Riverdale – Chapter One Hundred and Six: Angels in America

With Percival (Christopher O’Shea) unleashing his plans to take over Riverdale in full swing, he has one more trick up his sleeve. On Alice’s (Mädchen Amick) Riverdale talk show Percival announces plans for a privately-owned railway that runs through the heart of the city, which would mean the demise of Pop’s as it would become a rail station instead. Tabitha (Erinn Westbrook) is ready to go head-to-head with Percival, storming into this curiosity shop and demanding answers. Believing that he can use his mind control on Tabitha, Percival tries to convince her to sell Pop’s…only to find out that Tabitha is the one person in Riverdale that cannot be controlled.  

Enraged and emboldened by Percival’s new plan, Tabitha is ready to enlist the help of her friends to take down Percival once and for all. But after Percival’s last attempts to thwart her friends, Archie (K.J. Apa) and Betty (Lili Reinhart) want to wait and regroup for their takedown while Toni (Vanessa Morgan) sees no detriment to the Whyte Wyrm and Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) is still trying to control her powers. Even Veronica (Camila Mendes) is of no help as she suggests Tabitha should close the original Pop’s and keep running her business through Babylonium, where Pop’s is making sizeable profit. Turning to Jughead (Cole Sprouse) for advice, it is then that Tabitha learns about Jughead’s ability to read thoughts when he answers her and she was not speaking. Jughead then explains to Tabitha about everyone’s powers and comes up with a solution to save Pop’s – appealing to the Governor to make Pop’s a national landmark. Across town Kevin (Casey Cott) informs Percival of Tabitha’s plan to rally her friends…and Percival is ready to throw down.  

Later at the diner Pop (Alvin Sanders) provides Tabitha and Jughead with memorabilia to cull through, including a Green Book from 1944 that lists Pop’s Diner as a safehaven. As Tabitha and Jughead prepare to burn the midnight oil, their research is abruptly interrupted by a man entering the diner with a gun and turning his sights to Tabitha. However, the gunshot instead triggers Tabitha to be transported back to Riverdale, December 24, 1944. Working alongside her great-grandfather Titus Tate (Norm Lewis), Tabitha wonders how she was transported to 1944…until she sees Jughead sitting alone at a booth.  

Only Jughead is not Jughead, but rather Raphael. As Tabitha works on trying to understand how to get back to her current time, she learns that the real Jughead is sitting by her bedside as she was shot and that she possesses the ability to travel through time. As she was transported back to 1944, there must be a reason for her presence during this time and it presents itself as Mayor Keller (Martin Cummins) calls a meeting to discuss whether Riverdale becomes a “sundown town.” At the meeting Tabitha sees that Percival (a/k/a Sheriff Perkins in 1944) is trying to do everything to make Mayor Keller vote for a sundown town, which would mean that anyone of color out beyond a certain time would be arrested and persecuted.  

Later that night at Pop’s Diner Tabitha notices a young couple named Tracy (Vanessa Morgan) and Flynn (Drew Ray Tanner) pounding on the front door. As their car had broken down in a sundown town, they fled on foot with their baby girl Annie and saw that Pop’s Diner was listed in the Green Book as a safe place. Unfortunately, Sheriff Perkins has also arrived at Pop’s with his deputy (Casey Cott) and demands to be let in knowing that Tracy and Flynn are inside.  Demanding that the Sheriff needs a warrant to come in, Tabitha buys some time by asking Raphael to show his true self to Perkins and his deputy while Tracy, Flynn and Baby Annie escape. Raphael’s true form makes the officers go crazy and Tabitha appeals to the Mayor with Tracy and Flynn present as to why Riverdale cannot be a sundown town. Mayor Keller ends up voting down the sundown law and all is saved, but a crazed Sheriff Perkins enters the diner and points a gun at Tabitha and shoots her…making her time-jump once more. 

This time when Tabitha opens her eyes she is transported to April 3, 1968, one day before the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Hoping to prevent his death, Tabitha tries to get on a bus to Memphis and it breaks down. It is then that Raphael disguised as Toni (Vanessa Morgan) shows up to let Tabitha know that she cannot change certain moments in time. Having this knowledge, Tabitha is forced to live the moment that King is killed and watches as the news devastates her grandfather Pop (Sam Darkoh), a teenager during this time. Percival has also arrived in this time period as Perry Pierce, who runs the FBI division in Riverdale. Seeking to ruin Riverdale once more by coming after those in Pop’s for wanting to gather and mourn Dr. King, Tabitha must come up with a way to deter Perry Pierce from his plans and does so by making a call to Pierce’s superior…J. Edgar Hoover. By threatening to divulge Hoover’s secrets, Tabitha succeeds in getting Pierce taken off the case and fired from the FBI. However, Pierce is not done as when Tabitha is sent to go grab more condiments from the back, she discovers that Pierce has planted a bomb. Grabbing the bomb and disposing of it in the garbage out back, the blast propels Tabitha into yet another time: 1999.     

In 1999 Tabitha’s grandfather, now a grown Pop Tate, is cleaning off graffiti that was spraypainted on the side of the diner. A teen by the name of Brian (Vincent Muller) was questioned by Sheriff Keller (Martin Cummins) but does not remember how he came to deface the diner. Tabitha goes to sit down with Brian and shows him a baseball card of Riverdale’s most famous baseball player. Brian then recalls a gentleman handing him the card in exchange for doing something, something that he does not remember. It is then Tabitha has found Raphael yet again, now in the form of Betty. With Raphael and Tabitha waiting outside of the curiosity shop, they wait until Percival who is Paul Prince in this time leaves his shop. Procuring a bobby pin from Raphael, Tabitha picks the lock and takes pictures of the items in the shop and later shows them to Raphael. Looking at the photos, Raphael is shocked that Paul Prince has the Holy Grail cup and the sword of Longinus in his shop.  

With the Holy Grail cup, this may be Tabitha’s way back to her present time. But when Tabitha heads back to the shop to grab the cup, Paul Prince is ready and waiting in a General Pickens costume…prepared to take Tabitha down so that he may finally take over Riverdale. What Prince is not prepared for is that Tabitha was on her college fencing team, and easy overtakes the fight until Prince disappears. Seizing the moment, Tabitha grabs the Holy Grail and brings it back to Pop’s Diner. Believing that the cup is her talisman to travel back to her current time, she drinks a milkshake from the cup and returns right back to the moment before she got shot in present time. Fortunately, Tabitha uses this opportunity to change the narrative and throws the soup can she had in hand at the shooter, knocking him out. This startles Jughead and Tabitha immediately begins to explain what happened to her, which prompts a meeting between Tabitha, Jughead, Archie, Betty, and Cheryl. 

Tabitha then shares her story of travel and realized that her talisman was Pop’s Diner all along. Using her newfound power, Tabitha then tells the group that Percival is looking to destroy Riverdale and is trying to persuade Governor Dooley from turning Pop’s into a historic landmark. And there’s more, especially when Tabitha can go into the future and sees that Pop’s is an empty shell and the sky is filled with ash. The battle for good versus evil starts in Riverdale, which is ground zero, and it is up to them to save the world.