*Explicit language is used and gifs are from Tumblr*
The episode starts with Jughead saying the words everyone else is avoiding. “There was a serial killer among us.” The Black Hood is joining the ranks of Zodiac, the Axeman, and the Phantom Killer as far as Jughead is concerned. But the serial killer is not the only issue in Riverdale. As the librarian tells him, she is just as freaked out by the shirtless video Archie and his Red Circle put together.
At this point, the town is on high alert. Shops are closing early, everyone is walking in groups past sunset, people are installing deadbolts to their doors, and the mayor is calling a town meeting to put people at ease. Archie is currently having target practice in the woods, and he is a good shot. Does Archie look different to anyone else? Because he looks darker than the naive boy he once was. It looks good on him.
Elsewhere, the parents of Riverdale are reacting to the Red Circle’s video. Hiram plays dumb and supports Hermione when she tells Veronica to break up with Archie. Alice and Hal do not care because they are too focused on the fact that Polly just left.
Fred tells his son to pull the video down. Archie already did, but it went viral and now everyone is sharing it. And then there are the Serpents, who decide that Archie’s head will serve as their next target. Jughead tries to talk them into going after the Black Hood instead, but Sweat Pea says the Black Hood is doing their work for them. They do not like the Northside of town. He is their hero.
Archie is walking down the hallway at school like he is some kind of god as the music in the background is a rap remix of his video.
This ends when Veronica pulls him into a classroom to yell at him about the tape, and Archie reveals that Hiram is the one who gave him the idea. No, he did not say to “line up a bunch of semi-naked boys straight out of The Lord of the Flies, put them in red ski masks, and deliver some Unabomber-like manifesto.” But Hiram did tell Archie to fight fire with fire, and Archie is doing just that.
Continuing his downward spiral, Archie is called into the principal’s office, where Principal Weatherby shuts down the football team until the Red Circle is disbanded. As for Archie, he has a week to issue an apology to the community or his suspension will begin, and it will continue until he has complied. Archie’s response? He tries to convince the Red Circle to follow him to the South Side, where they will force the killer’s hand by showing up on his home turf.
Yeah, no, Reggie’s out, and he takes all the guys with him. That leaves Archie alone, something Doiley thinks he wanted all along. Now, Archie gets to face off against the Black Hood mano a mano. That is a great idea.
But the Black Hood has other things on his mind than Archie, namely Betty. The Black Hood sends Betty a letter explaining that her speech at the jubilee is the very thing that inspired him.
This is why he’s enclosed a cipher that he says only she can figure out. And if she passes his test, she will know the location of his next victim. Unsure of what to do, Betty tells Kevin everything but decides to keep the letter for herself and just hand the cipher over to the cops and her mother. That leaves all of Riverdale to try to crack the code. Side note, once again Alice delivers a blow to Sheriff Keller by publishing the cipher before telling him about it.
Hiram claims he does not remember what he and Archie talked about. Veronica finds out, by the time she decides to support him, that the Red Circle disbanded. She does not want him fighting the Black Hood by himself, he needs support. And support she finds.
Archie heads to the South Side, on his own to purchase some ammo, a holster, and a kevlar vest using a fake I.D. with the name Wilbur Wilkins to go hunting. Look at Archie, he is growing up right in front of our eyes. Not only has he gone Dark Archie, but he is lying to everyone and continuing his vigilante revenge plan by illegally buying contraband. Oh, Archie, you go out hunting.
He then proceeds to spray-paint red circles all over town until Sweet Pea and some Serpents catch him. But when Sweet Pea pulls a knife and Archie pulls a gun. Wow, you do you Archie. That was kind of a bada*s moment. Who knew Archie had it in him to actually pull it out? Sweet Pea and his guys run away.
A side note, I love the fact that Jughead and Toni love true crime.
Betty, Jughead, Toni, and Kevin are having a code-breaking party, because that is not awkward at all. Things quickly get heated.
That was great, this is the best version of Kevin. Funny one-liners, not running around the woods trolling for guys.
But at this point, Betty is willing to try anything, so she takes down her hair in the hopes that suddenly she will be able to crack the cipher. But when they start going over what they know about the killer and Betty suggests he is from the South Side, Toni loses her cool and outs Jughead for sitting with the Serpents at lunch.
Jughead swears he only sits with the Serpents for survival purposes, but Betty is far too focused on breaking this code to even care. In fact, her obsession with solving the code comes back to bite her when she and Jughead accidentally fall asleep and she ends up rushing home the next morning and leaving behind a few notebooks. 
In one of those notebooks is the note the Black Hood wrote her, and Jughead finds it.
When he asks why Betty kept it from him, she admits she’s worried that if Archie finds out she inspired the killer, he will blame her for all of this.
Betty remembers something. The letter said only she could solve the code. So she takes Jug to the library to check out one of her favorite books from when she was a kid: The Nancy Drew Secret Code Activity Book.
Back at school, Sheriff Keller and Principal Weatherby find out that some red-headed kid from Riverdale High was waiving a gun around the South Side last night, so they ask to see Archie’s locker due to his recent behavior. Thankfully, Archie is smart enough not to keep his gun in his locker, but he is not smart enough to get rid of the hood that Reggie wore to his house and it gets him barred from school property. He is a threat to the school. Fred is scared of what Archie is becoming. Hermione warns Veronica that as honorable as loyalty is, blind loyalty is stupid and dangerous.
After Archie calls Veronica and asks her to get his gun for him, he hid it in the back of a toilet at school, she heads to his house to yell at him as Archie admits that he wants to be the one to kill the Black Hood and that he did not wear a hood in the video so that he would become the Black Hood’s next target. Just then, Reggie and some of the football team knock on the door. They have come bearing pizza to say that they want to keep the Red Circle going. It is a good thing because Sweet Pea and a group of Serpents just showed up on Archie’s porch. Let’s rumble!
The Serpents are there to fight, and after both sides agree to a “no weapons” rule, they head out into the rain for a good old-fashioned brawl. It does not take long for things to take a turn when one of the Serpents pulls a knife and stabs Dilton in the leg.
Archie realizes how crazy he has been, and he and Veronica throw his gun into Sweetwater River. Back at the library, Betty figures out that the Black Hood plans to strike next at the town hall, where Alice is trash-talking the South Side. She wants to shut down Southside High and use that money to bolster the police force. Of course it is Fred who speaks up against her, but no decisions are made before Betty pulls the fire alarm to draw everybody out. She then decides to hand over the Black Hood’s letter to the cops and her mother.
As Jugheads’s voice-over tells us, that night was the turning point. Riverdale would no longer be known as “the town with pep,” but rather “the town that dreaded sundown.” The final shot of the night shows Betty receiving a phone call…from the Black Hood. Dun, dun, dun.
I am really liking this season so far. Every episode keeps getting better and better. Come back next week for the next episode!
XOXO,
Lisa
TV Watchers Unite 