• First thing's first: At the end of the season, Archie is dating Veronica and Betty is dating Jughead, but Archie and Betty have been making eyes at each other because Archie.
  
• Hiram Lodge has been cleared of all embezzlement charges back in New York and is on his way to Riverdale. Veronica will not be happy to see him.
  
• Clifford Blossom hung himself after it was discovered that he was using his maple syrup business—the one that pretty much puts Riverdale on the map—as a front to smuggle heroin, murdering his son Jason after he found out about it.
  
• In response to these revelations, Cheryl Blossom tries to kill herself in the frozen Sweetwater River, but Archie saves her by PUNCHING THROUGH THE loving ICE, JESUS CHRIST. Archie and the gang are stupid enough to leave her alone afterwards, but luckily she doesn't try to kill herself again.
  
• No, Cheryl just sets her goddamn mansion on fire. KIDS TODAY, HUH?
  
• Alice Cooper was pregnant long before Polly; she was pressured to abort it, but instead she carried it to term and gave it away. Betty's got a half-brother out in the ether.
  
• Speaking of pregnancies, Polly Cooper is pregnant with Jason's children, which is a problem because it turns out great-grandfather Cooper—the one who was shot by great-grandfather Blossom—was, in fact, a Blossom, making the children a product of incest. This doesn't bother the Blossoms, though. After all, nothing is more pure than Blossom blood.
  
• I'll give you a minute to walk that off.
  
• Go ahead chief, take two.
  
• Riverdale's official policy for dealing with their biggest job creator being a murderous, drug-smuggling cad is "gently caress the poors." The police hold FP Jones in lockup to try and get him to roll over on his gang, The Serpents, suspected of having a part in the smuggling operation, but FP won't say a word. This forces Jughead into foster care (and by proxy, a new school), but he gets initiated into The Serpents as a show of gratitude and respect. Betty is...uncomfortable with this development.
  
• Finally, the big one. Fred gets shot in front of Archie in what appears to be a botched robbery at Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe. His fate is unclear.
  

• Casting!
  
  • Casey Cott and Skeet Ulrich are now series regulars.
    
  • Charles Melton replaces Ross Butler as Reggie Mantle due to scheduling conflicts with 13 Reasons Why. Consequently, expect to see A LOT more of Reggie this year.
    
  • Mark Consuelos will play Hiram Lodge.
    
  • Brit Morgan (Supergirl) will play Penny Peabody: She's an attorney on retainer with The Serpents, known to prefer favors over cash, that Jughead enlists to help get Dad out of his spot. People call her "The Snake Charmer," which is pretty much the best that any law school graduate can hope for these days.
    
  • Vanessa Morgan (The Shannara Chronicles) will play Toni Topaz: She's a bisexual Serpent and a potential love interest for Jughead, serving as his guide to the gang's world.
    
  • Graham Phillips (The Good Wife) will play Nick St. Clair: An old classmate of Veronica's from New York who shows up in Riverdale. The character is described as "a hard-partying lothario" with a Nice Guy veneer that hides "dark desires and an unchecked sense of privilege." Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa claims that Nick will touch off "potentially the darkest storyline we've told," so I suggest you get ready for some justified takes.
    
  • Hart Denton will play Betty's brother Chic. Not much is known about him yet, he'll recur through season 2.
• Loose Info!
  
  • Sabrina might yet appear in Riverdale proper, but for the moment, RAS has received a script order for The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which would theoretically cordon off the mystical aspects of the Archie TV-verse to its own show, at least until the inevitable crossover.
    
  • On Fred Andrews: We won't know his fate until the end of the premiere, but while Molly Ringwald is confirmed for at least one episode, there's no news about her promotion to series regular. So unless there's an embargo in place—not unheard of—it's likely Fred makes it out of this one.
    
  • I can't link it without a redaction-breaking embed, but a couple of months ago, RAS tweeted a childhood drawing of either Cheryl or Jason's, showing a sinister-looking man in a striped shirt looming over the kids with a bag of sugar in his hand. "Lock your doors, #Riverdale," the tweet reads, "the Sugar Man is coming..."
• Episodes! We get 22 this year; here are the titles of the first 10:
  
  • 201 – "A Kiss Before Dying"
    
  • 202 – "Nighthawks"
    
  • 203 – "The Watcher in the Woods"
    
  • 204 – "The Town That Dreaded Sundown"
    
  • 205 – "When a Stranger Calls"
    
  • 206 – "Death Proof"
    
  • 207 – "Tales From the Darkside"
    
  • 208 – "House of the Devil"
    
  • 209 – "Silent Night, Deadly Night"
    
  • 210 – "The Blackboard Jungle"

• The TV IV Discord – Like IRC but cooler. Friendly people, good if untested moderation (we're not terribly busy). If enough of you show up I'm sure we can get a channel devoted to the show. Always available either way.
  
• Sex Archie (link goes to Twitter page in case SoundCloud bites the dust mid-season; apologies for the inconvenience) – A recap podcast by Goon Emeritus General Ironicus (AKA Grant) and his wife Alaina. Two people who are by turns unironically in love with this show and constantly in awe that this stupid bullshit exists. This is REQUIRED LISTENING if you're a Riverdale fan, and not just because Grant quietly checks in from time to time and even relayed a couple of my crackpot theories to his audience. For my money, there's no better way to digest each episode than listening to these two beautiful dorks confirm that the batshit insanity you saw actually loving happened. New episodes usually drop Thursdays.
  
• Riverdale's Edge – Prefer your recaps in text? My friends Andy, Robyn, and I will be writing episodes up in roundtable format for our tiny little site. These will be up on Fridays Mondays; hard to say what it'll look like, but I'm hoping the extra time to digest will allow us to break the episode open a bit more. That said, I'm fine if we just end up geeking out each week, so we'll see.
  

DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Oct 24, 2017

• 201 – "A Kiss Before Dying"
  
  
• 202 – "Nighthawks"
  
  
• 203 – "The Watcher in the Woods"
  
  
• 204 – "The Town That Dreaded Sundown"
  
  
• 205 – "When a Stranger Calls"
  
  
• 206 – "Death Proof"
  
  
• 207 – "Tales From the Darkside"
  
  
• 208 – "House of the Devil"
  
  
• 209 – "Silent Night, Deadly Night"
  
  
• 210 – "The Blackboard Jungle"
  

feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Oct 12, 2017

HIJK fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Oct 13, 2017