Riverdale – Chapter One Hundred and Ten: Things That Go Bump In The Night

Picking up where the last episode left off, Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) is reunited with her beloved Heather (Caroline Day). In catching up on each other’s lives, Cheryl asks Heather for help to turn Thornhill into a privately-owned library after Percival (Chris O’Shea) has shut down Riverdale’s Public Library. With Tabitha’s (Erinn Westbrook) return to Riverdale, she tells Pop (Alvin Sanders) and Jughead (Cole Sprouse) that her request to get Pop’s historical status has been denied. Fortunately for Tabitha, she may have a solution to save Pop’s from destruction and she seeks out Archie’s (KJ Apa) help. 

With Agent Drake (Sophia Tatum) sticking around to help Betty (Lili Reinhart) with TBK, she also advises Betty to vacate the Cooper residence and move in with Archie after Betty shares the Cooper family history. When Betty approaches Archie with this request, he is more than happy to have her move in. Meanwhile on the Southside, Toni (Vanessa Morgan) and Fangs (Drew Ray Tanner) continue to fight Kevin (Casey Cott) for custody of Baby Anthony and seek help from social worker Janet Weiss (Alison Araya).  

With Jughead currently battling writer’s block, he is approached by Veronica (Camila Mendes) to help her with a potential new venture for Babylonium: a mentalist act. With Reggie (Charles Melton) doing everything he can to destroy Veronica so that she hands over her share of the casino, Veronica knows that having Jughead perform a mentalist act utilizing his power would provide her with the influx of cash needed to fight back. Jughead agrees to Veronica’s scheme and quickly the mentalist act becomes a hit, leading Reggie to confront Veronica for a cut of the profits in exchange that he won’t tell anyone about Veronica’s hit on her father Hiram. Wanting to take Reggie out of the cut, Veronica asks Jughead if while he can get into minds, can he also erase memories from minds? Jughead finds out he can, and once Reggie comes to collect his share of the mentalist act, has the memory of learning about the hit on Hiram wiped clean from his brain. Later with Percival, Reggie shares that he feels he has forgotten something, and Percival is ready to get down to the bottom of it.  

Once Tabitha realizes that she won’t be able to save the building for Pop’s, she approaches Archie with a potential solution: pack up the contents of Pop’s into storage until they can save it. Enlisting the help of his crew and promising decent benefits, Archie gets his team to work on packing up Pop’s Diner. During the packing up, a gumball machine topples over, which Tabitha notices.  

When Archie’s crew applauds their hard work done, Percival and Frank (Ryan Robbins) come into the diner and approach with a better offer of work…without union benefits and for more money than Archie can give them. This prompts Fangs to join Frank’s crew, especially since he needs the money for him and Toni to help their case in getting Baby Anthony. The next day as Archie is really to drive the contents of Pop’s over to a secure location, they find that the truck has been emptied and Pop’s has been put completely back together. Believing that Percival is behind this in order to destroy all the contents of the diner, Tabitha confronts him only to find that he was not behind it. This leaves Tabitha with even more questions. 

Learning that Fangs has joined Percival’s project, Toni is upset at Fangs for switching sides. But Fangs is prepared for Percival’s tricks, using Baby Anthony as his own tether to keep from being influenced by the dark side. With both Toni and Fangs now holding down gainful employment, there is a better chance for them to win the custody battle as Kevin is a single parent going against a couple. Realizing that marriage will only strengthen their case, Toni proposes to Fangs that they get married under the guise that it is all for love and this is the next step.  

Betty continues trying to understand her newfound powers, especially when upon seeing Juniper (Alix West Lefler) and Dagwood (Bentley Storteboom) with a new cat named Butterscotch, she sees the aura around Dagwood. Agent Drake suggests having Juniper and Dagwood tested for the MAOA gene (the serial killer gene) in order to get some answers, but Dr. Curdle Jr. (Nikolai Witschl) informs Betty that only Juniper presents as having it. This confuses Betty even more, making her believe that maybe her blind spot with her gift is not being able to see auras around anyone with the MAOA gene but seeing when others pose a potential threat.  

Knowing that now their time is limited with dismantling the diner, Archie and his crew are back at it to put Pop’s into storage. During their second run with clean up, the jukebox suddenly turns on and electrocutes one of the workers when they try to move it. Even stranger things begin to occur as Tabitha later returns to the diner and sees a lit Pop’s Diner with patrons in the booths. Except when she goes inside to investigate it is empty, and all the memorabilia is back up on the wall. Needing answers, Tabitha runs to Cheryl and Heather for help.  

Upon seeking their help, Cheryl and Heather know that Pop’s has a ghost problem and take Tabitha with them to summon the spirits that have died in the diner in years past. One of the spirits named Gilda Snide (Maria Marlow) explains to the women that as Pop’s is the soul of Riverdale, their souls need to reside with it in order to witness the battle between evil and good. Gilda also gives Tabitha, Cheryl and Heather more insight into Percival’s big plan for Riverdale: to build a ghost train. With this information, Tabitha convinces the souls that she will dismantle and rebuild Pop’s in a safe location for the spirits to remain and bear witness to the final battle.  

After hearing about the potential ghost issue from Tabitha, Archie knows that he needs to try and shake Percival’s influence on his Uncle Frank. Deciding to try the tether route, Archie appeals to Frank by showing him a picture of himself with Fred (Luke Perry) as children. This seems to break Frank of his trance and Archie believes that he has finally broken Frank of his bond with Percival. In turn, Frank offers his crew to help Archie take apart Pop’s again and move it to El Royale until further notice.  

With the crew helping to relocate Pop’s, plans are going smoothly…or so we think. Betty comes to visit Archie at work but takes notice when while talking to Frank he seems to emit the bad aura. Knowing that Frank is up to no good, Betty lets Archie know and he goes to stop Frank. Obviously the tether wasn’t strong enough and Frank had every intention of dumping the contents of Pop’s in Sweetwater River rather than taking it to El Royale. But Frank is more than prepared in his mind to weaken Archie and tries to hit him with palladium. Fortunately for Archie, he is now impervious to palladium and tells Frank to let Percival know he is ready for a fight.  

Curious about Heather’s abilities, Cheryl enquires about the magic that she used. Heather admits that once she had moved to Greendale all those years ago, she was taken in by witches and taught how to use magic. Dabbling in magic herself, Cheryl asks Heather for help in honing her magic and learning how to use it. Heather agrees to help her.  

As Betty now knows that the MAOA gene runs deep in her family, she decides to take Juniper and Dagwood out of Alice’s (Mädchen Amick) care. This enrages Alice, who unleashes hellfire on Betty for taking away her grandchildren and vilifying her. Alice’s behavior rattles Betty a little bit, but not as much as seeing Alice with an aura around her as she yells at Betty. Since Alice apparently tested positive for having the MAOA gene, Betty does not understand why her mother gave off an aura. Later at home with Archie asleep, Betty sees just one more aura she did not expect to see: herself.