Riverdale – Chapter Seventy-Three: The Locked Room

By starrymag | March 18, 2020

By: Courtney Groom

 

 

After discovering last episode that Jughead (Cole Sprouse) faked his own death in a bid to discover the dark truth about Stonewall Prep students, he and Betty (Lili Reinhart) burst into DuPont’s (Malcolm Stewart) classroom, surprising him, Bret (Sean Depner), Donna (Sarah Desjardins), and Joan (Doralynn Mui) that Jughead is still alive. Jughead has Betty lock the door and tells them that they’re stuck here for thirty minutes until class ends. Donna tells Jughead that she knew he wasn’t really dead. Betty says since she failed to prove it or find Jughead the two of them had time to figure out all the twists and turns of this murder mystery they’ve all been living for the past few months. Donna says she has no idea what she’s talking about and Jughead tells her to not worry because he’s going take her through it step-by-step.

 

Jughead starts with the fact that both he and Moose (Cody Kearsley) were invited to Stonewall during their senior year, which was exactly how it was with Jughead’s grandfather who was also DuPont’s roommate. He mentions Halloween when he was drugged and woke up in a coffin and let out a day later. When he returned to his dorm Moose had vanished. Jughead naturally assumed he went out the same way as the Stonewall Four. Although Moose ended up joining the Army, Mr. Chipping (Sam Witwer) was the one who encouraged Moose to enlist…or more like forced him. Betty says Chipping had recruited Moose the same way he did Jughead and then ran him out of Stonewall. Chipping must have known Moose was going to get murdered and was trying to save his life.

 

Jughead says things got really interesting after Halloween. That is when DuPont announced the writing competition. He was asking Jughead about his father and his grandfather, who was the original Baxter Brothers writer, and young Francis DuPont then stole it from him. DuPont says it was a 100% legal transaction and Betty tells him he exploited Forsythe. This brings him to Mr. Chipping – Jughead told him about his grandfather and then Chipping talked to DuPont. Then, the very next day Chipping dived out the window. Jughead tells DuPont he thought he had some leverage over Chipping, but it was actually Bret, Donna and Joan and their blank expressions as they watched him jump.

 

DuPont says Chipping had demons and Betty tells them his wife filled them in on all of those. Mrs. Chipping shared that he had been drinking more, having trouble sleeping and complaining about the Baxter Brothers books. Jughead says they started to ask themselves, what would turn the opportunity of a lifetime, winning the Baxter Brothers contract, into a burden? DuPont’s ghostwriter challenge was to devise the perfect murder, but what if the real challenge – the real price that someone had to pay – was to commit the perfect murder in order to prove that they could write it.

 

Jughead reveals the same year and the same month that Chipping was awarded his contract that a Stonewall student disappeared. Betty and Jughead believe that student was murdered by Chipping. They believe it was Ryan Allan, the previous ghostwriter who took up the mantle the same month another one of the Stonewall Four disappeared. This brings them to a couple months ago when Jughead was awarded the contract. And the way to get rid of Jughead was DuPont’s writing challenge – to commit the perfect murder against Jughead and be awarded the contract.

 

Jughead says it was DuPont that gave him a clue, recounting when he asked who had rewritten his Baxter Brothers novel DuPont told him they all had a crack at it. That suggested to Jughead that each one of them had a hand in his murder. That night at the party Donna had kept Betty busy and Bret led Jughead into the woods where he took off the bunny mask and put on his beanie. That beanie kept Jughead’s head from being completely cracked open when Joan crept up behind him and hit him with a baseball-sized rock. They had a fool proof plan, air-tight alibis. Betty says it all should have worked so perfectly, but it didn’t because they didn’t actually kill Jughead. All they had to do was hit Jughead in the back of the head hard enough with a rock. Meanwhile, Donna was blowing Devil’s Breath (or scopolamine) in Betty’s face to set her up as the perfect murder.

 

In a flashback to the night of the “murder” we see the four Stonewall students return to the party after leaving Betty standing over Jughead’s body. They run into Archie (KJ Apa) and Veronica (Camila Mendes). They point Archie and Veronica to where they would find Betty standing over Jughead’s corpse. After kneeling down by Jughead, we see Archie keep asking Betty what happened. She tells Archie to start compressions while Veronica uses Jughead’s beanie to stop the bleeding. Betty gives him mouth-to-mouth. After a few moments Jughead wakes up but soon falls back under. Jughead didn’t regain consciousness for another 36 hours. Betty called Charles (Wyatt Nash) to explain what happened and they carried Jughead through the woods to the old postal road where Charles was waiting for them with an FBI med-van. Charles had told the three of them to go back to where they found Jughead and clean the scene, making it absolutely certain that they don’t leave anything behind. They also need to get rid of their blood-covered clothes and get washed up.

 

After doing what Charles said, they all went home. Betty says not knowing if or when Jughead was going to wake up and wondering if she had actually been responsible was a waking nightmare. Bret is confused because he saw Jughead’s corpse at the coroner when he and Donna burst in. But Dr. Curdle Jr. (Nikolai Witschl) was in on it all, too. While Betty was keeping them busy with a game of cat-and-mouse, Jughead was in the bunker trying to figure this whole thing out.

 

Jughead then mentions that he and Betty went and saw the Baxter Brothers ghostwriters. Jughead says when they told them their theory they all asked for their lawyers, specifically the three members of the original literary group who DuPont murdered: Jane Dallas Brown, Charles W. Chickens and Theodore Weisel. When DuPont stole Jughead’s grandfather’s original Baxter Brothers novel, it was a fact known to Forsythe, DuPont and his inner circle of classmates. The bigger it got the more worried DuPont became that one little slip of the tongue would send the whole thing tumbling down. DuPont’s life work would be revealed as a lie and him as a fraud. Betty adds on that DuPont started going after people who knew the truth and started staging their accidental deaths…until there was only one living member of his literary society left.

 

Betty opens the door to FP (Skeet Ulrich), Charles and Forsythe (Timothy Webber). Forsythe tells DuPont that Theodore came to see him before he died and he hadn’t slept for days. Theodore explained that DuPont killed Charles and Jane because they were going to spill the truth. He said they knew too much and DuPont was going to off them, too. Forsythe says two days later, the expert diver drowned in shallow water. He realized that Theodore was right and he was next, so he went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. Since 2002 Forsythe has been collecting evidence that linked DuPont with the murders. While everyone had been locked in the room, Charles’ team was combing through DuPont’s house for the last hour. DuPont says he built the Baxter Brothers franchise and with that money he helped build Stonewall Prep. Just as Charles is about to arrest DuPont, he goes the same way Chipping did…a dive through the window.

 

Betty waits for Donna in her dorm. When she arrives Betty tells her she wanted to congratulate her personally. She and Jughead heard that Donna is taking over the Baxter Brothers and Donna says the brand is relaunching as Tracy True. Betty says her plan worked, even DuPont’s dead now. Donna asks Betty if she’s really so delusional she would believe she would mastermind some elaborate conspiracy that caused the deaths of multiple people just to win a book contract. Betty replies no but Donna would do it for revenge for the murder of her grandmother, Jane Dallas Brown. Donna had dedicated herself into getting into Stonewall Prep and getting into Chipping’s class with each step brought her closer to her grandmother’s killer. Donna tells Betty that DuPont didn’t merely kill her grandmother, he stole from her the same way he did from Forsythe. Betty realizes Tracy True was Donna’s grandmother’s invention. The files that Hermosa (Mishel Prada) had dug up and gave to Veronica last episode were medical files that confirmed that Donna is the granddaughter of Jane Dallas Brown. Donna asks Betty what she wants and Betty says she wants her to walk away from the Tracy True contract. Tracy deserves better, as does the memory of Donna’s grandmother. If she doesn’t walk away, Betty will make sure every newspaper of every major city gets a copy of the medical file.

 

Jughead is back at Riverdale High. And although Mr. Honey (Kerr Smith) isn’t too happy about it, he legally has to let Jughead back. He just really hopes his credits transfer. Later that night the Core Four are hanging out at Pop’s and Archie says to make a vow, even though the last time they made a vow to have a normal senior year everything went to hell pretty quick. But they only have two or three months left before they all graduate and go their separate ways. However, Jughead brings up the fact that he and Archie will probably not be graduating with Veronica and Betty. Betty asks him if they really think the two of them will just sit by and not help their boyfriends graduate. Veronica tells them they will graduate, even if it takes a thousand tutors they will set aside everything.

 

Kevin (Casey Cott) walks over and joins the Core Four mentioning the fact that Riverdale High is showcasing a new musical and this time Jughead has to participate.