Valerie and Josie have a major fallout; Betty and Jughead’s probe into Jason’s death bring them to a home for troubled youth; an unexpected betrayal sends Veronica spiraling; Josie’s overbearing father appears; Hermione and Fred grow closer.

Riverdale gets deep into the mystery of Jason’s death and Polly’s incarceration in an episode full of reveals and twists and turns.

Betty and Jughead continue their best Scooby impersonation first sleuthing to figure out where Betty’s sister Polly was and then following up on a clue mentioned by Polly. Polly’s in an institution and it turns out Betty’s parents have been leaving some information on the table. It’s interesting stuff and not too shocking when revealed, but it emphasizes have dysfunctional the Cooper family really is. The two also stumble upon something else which hints Polly and Jason were into some deeper shit than anyone knew or is willing to admit, leaving more hints as to why he was really killed. It’s a lot of clues and hints packed into an hour and fantastic to see the show dive deeper into the mystery presented.

But, it wouldn’t be a CW show without lots of drama and this episode still has time for that. First, it’s talent show time! Archie wants to perform, but has some stage freight issues when it comes to that. The Pussycats are also performing at the show and things aren’t going so great with them with some artistic arguing within the ranks. That leads to a member quitting, a new member joining, all sorts of drama. There’s also Archie’s dad trying to get a contract and Veronica’s mom being able to make that happen with some duplicity.

All of that adds a bit of fun to what would be weird mystery. The revelations of what’s discovered and how that ends mixed with the talent show drama create a weird balance of a show that works and works really well.

And that’s what’s impressed me with Riverdale. The show is able to balance such different genres and still seem like a coherent vision. Part teen drama. Part murder mystery. This is a key episode that shows Riverdale is able to pull that off and then some.

Overall Rating: 9.35