Riverdale Review: Chapter Sixty: Dog Day Afternoon (Season 4 Episode 3)

For the past two episodes, Riverdale has made the interesting choice to sort of silo the stories of its key protagonists. They’ve also been giving Cheryl Blossom about the same amount of storytime as the core four–a wise decision as she’s easily become a fan favorite over the past three seasons.  

Riverdale Season 4 Episode 3, “Chapter Sixty: Dog Day Afternoon,” brings us the triumphant return of Alice Cooper, the revelation of some pretty juicy Blossom drama, new school drama for Jughead, and interesting ventures for Veronica and Archie.  

Jughead

Jughead is spending his first week at Stonewall Prep and it goes just about as well as you’d expect it to. Being the new kid is already hard enough, but add on that Jughead is from the Southside and not afraid to speak his mind, our resident writer gets a target painted on his back pretty quickly. 

On “Chapter Sixty: Dog Day Afternoon,” Jughead gets acquainted with his new schoolmates and finds a familiar face in the process as Riverdale brings back Marmaduke “Moose” Mason. The return of Moose is a fun surprise, and I for one truly appreciate the casual and way that Riverdale affirms his bisexuality on this episode.

Having the knowledge that Jughead goes missing later this year should have the audience on high-alert looking for who could be responsible for his disappearance. Right off the bat, Jughead has made himself an enemy in local pretty boy Bret. Bret proves he’s more than willing to play dirty when it comes to beating out Jughead at school, could this relationship play into Jughead’s eventual mysterious fate?

Bret is very obviously a bully that has everyone else at Stonewall under his thumb. I doubt this is the last of the conflict we’ve seen between him and Jughead. 

Veronica

Veronica’s story frequently suffers for the sake of her father and that remains true on this episode. She’s visited by her lecherous father who has walked out of jail at his leisure to bully her about her life choices. You know, like any loving dad. 

To spite him Veronica takes her grandfather’s name, Luna, in order to take a fresh start for herself and get away from the horrors associated with her father. Is it somewhat ironic that she’s trying not to follow in his footsteps by taking the same actions he did at her age? Sure. But Hiram has been terrorizing his daughter and transcribing her into his life of crime for far too long. Hopefully this time she can actually manage to separate herself from him for good. 

Veronica’s best moment on this episode is her scene with Mary Andrews. She has a generous heart and she believes in the good that Archie wants to do in Riverdale. However, I would really like to see Veronica in a storyline that is about her and not about the people trying to control her. 

Archie

Archie has big dreams for turning the old gym into a community center. This is honestly a great project for Archie–it gives him a beautiful way to honor his father in the long term and an outlet to do the things he loves: helping others and playing sports. 

While Archie does dabble in some of his old reckless behavior on this episode, I have a lot of faith in the direction he appears to be headed this year. And would he really be Archie Andrews if he didn’t do something astronomically stupid in the name of the greater good at least once every few episodes?

Thank goodness for Munroe setting Archie straight before he tried to spend dirty money on his community center, and thank goodness for Veronica’s seemingly endless wealth ensuring that he doesn’t have to. 

Cheryl 

I am deeply concerned for Cheryl as she continues to keep up this Jason charade. Finally, Toni takes a stand and begins putting the Blossom household in order where Cheryl has begun to slip due to her current strange obsession, and by the final moments of this episode, she learns the truth. 

The fact that Cheryl is so adamant about hiding Jason’s body from everyone seems to indicate that somewhere deep down she does know that what she’s doing is wrong. Hopefully, Toni can get Cheryl the help she needs and Riverdale can move both of them into a more interesting story. 

A story like whatever Nana Rose was hallucinating about at the start of “Chapter Sixty: Dog Day Afternoon.” While I’m a little confused about how Nana Rose has suddenly gained the ability to stand pensively by the fire, I’m 100% here for whatever deep dark Blossom secrets she is about to reveal. 

Sure Nana is getting up there and what she says might be a little questionable, there’s probably a considerable amount of truth there too. Nana reveals to Cheryl, whom she assumed was a younger Penelope, that she had a vision of the triplets being thrown into the fire. 

Riverdale has had its fair share of fires, both at the Blossom’s estate and involving babies, but this is a new twist. Could Cheryl and Jason have had a third sibling that somehow died, or even went missing? After all, no one on Riverdale is ever truly dead. 

What do you think about this new piece of information? Let me know in the comments! 

Betty

Betty proves that she’s the best Nancy Drew in Riverdale as she goes above and beyond the FBI to rescue her mother. Are her actions legal or even realistic? Unlikely. Are they incredibly fun to watch? Yes, absolutely. 

The utter brilliant ridiculousness of Betty stopping a bomb strapped to her sister with nothing more than a bobby pin and her quick wit is peak Riverdale in the best way. 

Betty is reunited with her mother, already knowing the truth about her undercover service, and the redemption of Alice Cooper is everything I wanted it to be. Alice loves her kids and the work she was truly doing at the Farm shows how much she cares about helping others. 

The Farm storyline is pure insanity and the way that Mädchen Amick manages to deliver her lines on this episode with a straight face is truly Emmy worthy.

Alice: Evelyn is going to drive the bus full of Farmies over a cliff as a distraction while he…takes off in his rocket.

Betty: He bought a rocket?

Alice: Nope, he’s been building one. 

While it doesn’t really make up for the complete character assassination of Alice during season 3, this is one of the most satisfying retcons in recent television history. The Alice Cooper that fans fell in love with during Season 2 is back in full force. She’s commanding and powerful and absolutely done with Edgar Evernever’s crap. 

If Alice wants to pursue a career in the police force with her high school boyfriend after this, I would definitely support her.

I hope this episode is prophetic of more Betty and Alice buddy cop adventures on this season of Riverdale. Now that the FBI case has been resolved it will be interesting to see how Charles fits into their lives, and how the Cooper-Jones household will handle living under one roof. 

Blue and Gold Classifieds:

• Did Edgar really straight-up murder the FBI pizza guy?
• Nana Rose’s horror movie scream is iconic and beyond reproach. 
• Toni Topaz is the most responsible person in Riverdale.
• What do you think is on the videotape delivered to Jughead and Betty? 
• Pour one out for Darius who was honestly just doing his job.
• Did Betty hotwire that bus? I think Betty hotwired that bus.  
• Does Mary Andrews really think there’s less crime in Chicago than there is in Riverdale? Either way, I’m glad that she decides to stick around for Archie.

 

What did you think of this episode of Riverdale? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

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