

But her parents are strangely chill over the fact that she’s been phone friends with a serial killer to whom she led Chic. She talks about her darkness, which is whatever. So Betty confronts her father over the weirdest family meal I’ve seen in a long time. And speaking of Nancy Drew, they find the very same code book that Black Hood used to send Betty messages. To that end, they go to the ShareBNB that Hal had been renting during the separation because he’s still paying on it. Betty, however, would like to gather some actual evidence first. She’s not the slightest bit interested in being Nancy Drew and is like, call the police. With her boyfriend otherwise occupied–and laughing when she tentatively suggests that her dad could be the Black Hood–Betty turns to Cheryl for help. It ain’t lookin’ good for Fangs, but I don’t believe he killed Midge and then staged that display. Nevertheless, that plus bankrolling from Hiram gives the Dark Circle a good excuse to cause mayhem on the South Side.

When the sheriff and deputies come for Fangs at school, he resists and drops a switchblade. Jughead tries to get the tape back from the new sheriff, Michael Minetta (), but it mysteriously leaks to the Register’s website before he can do so.

That documentary footage he was shooting (and has since turned in to the sheriff’s office) caught Fangs in Midge’s dressing room. Nothing much comes from this confrontation, but it’s not hard to figure out which Serpent it was–Jughead got it on tape. It seems that Moose has confessed to them that he and Midge were bickering the night of her death because she had secretly been seeing a Serpent. Trying to tell the Serpents at school that the Ghoulies are being released from jail and will be coming after them, he’s interrupted by the rebooted Dark Circle. Archie explains that since he saw the Black Hood’s eyes, he’s really taking the opportunity to look every man in Riverdale in the face. Archie has been going door-to-door stumping for his dad, which Hiram doesn’t understand. While I meditate on that, it’s time for the mayoral debate as the campaigns heat up. I mean, he took out the Sugar Man, but why Midge? Why the attempts on Fred or Moose? Basically, if he wants to take out someone who is causing real harm to the town, why hasn’t he gone after Hiram? Even if we were to accept this as fact, the question remains: why is he going after small fry, though? (And by that, I don’t mean Small Fry*, whom we learn in this episode is Papa Poutine’s vengeance-seeking son.) The seemingly quaint burg of Riverdale is actually rotten at the core and the sinners of the town should be punished.

By now we should all be familiar with Black Hood’s central premise.
