Riverdale Season 5 Recap
Episode 1 - Climax
Bret (Sean Depner) takes Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) and Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) to covert red-band screenings hosted by Blue Velvet owner David (Graham Phillips) after Betty and Jughead ask Charles (Graham Phillips) to look into the footage. Betty and Kevin (Casey Cott) give her a handmade snuff film in exchange for her admission to the movie. Betty is forced to show David the snuff tape of her father as a youngster when he recognizes it as a fake.
For one of them to be accepted into the Naval Academy, KO Kelly (Zane Holtz) arrives in town to square off against Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) in a boxing battle. The loser is Archie. Toni (Vanessa Morgan) reveals to Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) that Toni’s grandmother is against her dating a Blossom during their campaign for prom queen. Jughead is snuck into the rave by Betty. The gang and Jellybean (Trinity Likins) are shown in various snuff movies that are being screened.
Archie and Betty part up when Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) learns about their kiss at prom. A Livestream of the masked gang shooting a masked owl at the video store is shown during the dance and is eventually identified as David. Following prom, Cheryl and Toni do not return together. Hiram (Mark Consuelos) overhears Veronica when she returns home and informs her parents of Archie’s infidelity.
Episode 2 - The Preppy Murders
After watching the videotape and hearing from Mary (Molly Ringwald) that George Augustine (Blake Stadel) and his son want Archie to send a letter to request a lower sentence for killing Fred Andrew (Luke Perry), Archie struggles with his feelings. In prison, Bret’s (Sean Depner) murder is discovered by Jughead and Betty. To remain with Toni, Cheryl tries to convince the Blossom Maple Board to build a sanctuary for the Uktena tribe. While Cheryl and Toni are away, Penelope (Nathalie Boltt) murders them.
The Molloy family attacks Veronica, but Hermosa (Mishel Prada) intervenes to murder them. Hermione (Marisol Nichols), Veronica, and Hermosa come up with a scheme to make Hiram resign. Hiram and Hermione later decide to get divorced. Another video recording of the guy entering Betty’s home is delivered. Betty and Jughead confront Charles after they discover that he is responsible for the recent deaths of Bret, Joan (Doralynn Mui), and David. After investigating Jellybean, Betty and Jughead learn that she and her pals had been recording the videotapes because she was concerned that Jughead was leaving town, despite their first suspicion that he was the auteur.
Episode 3 - Graduation
Archie finds out that he must redo his senior year as graduation draws near. Principal Weatherbee (Peter Bryant) nevertheless permits him to travel with his classmates. FP decides to relocate to Toledo with Gladys (Gina Gershon) after Jellybean is revealed to be the voyeur. After struggling with Fred’s absence, Archie decides to enlist in the Army as the gang graduates. As FP and Jellybean depart, the Riverdale High students bury a time capsule.
After Betty departs for Yale, Jughead vacates the Cooper residence and squats in Archie’s home until the Cooper residence is sold. Then, until the start of college, he goes into the bunker. Jughead travels to Pop’s to greet Archie, Betty, and Veronica a year after their final goodbyes, but they are not there. He points out that it took the group six more years to finally come together, with the help of a different mystery.
Episode 4 - Purgatorio
Archie returns to Riverdale after seven years to discover Toni singing with Fangs (Drew Ray Tanner) and Sweet Pea (Jordan Connor) in the Whyte Wyrm, formerly La Bonne Nuit. Now that Toni is expecting a child, she refuses to talk about Pops’ current whereabouts and says that Pops is the father of her unborn child.
Betty has been having horrific nightmares about being imprisoned by the Trash Bag Killer (TBK) due to a mission that went catastrophically wrong for her when she was undergoing FBI training in Quantico, Virginia. Veronica is seen with her husband Chad (Chad Michael Murray), who is revealed to be controlling where she chooses to work as they celebrate their wedding anniversary.
Since she has been hiding out in Thornhill with Nana Rose (Barbara Wallace), Cheryl has rejected Toni’s advances in Riverdale for years. After receiving Archie’s calls, Betty, Jughead, and Veronica are present when Archie and Toni return to Pop’s. Lynette “Squeaky” Fields, a waitress from Pop’s, decides to leave Riverdale and board a problematic train to California, while Jughead menacingly predicts that she will never make it there.
Episode 5 - The Homecoming
The gang quickly learns upon coming home that Riverdale High is at risk of losing its funding due to instructors and students leaving for Stonewall Prep. When Betty gets home, she expects to see Alice (Mädchen Amick) and the twins, but instead, she runs across Polly (Tiera Skovbye) sneaking in after hours. Betty confronts Polly, but Alice silences her.
With several of the Serpents, Archie and Betty raid the Andrews’ (KJ Apa) home in search of proof that will put them behind bars. Betty and Archie engage in sexual activity in the shower as they tidy up. In the meantime, Jughead avoids debt collectors while still struggling with writer’s block. He approaches Tabitha (Erinn Westbrook) about working as a Pop’s waitress. Cheryl subsequently funds the privatization of Riverdale High, and Hiram dissolves the township of Riverdale. In another scene, a truck is seen pursuing Polly after she fled after fighting with Betty.
Episode 6 - Back to School
As Hiram and Reggie (Charles Melton) try to devise ways to keep the community in misery, the gang starts their first day on the job as Riverdale High’s newest instructors. Toni informs Betty that Polly had been meeting up with a trucker for sex at a dubious truck stop while Polly had been away for several days. Following a tip from the trucker, Betty and Alice locate Polly’s possessions along the side of the Lonely Highway.
Jughead receives assistance from Tabitha with his book, and she also directs him to an older man who tells him how his friends were kidnapped by space aliens known as the Moth Men, who reside in the forests off the Lonely Highway. Pinging Polly’s cellphone by Alice, Betty, and Kevin results in a find in Swedlow Swamp. Archie receives a notification from Jughead that fires have been lit outside their home.
Episode 7 - Fire in the Sky
Taking a body, they discovered in Swedlow Swamp to the morgue is Betty, Alice, and Kevin. Betty believes Margaret, a woman who went missing years ago, is the body since Dr. Curdle Jr. (Nikolai Witschl) cannot recognize it as her. But days later, Margaret’s body is found. Hiram, though, makes an effort to dissect her strategy. While re-establishing the Riverdale Fire Department, Corporal Jackson (Sommer Carbuccia) visits Archie. Although they butt heads, Cheryl and Toni agree to train the Vixens together.
In Pop’s kitchen, they unpack the body. Jughead witnesses a brilliant light outside of Pops during the graveyard shift. His memory suddenly vanishes, and he cannot recall what transpired after that. The following day, the body from the kitchen is gone. Betty starts to believe a serial killer is on the loose when she learns other women are missing from adjacent communities.
Episode 8 - Lock & Key
Jughead struggles with the idea of meeting an alien, and Tabitha consoles him. Later, while teaching at Riverdale High and after taking a bath at the residence, he also experiences an alien-like hallucination. Kevin and Fangs decide to end their open relationship and inform the gang that they are engaged and supporting Toni in raising her child.
Archie and Betty break up sexually, and Veronica and Archie pick off where they left. Kevin breaks off his engagement to Fangs, and Cheryl and Minerva (Adeline Rudolph) have a passionate exchange. Polly calls Betty and Alice and says she is at a phone booth off the Lonely Highway. When they get there, the phone booth has been disassembled and is stained with blood.
Episode 9 - Destroyer
After the Bulldogs suffer a string of defeats, Archie and Veronica find it challenging to maintain their team’s spirit. Glen (Greyston Holt) calls Betty to inform her that the blood found on the demolished phone booth is a match for Polly. Betty tells Alice that Polly’s blood is not a match as she tries to accept the fact that Polly is probably dead.
Jughead discovers that a pupil in his class might have had encounters with the Moth Men in the meantime. The student, however, departs from the community with his parents. Old Man Dreyfus (Greyston Holt), who Betty and Jughead visit off the Lonely Highway, is confident that Polly had a run-in with the Moth Men. Kevin chooses to resume cruising but encounters difficulty.
The Bulldogs secure a narrow victory as they score against the Stonewall Stallions for the first time this year. Betty goes to the truck stop to defend women and get even with Polly. Glen informs Alice that Polly’s blood was a match when Betty finds him at home.
Episode 10 - The Pincushion Man
While Alice and Betty learn that Juniper (Alix West Lefler) and Dagwood (Bentley Storteboom) might fall prey to the Cooper family’s evil, Betty knows Glen is preparing a dissertation about the Cooper family. At Pop’s, Jughead and Tabitha share a tender moment. To aid him in writing his novel, Jughead persuades Tabitha to keep an eye on him as he consumes psychedelic maple mushrooms. After Jessica (Phoebe Miu) arrives in town, she finally decides to go along.
When Betty is instructed to stab Chic (Hart Denton), Juniper is recommended to stab Glen. This causes Charles to be shot. Veronica encounters a problem with her divorce. Reggie sets the maple groves on fire, and Jughead has a terrifying drug trip. When the FBI chooses to take the investigation upstate, Betty steps in to resolve the situation. When Tabitha returns to the bunker, she discovers bloody handprints on Jughead’s finished book.
Episode 11 - Strange Bedfellows
Archie and Kevin start the process of capturing the escaping prisoners. Archie breaks things up with Veronica when she returns from New York until the divorce is finalized. She is robbed at her jewelry business by Darla (Azura Skye) and Dodger (Juan Riedinger). to help them and gives them psychedelic mushrooms so they would give her the finished manuscript. Governor Dooley (Fred Henderson) and Hiram disagree on the acquired palladium being taken from beneath the prison.
Several inmates take the trio and Sheriff Keller (Martin Cummins) hostage to obtain the palladium in the El Royale, using Veronica as collateral. Penelope starts a ministry at Thornhill to help her deal with Jason’s unfair death once more, but Cheryl is hesitant to join until she has a revelation. Jughead makes his home among the homeless elsewhere before deciding to take a truck back to New York, leaving Tabitha with a voicemail to let her know where he is.
Episode 12 - Citizen Lodge
Reggie settles his father’s debt with Hiram, but because of his stormy relationship with his father, he decides he still wants to work for Hiram. Hiram answers Reggie’s inquiries about his ascent to the top by outlining how he came to be. Hiram began shoe shining with his father before becoming Jaime Luna (Mark Consuelos). After realizing his family didn’t support his shoe shining company, Jaime started working for Vito (Louis Ferreira), a local mafia in Riverdale.
With the cash he earned from his job working for Vito, Jaime chased a young Hermione and struck up a relationship with her. Jaime’s father was not pleased with his behavior, especially after a fight that Jaime started at school when, out of embarrassment, he asked to be called Hiram Lodge instead of going by the Luna name.
Jaime’s father was shot in front of Pop’s when he met with Vito at another location to ask him to stop pestering his son. Hiram promised to get revenge on the Luna family name and reputation when his father was shot, and he killed the assailants. With Hermosa’s assistance, Hiram tracks Vito down in the present and kills him. Later, Hiram urges Reggie to make amends with his father because he regrets not doing the same for him before it is too late. Later, Hiram promises to do whatever action is necessary to get to the palladium buried beneath the Blossom Maple Groves.
Episode 13 - Reservoir Dogs
After being told that Betty cannot be associated with the FBI, Tabitha and Betty devise a scheme to entice truckers to Pops. Frank (Ryan Robbins) offers Archie and Eric (Sommer Carbuccia) a dog to help them cope while dealing with their trauma. Later on, however, they realize that their dog has been in a fighting ring, and they decide to take out the town‘s dogfighting boss.
A lady’s night is held at the Whyte Wyrm, which aids in drawing prospective suspects in the highway homicides.A trucker is interested in Betty, so she lures him with the premise of having sex. When Tabitha finds her, he stops and attempts to slash her to death with a chainsaw. After Betty finally hits him with a wrench, they take him away and hold him as a hostage.
Episode 14 - The Night Gallery
At Thorn Hill, Cheryl presents her most recent set of paintings featuring Archie, Betty, and Jughead to a reticent Minerva. Archie is depicted in Cheryl’s picture as distressed, and it details his journey with a new therapist. Archie’s tale reveals that a few of the lads had begun palladium mining near Blossom Maple Groves.
Jughead’s story reveals that he went on a drug trip and returned to New York only to learn the truth about the night he left Betty the threatening voicemail: he had fallen into the sewers. He had persistent hallucinations of the “Rat King,” a creature that mocked him mercilessly. At a group meeting at the high school when he returns home, he finally acknowledges his problems with drugs and alcohol.
Episode 15 - The Return of the Pussycats
After learning of her father’s passing during her world tour, Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray) vanishes and makes her way back to Riverdale in search of ideas for her upcoming record. She takes offense when her former classmates ask her to assist them in saving the town from dying during her time in Riverdale, showing how they have harmed her in the past. She also re-established contact with Melody (Asha Bromfield) and Valerie (Hayley Law), who have chosen careers as writers and political activists.
Because Josie left the Pussycats in high school, Valerie and Melody are hesitant to trust her. But later, the girls decide to join Josie on stage for a one-night performance at the Whyte Wyrm. Toni gives birth to her kid in Pop’s kitchen as Veronica and Tabitha discuss franchising the restaurant with Alexandra Cabot (Camille Hyde).
Before they leave, a man who knew Josie’s father walks up and tells Sierra (Robin Givens) and Josie that her father might have been assassinated because of his dubious business connections before he died. But with everything put aside, Josie hops on the bus, eager to see what lies ahead.
Episode 16 - Band of Brothers
Archie fights for justice for the guys who died while serving in the Army with him. With the aid of Reggie and Cheryl, Veronica devises a plan to thwart Chad and her father from regaining financial security.
To keep his sobriety, he chooses not to visit her and instead tries to claim credit for Cora’s (Megan Peta Hill) work, which he still owns. He does inform his agency, though, and is dropped as a client. Betty views the Lonely Highway in another location while pretending to be Polly, a hitchhiker. Seeing that she doesn’t want to go it alone, Tabitha offers to help.
Episode 17 - Dance of Death
As Veronica’s divorce approaches, Hiram offers Chad the chance to kill Archie, but he is unsuccessful. For Chad to avoid being accused of murder, Veronica receives everything in the divorce. An explosion at the mine puts Cheryl’s connection with her faith to the test while Kevin quits the ministry. Hiram receives threats from Veronica for being responsible for the mine explosion that put Archie and Eric’s life in danger.
After coming out to her family, Toni’s pupil flees, bringing Betty and Jughead’s inquiry to a head with Toni’s predicament. Along with Fangs and Tabitha, the group explores the junkyard and finds the Moth Men and the shed housing the victims. Old Man Dreyfus informs Betty where Polly’s body lies and confesses to the killings. When Betty and Alice go to the junkyard, they find her.
Episode 18 - Next to Normal
To deal with Polly’s passing, Alice imagines a scenario in which the Coopers are still a contented family. Despite Betty’s best efforts, Alice accuses her of being responsible for Polly’s passing and violating her vow to return to Riverdale sooner. Cheryl takes her in as Britta (Kyra Leroux) gets evicted from her parents’ home.
After Veronica learns they are traveling different paths, Archie and Veronica break up. Toni and Fangs publicly confess their love for one another and promise to support one another. Jughead and Tabitha decide to start a romantic connection when she tricks Jughead into attending a meal with her parents. The group honors Polly’s life by interring her ashes in a cemetery.
Episode 19 - Riverdale: RIP (?)
When TBK calls her, Betty reopens the Riverdale field office and receives the promotion to Special Agent at the FBI. After Hiram is found to be the cause of a fire at Pop’s, Veronica makes a final commitment to banish him. To get retribution, Jughead and Tabitha set fire to the Lodge Ledger office. Toni and Fangs battle to keep the Serpents under control.
Archie appoints Tabitha, Toni, Alice, and Frank to the town council to assist in reintegrating Riverdale. Betty and Archie decide to start seeing each other, but just as they are about to have sex in Archie’s bedroom, they discover a bomb under the bed that will go off, and Hiram has hidden it there as his ultimate punishment. Archie’s house is visibly destroyed in a blazing haze as Hiram departs in his car.
Riverdale Quick Facts
an American teen drama TV show
based on the characters of Archie Comics
adapted by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the chief creative officer of Archie Comics, for The CW
Warner Bros. produced the work. In collaboration with Berlanti Productions and Archie Comics, television, and CBS Studios,
a major motion picture remake for Warner Bros. Pictures, the concept was transformed into a Fox television series.
The project’s development was transferred to The CW in 2015 when a pilot episode of the series was ordered.
Vancouver, British Columbia, serves as the location for filming
premiered on January 26, 2017