Riverdale Review : Chapter Thirty-Six "Labor Day"

Welcome back to my blog! It's October, and Riverdale has finally returned for their 3rd season. In this episode,  the jury begins deliberations in his murder trial, Archie makes a surprising request; Jughead leads the Serpents against the Ghoulies latest attack. On top of that, we are introduced to the new mysteries that will be the focus on this season. 

-This post below contains spoilers- 

* Final days of summer

The season opens up a few days before Labor Day, in other words, the final days of summer before the gang started their junior year of high school. Veronica spent the summer working at Pop's, Betty worked as an intern for Mary and Sierra to help with Archie's case. Meanwhile, Jughead spent the summer sending scouts to track down and keep eyes on The Ghoulies and Penny Peabody. 

As for Cheryl and Toni, they seem to be the only one who spent their summer like normal teenagers would, away from the stressfulness of Riverdale by motorcycling around the country.

 On the other hand, Archie spent his summer time on trial, waiting for his fate due to the murder of Cassidy, where we left off at the end of season 2. 

* Summertime Madness

One of the main storylines of this episode is Archie's trial, the judge has decided that the jury need a week time to decide Archie's fate. So he asked Archie to spent his weekend with his loved ones.

really, this sounds like the judge already made his decision for sending Archie to juvie

 Betty and Veronica, are still trying to find a way to prove that Archie is being framed by Hiram. But Archie told them to give up cause' he just want to spend the weekend with them. Cheryl, later on, made a really jaw-dropping entrance into the season and ends up inviting them to her pool party. 

During Cheryl's pool party, we find out what happened to the rest of the characters throughout the summer. Josie and Sweetpea are having a summer fling. Seriously who didn't see this coming?

While Kevin is planning to lose his virginity before Halloween.

Aside from the fling and romances, Archie is telling Reggie to take care of the Serpents and Bulldogs relationships with Jughead in case he's taken away. 

We then also see Cheryl talking with Toni about how she honestly worried about Archie's fate. Because she really wants to help him, like how he saved her back in season one from drowning in Sweetwater River.  It's really nice to see this side of Cheryl, her character development is seriously the best thing that happened in the show.

We then see our core four heading to The Swimming Hole, where they spend their time talking about what happened over the summer and Archie's kinda saying his goodbye to them. Especially with Veronica, he told her not to wait for him. But of course, Veronica refused to and keep holding on to their love. 

When it's finally time for Archie's sentencing, the jury still can't come up with a conclusion. So the judge decided to keep going with another trial, while the district attorney offers Archie 2 years time at Juvie if he decided to take the deal. Of course, Archie being the Archie that he is decided to make his own fate and decision by taking the deal without discussing it with anyone. His reason is that he felt guilty for all the things he had done while becoming one of Hiram's henchmen in the previous season. We then see Archie on a bus on his way to juvie. 

Who else relate with these three's reactions after Archie take the deal?

* The new mystery 

Jughead accompanied by the northside serpent crew decided to confront The Ghoulies and Penny after the scouts tell him that they kidnapped Hotdog. Of course, all of this was Penny's idea to meet and confront Jughead, with no other reason than to asked for his serpent jacket, or else... that she will hurt Betty. But before any bloodbath start, Cheryl shows off her archery skills once again as a warning for both The Ghoulies and Penny. 

As for the new mystery in town, starts off with Dilton who decided to show up in a rush in Jughead's trailer and telling him about the game he's been playing with Ben called "The Gargoyle King" and somehow he told Jughead that this creature from the game is real. However, at this point, Jughead was not concentrating on what Dilton was trying to say and told him to wait there because he needs to go to Archie's trial. When Jughead returns, Dilton is nowhere to be found, but instead, Jughead founds a piece of paper on the kitchen table in which is the town's map with a symbol in it, where we can tell has something to do with the gargoyle king. Jughead being the detective in this show, heads out to look for Dilton by following the map.

Once Jughead arrived at the place somewhere in the forest, he and basically every one of us is freaked out by the fact that Dilton and Ben are somehow looks like they are being sacrificed and apart of some weird ritual. But what we sure know is that it has something to do with the Gargoyle King. 

* The Farm 

Meanwhile, things are still heating up in the Cooper household... It seems like Alice has been brainwashed by Polly because of the farm with this Edgar Evernever guy as the mastermind. They asked and try to persuade Betty to join the farm as well in order for her to heal from what happened in the past with her dad. But of course, Betty who still has common-sense refuse to. But Polly promises   Alice that she will try to make Betty willing to join the farm. 

Just as we think things couldn't get any weirder in Riverdale, before the episode ended we see Betty waking up from her sleep in the middle of the night due to the commission she heard and rushes outside to her backyard only to find Alice and Polly holding the twins along with four other people surrounding them around the fire and letting go of the twins just above the heated fire, the most  freaky thing is when the twins didn't fall down but floating in thin air! Betty being just freaked out like us, immediately faints and Alice immediately rushes to her, and that's where the episode ended. 

What do you think happened? Do you think magic arrives at Riverdale? Or Betty has some kind of hallucination or episode due to her intense consumption of Adderal?