoke something in Hal because it just happened to be the phrasing his mom used. Alice says that none of this makes sense! Why was any of this recorded?!

Hal says, chillingly I think, “I want them to know all this when they find us.” He’s going to kill the whole family! Or maybe, force Betty into killing him and awakening her darkness?

Penny wants to talk with Jughead at a creepy fire, and hey, the Ghoulies are there too with tasers. But Cheryl is also there! And we know Cheryl is a good shot with a bow. I’m pretty convinced that Cheryl is a time traveler from some other century.

Penny says that she’s constantly coming back and being nuts because she wants to make money in the Southside. She says that the Serpents need to leave or her and the Ghoulies are going to fight them. Pfffft.

Andre is confronted by the same man who went to Pop’s. This guy seems huge. Hermione and Veronica continue arguing, tearfully. Then, there’s a knock, then...the door is kicked in! I was totally right. It’s Small Fry and he is anything but small. He’s here to kill Hermione and Veronica because Hiram loves them. In this moment, I only wonder one thing. Is Andre dead?

Hermione shoots Small Fry MANY times and he falls to the floor, dead. This is why Hermione is in charge, Jenni says. She shoots first and hides the body later! We need a TV show with Alice and Hermione as boss ladies making things happen.

Jughead talks with all the Serpents, who apparently think that they have to fight and maybe die? FP reports that Fangs has died and that they need to honor Fangs by voting on what to do. They all vote to fight. On the battlefield. Again, what century are we in? And why is Cheryl there voting? She’s not a serpent!

Alice says she’s not surprised that Hal was the killer because he was a mama’s boy. Alice says that Hal can never do anything right, not even be a serial killer! She says that Hal is the sinner that needs to be punished. Alice says that if Hal wanted to kill Fred because he’s an adulterer, he might as well kill himself. This is too much for Hal, and he starts choking Alice. Betty comes in and hits Hal in the head though, and together Alice and Betty knock him out! Or kill him? We don’t know yet.

FP and Jughead argue about how the Ghoulies are going to outnumber and defeat the Serpents. FP screams into the stove for some reason. I guess he’s just really emotional. FP thinks it’s more noble to go out fighting if they have to go out at all.

Jughead calls Hiram, suspicious that he’s behind everything that’s happened throughout this crazy night. He accuses Hiram of paying the Ghoulies and Penny to go to war with the Serpents. Hiram doesn’t admit to it, but Jughead goes ahead with a counter offer anyway. But again, thanks to editing, we don’t know what it is just yet.

Hiram goes home and finds Andre dead, but Hermione is drinking wine and chilling with Veronica, who says, “it’s your mess, Daddy. You clean it up.” OOOOOOH.

Hal gets arrested and we see him getting taken off. Does Betty get a million dollars from the Lodges now? Archie sees and figures out that the BH was not the one who tried to kill his dad.

Jughead calls Betty to confess that he loves Betty and has always loved her and will never stop loving her and all of that, which sounds very dire. But we don’t know what he’s up to just yet.

Jughead shows up to turn himself over to Penny, and in turn Hiram, and in return they won’t fight the Serpents. The Ghoulies just start wailing on Jughead. Are they just going to outright murder him? Doesn’t that seem a bit much, even for the Ghoulies?

At the Serpent bar, FP gets a call from Betty, who tells him about the weird phone call from Jughead. Hot dad #1 immediately gets on his motorcycle and rides off.

Hermione and Veronica are done with Hiram’s BS, and they give him the cold shoulder. Veronica tells him she found the October Surprise. She says that there will always be something like this and she won’t be part of the collateral damage.

The pop music is playing, so I sense the end of the episode is near. FP comes out of the woods holding Jughead like the pieta. He’s crying. This music seems incongruous. AND THAT IS IT.

Final thoughts

Mary: Well, lots of plot lines I’ve been wanting to see wrapped up have now been taken care of, and for that I’m happy, BUT MAN. Are they really toying with the audience (the very frail, fragile audience) by teasing that Jughead might be dead? Surely FP wasn’t too late, was he?!

Also, about Hal. We told you so.

Kelli: I wasn't going to include any final thoughts, but during my travels this weekend I was thinking about it and I have what I believe to be THE ULTIMATE TRUTH OF THE BH: I think Chic is the co-conspirator/second BH and has been in on it with Hal this WHOLE TIME. Calling it now, y'all. Why else you think BH #1 - AKA Hal - didn't kill him when Betty turned him over?

What do you guys think? We want your theories!