'Riverdale' Season 3 Episode 2 Recap: The Parents Have a Huge Secret
Warning: Spoilers for the Riverdale season 3, episode 2, "Fortune and Men's Eyes," ahead.
After the closing moments (floating babies!) of the season 3 premiere last week, it became clear that Riverdale has a lot more secrets than just a shady syrup business. We certainly didn't get any big reveals in episode 2, but we did get plenty of Gargoyle King and a Vixen performance (not to mention an obligatory slow-mo shot of shirtless Archie (KJ Apa) getting hosed down as part of his entrance to the juvenile detention center).
Archie checks in for his stay in juvie and learns from the warden that it should go smoothly for him if he follows the rules and doesn't stir the pot at all. Not exactly Archie's strong suit. Meanwhile, Veronica (Camila Mendes) vows to have everything in order and running like normal for whenever her man gets out of the big house.
Over at the Cooper household, Betty (Lili Reinhart) is recovering from her seemingly random seizure as her mother (Madchen Amick) and sister (Tiera Skovbye) deny there were any floating babies over an open flame at the cookout with their friends from The Farm. (Just to clarify for you, there DEFINITELY were floating babies.) Betty chooses to keep her seizure a secret from Jughead (Cole Sprouse), who is dealing with some craziness of his own after discovering the bodies of Ben Button (Moses Thiessen) and Dilton Doiley (Major Curda) in front of a shrine to a creature called the Gargoyle King. We've come a long, long way from Jason Blossom here, folks! Dilton didn't survive, but Ben was brought to the hospital.
Betty and Jughead team up to do what they do best and investigate the Gargoyle King. The investigation brings them to the coroner and then to the hospital in the hopes of talking with Ben. Ben's mother explains that they weren't the first friends from school to visit and the duo figure out that Ethel Muggs (Shannon Purser) is mixed up in all of this craziness.
Back in juvie, Archie isn't having much luck making friends. He tries and fails to connect with his cellmate "Mad Dog," his new serpent tattoo didn't really give him an automatic in with the Southside gang as he was told, and the Ghoulies are out to get him for ratting them out for drag-racing in season 2.
Veronica's attempt to hold down the fort for him at school gets off to a rough start when Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) tries to take over the role of student body president. Things get a little tense between them until Veronica eventually concedes in exchange for Cheryl's help with Archie in lockup. Elsewhere at school, Kevin (Casey Cott) gets the brushoff from Moose (Cody Kearsley) after their summer romance because Moose's father is working at school starting a Riverdale ROTC program. He later attempts to fix things by joining the program to be closer to Moose.
There's also a sketchy new girl at Riverdale High named Evelyn Evernever (ZoƩ De Grand Maison). She introduces herself to Betty as the daughter of the guru that has been working with the Cooper women at The Farm. Betty later confronts Ethel with Jughead and she reveals that she was dating Ben and they spent most of their summer hanging out in a bunker in the woods playing Griffins and Gargoyles-the Riverdale version of Dungeons and Dragons.
Time for another Bughead adventure! Betty sneaks out of her house that night to meet Jughead and find the bunker, but a giant creature that seems to be the Gargoyle King we've heard so much about stands in their way and they flee.
Archie's charm starts to wear down his fellow inmates. Mad Dog opens up about his experience behind bars and warns Archie that he's better off acting like an animal in a cage than trying to get special treatment from the warden. Later in the music room, Archie gets jumped by a few Ghoulies who steal his sneakers. He decides not to tell Veronica the truth about what happened but she gives him an idea to try and unite the prisoners (and rival gang members) with a football game. Veronica recruits Cheryl and the Riverdale Vixens to perform a routine ("Jailhouse Rock") for the prisoners during the game.
Archie's plan seems to be working, with the help of the Vixens, until Hiram (Marc Consuelos) shows up and uses his influence over the warden to show his daughter and Archie that he holds power everywhere in Riverdale. The warden sends guards in to treat the football game as a riot and everyone gets a beatdown. Archie returns to find an empty cell and Mad Dog vanished. Veronica has been blacklisted from visiting but she acquires a fake ID as "Monica Posh" and lets Archie know that she's working with the Innocence Project to get him freed. Later, the warden pays him a visit to let him know that he's been tapped as the new Mad Dog, which seems to mean that he'll get special privileges by doing whatever the warden asks of him.
Betty and Jughead head back into the woods during the daylight hours, with the Gargoyle King nowhere to be found. They get into the bunker and find evidence of the game that Dilton, Ben, and Ethel were playing along with a friend who was reported missing by his family but hiding out in the bunker waiting for Dilton to come back. Bughead find Ethel again to grill her about the game, but she insists that everything from the game was real before falling into a seizure of her own. Betty looks up and sees Evelyn Evernever looking on. They decide to go back to the hospital to check on Ben and find him sitting in his window. He tells them he's ready to ascend and join Dilton before jumping to his death.
The episode's biggest moment comes when all of the parents meet at Hermione's mayoral office to discuss a mysterious secret that they buried years ago but seems to be coming back to haunt them. That secret seems to have something to do with the Gargoyle King. Will it have ties to The Farm and Netflix's upcoming spinoff The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina?
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