Riverdale season 4, episode 13 review: The Ides of March

THAT flash-forward finally came to fruition on Riverdale, and we still have a lot of questions — number one: how dare they? Here’s a look at what went down.

The present is finally catching up with the future on Riverdale… and it’s not looking good for Jughead… or Betty. But it’s also not necessarily looking worse. There’s clearly part of the story that’s still missing.

Here’s what we do know, what we don’t know and why there might still be hope for Jughead.

Plus, Archie makes decisions about future, and Veronica wrestles with her own in light of Hiram’s diagnosis (which it seems he is not faking, though you never know). Here’s a look at what went down on the Ides of March 2020 A.D.

So Betty really did kill her boyfriend… maybe

So we’ve seen Betty, Archie and Veronica bloodied and burning their clothes and Jug’s beanie. We’ve seen Jug’s body in the woods with a pretty bad head wound. We’ve seen Betty standing over his body confused, horrified and holding a rock. We’ve seen Archie declaring him dead and asking Betty what she did.

What we saw tonight was moments before. Donna tells Betty she’s done some sleuthing of her own, including visiting Evelyn Evernever in prison, and learned that Betty has a “trigger word” (something other than tangerine, though we don’t hear it) that causes her to fugue if it’s said to her three times.

So, if Betty did kill Jug, it seems that it was an accident, which was always the most likely theory. But did she actually kill him?

What was Jughead’s “plan”?

If Jug really is dead, he had a pretty unfortunate last week of life. His future at Stonewall starts to look bleak when DuPont says his Baxter Brothers contract will be revoked if he doesn’t come up with a new story by the end of the week… and then he’s accused of plagiarizing the short story that got him into Yale.

It’s all part of a massive conspiracy that DuPont and his classmates seem to be in on, and Bughead is determined to prove it. But it’s an uphill battle. Jug realizes the laptop he wrote his short story on was stolen. And then Bret, ever ready to use intimidation tactics, decides to finally come clean about taping Bughead having sex.

Unwilling to humiliate Betty or risk the plagiarism charge ruining his future, Jug accepts a last minute offer from DuPont. He’ll leave the school quietly rather than fight the charges in a trial.

Betty is worried Jug is giving up too easily and on her account, but Jug assures her that he has a plan, part of which is apparently going to Stonewall’s annual Ides of March party in the woods while wearing a bunny mask.

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The reason for the mask is unclear since he’s wearing his Serpents jacket, and Bret still recognizes him from the front anyway. The last we see of Jughead is him following Bret deeper into the woods, discarding his mask and putting his beanie back.

So, was his plan to fake his own death? Was Betty supposed to be involved? If she were wittingly involved, it seems strange that she would be acting confused when Archie and Veronica arrive. After all, why would she have to keep up a pretense in front of them?

Or did Bret plan to and succeed in killing Jug? Did he use Betty as a patsy and have Donna make her think she killed Jug?

How is Jughead still narrating his own death?

This is probably the strongest reasoning for why Jug being dead doesn’t make sense. How could he possibly be writing about his own “murder” from beyond the grave? It’s illogical even by Riverdale standards… which is saying a lot.

Here’s what might be a more likely theory: Jughead wrote about his own death before it happened. Remember back in episode 3, when Jug and his classmates were tasked with writing “the perfect murder.” What if this is what he wrote, and he decided to try it out in real life as a way of faking his own death? He wanted to “die” but didn’t want his friends to get charged.

But why would Jughead want to “die”?

The most obvious answer is that his “death” is some sort of elaborate ruse to expose all the secrets of Stonewall. How his death will accomplish that remains unclear, though.

Speaking of unclear, Riverdale just recently passed the halfway point its season. There are ten whole episodes left. Is the fallout from Jughead’s “death” going to take that long?

Meanwhile…. Varchie is still going strong.

Maybe a little too strong during school hours in a room with an open door. (Have they never heard Panic! At The Disco’s cautionary tale?!)

Anyway, Archie’s streak of making good decisions continues. After Principal Honey informs Archie that he won’t be able to graduate on time or even walk at graduation, Archie decides he needs to make some concrete plans for the future.

He excitedly tells Veronica that he’ll get back on track by taking summer classes and then apply to colleges for the spring semester. Additionally, after considering an offer from a worker to buy Andrews Construction, Archie decides he can’t bring himself to sell his family business. But he does rehire Tom Keller as foreman.

Veronica, on the flip side, goes through a bit rough patch of impulsive decision-making. Archie takes the blame after Honey finds a flask in her locker, but what ultimately gets Veronica out of her funk is opening up to Archie about Hiram’s prognosis.

Archie tells her she should take slight comfort in being able to say goodbye — he wishes he’d been able to say goodbye to Fred. On the other hand, he also encourages her to keep Hiram going strong by getting him “fired up” as only she can. Ignoring the inherent creepiness of talking about a father and daughter like that, it’s a fair point. Veronica takes his advice and boasts to Hiram about how well her rum brand, Red Raven, is doing, and it certainly lights a fire in Hiram.

Did you enjoy this week’s Riverdale? Let us know in the comments below!