"Riverdale" Heads Back to School and Veronica Considers a Lodge-less Rebrand

Riverdale is heading back to school after the Luke Perry tribute episode last week, and it’s time for senior year. After Voiceover Jughead fills us in on the fact that summer has gone by and Archie is doing better each day, the Fab Four spend the night at Veronica’s apartment — yes, all four of them, each couple hooking up in a different room — and accidentally sleep in and are late to school. They meet the new principal, Mr. Honey (played by Kerr Smith of Dawson’s Creek fame), who’s all about order and consequences. He sounds like a fun hang.

And with that lil’ intro, we can get to the main plots of the evening:

Reggie’s Pain

Archie has convinced Monroe (formerly: Mad Dog) to attend Riverdale High and play football, which is great! But Reggie’s isn’t thrilled about it, because he’s threatened on the field, and since Monroe is super good at football, Reggie’s getting sacked a lot (or something; I'm not a football expert). Unfortunately, his dad is watching, and he’s angry. You might recall that Reggie told his friends back in the height of the G&G craze that his dad gave him a black eye when he asked about the game. Well, none of Reggie’s friends remember this — or if they do, they were fine putting it on ice for a few months and are finally ready to deal with it. Reggie’s dad is very aggressive at football practice, yelling at his son and smacking his helmet, and Archie notices.

When Reggie later has a black eye, Veronica tells Archie it’s not the first time, and that Reggie’s dad hits him. So Archie confronts Mr. Mantle at practice, and Reggie fights Archie about it. But after getting drunk at Cheryl’s back-to-school party, Reggie admits to Archie that his dad has hit him his enitre life and that he always envied Archie and Fred’s relationship. It's an extremely heartbreaking scene.

Reggie wants to stand up to his dad, though, and his solution is to beat up his father’s fancy red car with a baseball bat. They should also alert some authority figures, I think, but Reggie tells Arch the next day that his car destruction led to a productive conversation between father and son, and Mr. Mantle will not be coming to football practice anymore. I admire Riverdale’s commitment to returning to Reggie’s abuse plot after bringing it up last year, but, is this a realistic or healthy portrayal of what to do if you or a friend is being abused by a parent (or anyone else)? Not sure it is. Points for talking about it, though, and good for Reggie for opening up to his friend. (If you're looking for more resources regarding child abuse, you can check out the Children's Bureau.)

Kevin and Betty Take Down the Farm. Well, Sort Of

Betty is still working with her half-brother Charles, an FBI agent, to bring down the Farm, but their mother Alice is late with her undercover agent report. So when Kevin arrives at the Blue & Gold office looking to make amends with Betty and she finds out from Charles that Kevin and Fangs are still in touch — even though Fangs “ascended” — B decides to feed Kevin some fake investigation info to test his loyalty. He feeds it to Fangs, and Betty and Charles confront him. Turns out, Kevin’s remorse is real, and the only reason he’s in touch with Fangs is because he’s lonely! Like, really lonely. It’s quite sad, and Betty’s heart is huge so, of course, she feels bad for her former BFF. She decides to believe in him and tells him about Alice. They concoct a plan to get Fangs to give up the Farm’s location and just as Charles is seriously questioning his decision to rely on a high school student who has a personal stake in the case, Kevin shows up with the deets. So it seems that Kevin has really and truly rejected the Farm for good, and off we…or, the FBI… go to the Farm’s abandoned, and very armed, motel.

Veronica vs. The Lodges

Veronica, going against the advice of her lawyer, doesn’t want to comment on either of her parents’ criminal cases. She’s then stalked by paparazzi, and one pervy RHS student who snaps a pic of the Vixens changing at the behest of a Rumordale.com reporter who would pay for a pic of V. Rumordale doesn’t get the pic but does get a source from La Bonne Nuit claiming that Veronica is actually responsible for all the crimes Hiram’s charged with. She visits her father, the unnamed source, who says he just told the world the truth: she’s a Lodge, through and through. All that, combined with Mr. Honey’s suggestion that she take a sabbatical until her personal problems blow over, because he loathes drama, leads Veronica to arrange a press conference. At La Bonne Nuit.

After a performance of “All That Jazz” by Ronnie herself (complete with backup dancing from Cheryl, Toni, and two others). The song and dance are fun, though also a reminder that it’s absurd that teenagers run a speakeasy nightclub in this chaotic town. Anyway, Veronica’s statement? She did all those crimes, under duress, because Daddy Dearest told her to, and she was a dutiful daughter. But she’s done with that and not standing for either of her parents anymore — she’s only standing for herself. She later cements this break by telling Archie that she’s going to shed the marred Lodge name, and take her mother’s maiden name. She and Archie flirt about “Veronica Gomez,” and it’s cute.

Rumordale dot com:

• Cheryl starts what will surely be an ongoing feud with Principal Honey after he cancels her back-to-school dance. She throws a party at home instead, but he calls the cops on it. So she delivers a beehive to his desk (somehow). Mr. Honey, you seem tough, but literally no one is a match for Cheryl. She’s currently keeping her brother’s corpse locked in a gothic hallway of Thistle House, so...you might not want to mess with her.

• Toni doesn’t know about Cheryl’s visits with JJ, and it’s probably going to be a big deal when she finds out.

• Jughead gets recruited, based on the strength of a short story he submitted to a contest, to Stonewall Prep, which Veronica says is nihilistic and privileged. She’s sure Jug will hate it, but Betty encourages her boyfriend to go when she sits through an unbearably boring RHS English class. So off Jug goes! Don’t worry, he’ll visit on weekends.

• On Jug’s tour of Stonewall, he’s invited to a literary salon, where he blows everyone’s minds by positing that the whale in Moby Dick represents “nothing” because Melville famously hated allegory. This school, and Jug at it, might quickly become unbearable. Fingers crossed for an exciting evil prep school secret society plot.

• Why doesn’t Thistle House have electricity? Cheryl must get really annoyed carrying candelabras around all the time.

• Veronica is apparently a shoo-in for Harvard. Archie doesn’t know what city Harvard is in. Their love is pure.

• The song that plays when Cheryl and Toni hand out party invitations (and she throws the gauntlet down to Mr. Honey) is "Archie's Party" by The Archies. Love a good old Archie Comics reference.

• We get another spring break flashback at the end of the episode, after F.P. says “it’s going to be a good year,” which in Riverdale, is definitely bad luck: F.P., Betty, Archie, Kevin, Veronica, and many others, including dogs, combing the woods at night and in the rain, screaming Jughead’s name. Uh-oh.

Related: Veronica Lodge’s Dangerous Older Sister Is Coming to Riverdale

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue