Riverdale – Chapter One Hundred and Nine: Venomous

Jughead (Cole Sprouse) starts to get nostalgic and rifle through his comic book collection while Betty (Lili Reinhart) is doing the same with her photo album, trying to figure out past secrets of her father Hal (Lochlyn Munro). Veronica (Camila Mendes) embraces her “Black Widow” moniker and begins to dress the part, including a rather black shade of lipstick. Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) goes back and forth on whether she should reach out to Heather (Caroline Day), even though Nana Rose (Barbara Wallace) tries to dissuade her from doing so. And for Archie (K.J. Apa), he now faces a dual threat with Percival (Chris O’Shea) as Reggie (Charles Melton) has joined the dark side. Fortunately for Percival, he can continue to keep Archie down with his palladium ring…which makes Archie question how he can overcome his palladium weakness. 

Archie 

While going through Jughead’s old comic books Jughead mentions to Archie the idea of potentially building an immunity to palladium by working through exposure. This points Archie to seek advice from Cheryl on the matter, who warns him to tread carefully through this endeavor as she hands over her own personal piece of palladium for Archie’s mission. Unfortunately, when Archie uses the palladium on a necklace it further weakens him than before he even had the power. Betty discourages further use of the necklace, but Archie continues even as it starts to wreak havoc on his body. Heading back to Cheryl, she proposes that instead of a necklace that Archie try ingesting a palladium broth in a similar fashion to how Rasputin built immunity to poison.  

Archie agrees to the broth and, while it was a better idea at first, he begins to deteriorate even further as his weight drops drastically and his hair begins falling out. Cheryl tells Archie that the palladium has zapped him of the iron in his body and he needs to replenish it in order to potentially reverse the effects. Later that day Cheryl gathers Archie and Betty together to propose a rather wild solution: in order to give Archie the iron that he needs to survive,she would need to use her pyrokinesis to potentially forge the palladium in Archie’s body into iron. Archie agrees to try Cheryl’s idea but asks for one more night with Betty if this kills him. Cheryl’s idea works and Archie survives being forged….and no longer has a reaction to palladium. 

Betty 

To try and jog memories of her subconscious, Betty enlists Jughead’s help to attempt reaching into her mind and sorting through her memories for clues of Hal’s killer tendencies. Jughead agrees and asks Betty to try to think of her memories as a collection, much like comic books. As Jughead enters Betty’s mind he locates the box of memories and starts to relive the memories of their relationship while he digs. Jughead finally reaches the deepest part of Betty’s mind where a young Betty (Hannah Bos) and Hal are sitting in Pop’s Diner discussing the death of Betty’s cat Caramel and if Betty experienced any sort of adrenaline rush from having to put down her precious feline. Believing that Betty was just like him, Hal tried to groom Betty into a serial killer.  

In the next round of subconscious digging, Jughead uncovers a memory where a young Betty witnesses Hal telling Alice (Mädchen Amick) that she also has the serial killer gene. When Betty confronts Alice about the memory she brushes it off. This prompts Betty to enlist Jughead’s help once more but this time to reach into Alice’s memories for a clue. Both head down to the TV station and confront Alice before she goes on the air. Jughead sees that Alice and Hal have buried something under the floorboards in the Cooper household. Bughead (Betty and Jughead) are back to their sleuthing ways when they break the floorboards under the dining room table and find a body. Once Alice arrives home Betty confronts her about the body and the truth comes out: there was a deputy that had been investigating Hal and once Hal had killed the man he had Alice help him hide the body. Betty finally understands that Alice was controlling during her formative years in an effort to try and suppress the serial killer gene. Betty reminds her that no matter what she would have the gene, despite Alice’s attempts to suppress it, and promptly leaves. 

Veronica 

After conferring with Dr. Curdle Jr. (Nikolai Witschl), Veronica learns that the toxins in her body continue to increase. Curdle suggests dialysis and isolation from others, considering that Veronica can spread poison into the air from tears, kissing and talking. While Veronica is ready to embrace isolation, Reggie decides to rally the shareholders to call a meeting and force Veronica into meeting with them. She heads into the meeting looking very much like a widow, hoping that the black veil will protect the shareholders she needs to meet with. But Reggie has other plans as he decides to make Veronica seem incapable of running Babylonium on her own, causing shareholders like Mr. Shipley (Al McFoster) to question her ability to run the casino. Veronica assures them that she will show them that their investment will begin to turn profit and the meeting is adjourned. Once Veronica confronts Reggie and Percival, she unleashes her venomous vitriol on Mantle…causing him to have a nosebleed.  

Realizing she needs to confide in a friend, Veronica quickly calls Betty and subsequently Archie to meet her for drinks at the Whyte Wyrm. There Veronica shares her secret power with them while they down shots and laments over the fact that her last real kiss was with Reggie. During their drink-fest Veronica realizes that in addition to her venomous nature, the alcohol she has imbibed is not affecting her in the same way that it does her friends. Veronica then decides to pay Cheryl a visit to help her run a test with ingesting natural poisons. While there Veronica also requests a book about spiders from Cheryl’s library. Later that night in a bubble bath Veronica begins her test and reports her findings to Cheryl the next day. It would appear as though Veronica has an immunity to poison and has the qualities of a spider, where the venom would not destroy her personally. In this moment Cheryl gifts Veronica her spider brooch. Reggie then comes to confront Veronica later at Babylonium and shows the evidence of her trying dialysis, thinking that his evidence is proof that she will give up the casino. Ready to fight, Veronica tells Reggie that if he tries to take her down it will be a bloodbath on his end.  

That night Veronica plans to hold a special performance at Babylonium. Prior to the performance Betty and Archie meet with Veronica and Betty offers her a special gift: a kiss with Archie to help Veronica get her “main character energy” back. Knowing that Archie is impervious to everything, Veronica agrees and Varchie (Veronica/Archie) kiss to seal the deal. On stage Veronica shares her proposal with the shareholders that Babylonium is quickly becoming successful before jumping into a rendition of “Toxic” as a thank you to Betty and Archie. 

During Veronica’s performance Betty and Archie cheer on their friend for finally finding herself again as Veronica blows a kiss to Percival. At Jughead and Tabitha’s apartment his powers start to go haywire as he experiences flashbacks of moments of his relationship with Betty. While confused, he then receives a text from Tabitha that she is on her way back to Riverdale. And for Cheryl, who has been trying to hype herself up to contact Heather at her job at the Greendale Public Library, she no longer needs to worry as Heather decides to pay Cheryl a visit at Thornhill.