Riverdale – Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two: Tales in a Jugular Vein

Mayor Clifford Blossom (Barclay Hope), Dr. Werthers (Malcolm Stewart), and Principal Featherhead (William MacDonald) have gathered to talk about the death of Ethel’s (Shannon Purser) parents and how it has thrown the town into disarray. In order to start moving beyond their death, they decide to go after the culprit: comic books. Rather than solve the murder, turning the story away to something that can be banned and appear to placate the townspeople…for now. 

Meanwhile, Jughead (Cole Sprouse) pops into Pep Comics and finds out that Fieldstone (Garry Chalk) is buried under a deadline to get the next issue out since his writers came down with a stomach bug. In order to help and potentially gain more work, Jughead pitches the idea that he can come up with the stories for the next issue. With no other options, Fieldstone agrees and has Jughead go talk to Bernie (Jesse Goldwater) to hash out the four short stories needed to complete an issue. While talking with Bernie, Jughead is struck with the inspiration to write four grotesque stories featuring teens. As Jughead heads back to his train car and gets straight to work, Veronica (Camila Mendes) pops in to potentially have Jughead take her out on a date. Hearing about Jughead’s deadline, she scraps the movie idea and sits down with Jughead to hear what he has come up with. With a creepy janitor known as the Key-Keeper (Dan Zukovic) narrating the stories, Jughead begins to share the stories. 

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Keep Your Head In The Game 

While Dilton Doiley (Daniel Yang) is on the basketball team, he is known for being the proverbial “runt” of the team. During free throws at practice, Coach Kleats (Michael St. John Smith) says that no one can leave practice until everyone makes a basket. The rest of the team minus Dilton manages to do so, leaving Dilton as the odd man out. Rather than have everyone wait around, the coach has the rest of the team run laps while Dilton attempts to make the basket. Later in the locker room, Julian (Nicholas Barasch) bullies Dilton for his inability to make a basket and decides to lock Dilton in a locker overnight to teach him a lesson.  

Unbeknowst to the team, Dilton was diagnosed as morbidly claustrophobic as a child….leading to him having a psychotic break when released by the janitor the next morning. Taking matters into his own hands, Dilton grabs an ax and hides in the locker to lay in wait for his teammates. Later when Coach Kleats sees Dilton making baskets, he then realizes that Dilton is using the heads of his teammates for practice while their headless bodies sit on the bench. 

Love You To Pieces 

One night after his hot rod gets a flat tire, Archie (KJ Apa) finds himself at the Blossom residence. Upon knocking, Nana Rose (Barbara Wallace) answers the door and allows him in. While at first reluctant to have Archie stay overnight, she relents with one caveat….that once Archie is in the guestroom he must lock himself in for the night. Archie asks why and Nana Rose explains that her grand-daughter Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) likes to roam the halls at night and has an insatiable appetite for intimacy. Archie agrees to Nana Rose’s terms but upon seeing the picture of Cheryl, he decides to leave his room unlocked in the chance that Cheryl comes to his room. As expected, she enters his room and they become intimate.  

The next morning, Archie comes down in a chipper mood and during breakfast mentions seeing Cheryl. He asks what happened and Nana Rose explains how Cheryl took a trip to a tropical jungle where she contracted a rare form of leprosy. Because of how contagious the disease is, Nana Rose has kept Cheryl away from everyone. While Nana Rose is immune after recovering from it as a child, Archie is not. Nana Rose also admits that she is the one who put the nails on the road, causing the flat tire. Even though Cheryl will succumb to the disease, Nana wants to give Cheryl every desire. While Archie is horrified at the thought of infection, Cheryl’s rotting hand lands on his shoulder. As Archie looks up, he sees the face of an infected Cheryl…ready to spend the rest of her life with him. 

The Beehive 

Known as the proverbial “plain Jane”, Betty (Lili Reinhart) seeks the attention of the opposite sex. Realizing that it’s time for a change in her life, she heads down to the local hairdresser for help. Hairdresser Joan-E (Robert Kaiser) suggests the latest craze in hairstyles: The Beehive. Betty is on board with the idea, but is warned by Joan-E that once her hair is up she cannot wash it. Betty asks why and is advised that if she does, her hair will go back to normal. Instead of washing, Betty is handed a can of hairspray and told that this is what she’ll have to apply to her hair to keep it in that style.  

The next day at school, Betty’s new hair garners the attention of the boys….much to the dismay of the girls. With Julian offering to carry her books and Archie aiming to take her out, Betty is elated at all the attention. Fast forward a week and while out on a date with Archie, Betty begins to feel sick and starts foaming at the mouth before she collapses and dies. At the autopsy, Dr. Curdle Jr. (Nikolai Witschl) is horrified to discover that after cutting into Betty’s coif, spiders begin to crawl out. Apparently one night while sleeping, a Black Widow spider crawled into her hair and laid eggs in it. Once they hatched, the spiders began to eat at Betty’s brain.  

My Better Half 

While Archie is known as the All-American boy, he is torn between choosing the “girl next door” Betty or the “socialite” Veronica. Deciding that he cannot make up his mind, Archie finds a way to date both of the girls. Setting up a schedule that put the girls on alternating days three days a week each, Archie would then keep himself going with copious amounts of coffee and sleep in all day on Sundays. Even though the arrangement works for a while, Betty and Veronica begin to get upset and demand more of Archie’s time. Archie manages to make both of them believe that they’re his favorite and placate them. Later during gym class, Archie shares his Casanova skills with his teammates…his bravado increasing. Unfortunately for Archie, Valentine’s Day falls on Sunday…his day off. This leaves Betty and Veronica at each other’s throats and eventually demanding that Archie make a choice.  

To get out of Valentine’s Day, Archie says that neither girl can be his date as he is spending the day with his mom Mary (Molly Ringwald). The girls are touched and decide to stay in for the fated holiday, but then decide to spend it together at Pop’s. But as they look over the menu, Betty sees Archie walk in with none other than Cheryl on his arm. Instead of confronting Archie, Betty tells Veronica that she has a better idea on how to handle their situation. The next day at school, Betty and Veronica approach Archie and pitch the idea about a date with the three of them. Eager to go with this idea, Archie agrees and meets them in the shop-class room after hours. When the date begins, Betty hands Archie some coffee that her and Veronica brewed special just for him. After a sip, Archie collapses and wakes up chained to a table with Betty and Veronica standing over him….and a saw in the corner. Ultimately, Betty and Veronica decided to chop Archie in half so each of them could have a part of him. While Archie screams at Betty and Veronica’s giddiness over their plan, both girls later enjoy a date with their piece of the ginger: Veronica with the top half and Betty with the bottom half.  

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With all four stories and Veronica looking over them, Jughead wonders what she thinks of his stories. But while Jughead is excited, Veronica feels that his stories make the women look shallow. Jughead feels that Veronica has missed the mark and tries to salvage the night by offering to take Veronica on a date, but she declines and leaves Jughead’s train car. The next day, the potential relationship of Jughead and Veronica is no more. Veronica has returned to being the alluring socialite as Jughead went back to his typewriter and comics.  

But for Jughead’s time at Pep Comics, Dr. Werthers has written his forementioned editorial about the dangers of comics. Pleased with the editorial, Blossom, Werthers, and Featherhead are ready to celebrate their plan. Meanwhile at Pep Comics, Fieldstone is pleased with Jughead’s work and offers him a byline of Jughead “Jugular” Jones. Jughead is pleased with this news, but the fight between comics and those against them is only beginning.