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Riverdale season 3, episode 18 review: Jawbreaker

By Catherine Palmer

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Betty goes to extremes to free Alice from The Farm on Wednesday’s Riverdale. Meanwhile, a new drug hits the streets, and Varchie starts to reconnect.

After a three-week hiatus, Riverdale returned with an action-packed episode that left one character in serious danger — face-to-face with the Gargoyle King.

As The Farm’s influence continues to grow, Betty and Toni set out to save their loved ones, Alice and Cheryl, respectively. But how far will they have to go? Meanwhile, when a new batch of Fizzle Rocks leaves Riverdale residents seeing red, FP and Jug set out to catch the dealer.

Plus, hoping for a rematch with Randy, Archie turns to Veronica for help getting into Elio’s boxing tournament. Here’s a look at what went down in “Jawbreaker.”

Hello, darkness, my old friend

To get Alice to see reason and leave The Farm, Betty realizes she needs to prove to Alice that Charles is dead. The only problem: there’s no proof. So, at Hal’s suggestion, Betty makes a fake gravestone and takes Alice to see it. Naturally, Alice is not convinced, so Betty goes plan B: kidnapping.

Betty chloroforms Alice, brings her to the bunker, chains her to the bed and shows her an old family scrapbook in an effort to convince Alice to not forget “the good parts” of her past just because of Hal.

Betty’s attempt to get Alice to be honest blows up in her face, though, when Alice calls her out for faking the gravestone. Convinced that Alice will snap out of her funk with time, Betty leaves Alice chained in the bunker… and heads off to school. (High schoolers really do have it so rough these days.)

Unfortunately, when Betty returns, she finds Alice burning the scrapbook. (We’re just going to look past the fact that Betty reopening the bunker door after Alice started a fire in an unventilated space would have set the whole thing ablaze and quite possibly killed them both.)

Back at school, Evelyn tries to provoke Betty and swiftly comes to regret it. Betty shoves Evelyn up against a locker and threatens to kill her for manipulating her family and friends. But Betty is for a shock of her own when she listens to her mother’s tapes from The Farm. Alice confided in Edgar that she is afraid of Betty and think she shares the “same darkness” as Hal. Alice even said she thinks Betty wants to hurt her.

Convinced that Edgar is turning Alice against her, Betty confronts him, but he denies the accusation. He insists that Charles is “a wound [Alice] needs to heal,” by whatever means necessary. Then, he puts Betty on the defensive: why is Alice having Charles in her life such “a bad thing” if his presence gives her the comfort and peace no one else in her life can?

On that note, Betty decides it’s time to “let [Alice] go” so she can heal in “whatever way she chooses.” She takes Alice to meet Evelyn, so Alice can return to The Farm.

Keeping up with the Joneses

When a new batch of Fizzle Rocks called G sends people into violent frenzies, aka “Fizzle Rock Psychosis,” Jughead and FP work to stifle the outbreak by catching the dealer. Unsurprisingly, it’s Kurtz, and they manage to catch him relatively easily.

But what he says in the interrogation room leaves them shaken to the core. Killing Brandon Morris, aka Baby Teeth, — who had blue lips, G&G symbols carved into his back and a matchbook from The Maple Club lodged in his throat — was “only the warm-up to the ultimate quest… [to] save the little princess.”

Yep, he means JB. Earlier in the episode, she’s at Pop’s playing G&G with Ricky DeSantos, aka Joaquin’s little brother who stabbed Archie. In the episode’s final moments, Ricky takes JB into the woods and surprises her by introducing her to the Gargoyle King. JB’s been “summoned!”

Is Varchie going to reunite?

Fred Andrew certainly thinks so! After Veronica goes out of her way to help Archie — rebranding the gym as El Royale Boxing, playing hardball with Elio to get Archie into his Guilded Gloves tournament, gifting Archie fancy custom boxing shorts and a fancy custom boxing robe — it becomes clear the spark between them is reigniting, and they almost kiss. Archie tells his dad that their just friends, but Fred knows better.

Then, at Archie’s re-match with Randy, Veronica and Josie sit together, and the latter clearly feels awkward when Veronica reveals how much she helped Archie, including by making Pop’s his sponsor.

As for the fight itself, despite Randy being hopped up on G and Archie taking quite a beating in Round 1, Archie makes a comeback and knocks out Randy to win. When Randy continues remains to motionless, though, Archie realizes something might be seriously wrong and calls for medical attention.

Toni Topaz: Double Agent

With Cheryl becoming ever more dedicated to The Farm, Toni turns to Betty for help, mostly because she blames Betty for what happened… which is honestly pretty fair.

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In a major throwback, Betty reveals she still has that video of Clifford shooting Jason and sends it to Toni. Toni shows the brutal video to Cheryl to prove Jason is really dead, but Cheryl insists the video is fake.

Back at school, Evelyn confronts Toni, insisting The Farm is “fulfilling” Cheryl in ways Toni “couldn’t believe.” Naturally, Toni’s next move is to entice Cheryl to hook up rather than go to The Farm. That only works temporarily, though, and Evelyn has an ace up her sleeve.

She insists that Cheryl pick between Jason and Toni. Having known him the longest, Cheryl picks Jason. But Toni uses the situation to her advantage and finds a loophole. Cheryl doesn’t have to choose if she joins The Farm, too… and she can be the new mole.

Riverdale Randomness

  • Thanks to Betty’s help, Alice is now divorced from Hal (or will be once the paperwork gets processed). But now Hal wants a favor, too: Will Betty actually free her murderous father from prison?
  • Are Alice and Edgar actually engaged? Or will they be?
  • Will we see an Archie-Josie-Veronica love triangle?
  • Obviously, JB will survive, but what’s going to happen? Will Jughead finally tell FP about Gladys’ drug business? Was Gladys involved in cooking G?
  • Can Betty and Toni hang out more? They seem like they could be genuinely good friends.
  • Is Randy like… okay? Or is he dead?

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Riverdale will return for another episode on Wednesday, April 24, at 8:00 p.m. ET on The CW.

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