Here we are at the beginning of season 5 and I can’t really explain why I’m still watching it. This show makes sense but doesn’t make sense, if that works? Also, the writing just feels like they gave up this season. Like the writing was never the best, but now no thought is put into it.

So the show opens where we left off last season, with these tapes of everyone around town. I’ve always hated this plot and the way they wrap it up in two episodes made me hate it even more.

They’re trying to find out who is behind making these tapes, but at the same time the Stonines are dying off one by one. Jughead and Betty think this is really weird. Well, at first they don’t think anything of it, they think the Stonies are just being their dramatic selves… but when Donna dies, Betty has to put on her thinking cap.

In the end they realize that the only person who knows everything they know is Betty’s detective brother, Charles. Then it gets dropped that Charles and Chic are lovers (did we know this before? Because this felt so random and too convenient) and while Chic was in prison, Charles was out doing the dirty work. But I don’t even know why, nor do I care at this point.

So they find out who’s been behind the killings, but not the tapes. Charles knows but he won’t tell. Again, Betty and Jughead use their detective magic to find out it was Jellybean who created the tapes and distributed them. Her reasoning was that she didn’t want Jughead to go off to school and leave them… UHM OK.

So after graduation, FP decides to take Jellybean to see her mother where they’ll be a family while Jughead goes to school. This means he leaves Alice, sad because I liked them together.

Before we get to graduation as everyone is off making plans, Archie, after seeing his tape is filled with the rage and guilt of losing his father again. He finds out he won’t be graduating so he thinks about going to a naval academy. When he doesn’t get in, his thoughts go to joining the military.

I don’t know why this show randomly starts acting like the 1950s. Like the bus he gets on, the car the girls and Jughead use to chase down the bus are all old, then Archie, “man stop the bus, that’s my girl”. I don’t understand the need to feel old timey.

Veronica is mad at Archie for wanting to join the military, but I guess she doesn’t really have much to say because she breaks up with Archie after prom when Archie tells her the song she found was written for Betty and that they had a moment.

Of course Hiram wants to beat the living shit out of Archie for breaking his little girl’s heart. Can I also say that this show is dumb? Because he’s back on the streets in literal fights and he says that it’s making his MS go away. I was like, this is the dumbest thing this show has said… possibly. I’m sorry, but MS doesn’t just go away… especially if you’re fighting.

Then Veronica almost gets killed and she and her sister have to cut their father out of the business. At first, I didn’t get the point of all this but it does come back later. And her mom finally divorces Hiram, for good this time. She says she just stayed to protect Veronica, and since she doesn’t need protecting anymore, she’s moving back to New York.

Then there’s Cheryl and Toni. They want to be together but of course there’s this Blossom “curse”. It’s starts with Toni’s grandmother not wanting her to see Cheryl because she doesn’t like all the hateful things the Blossoms have done. So Cheryl automatically believes her family is cursed and will never be loved, oh woe is me.

I like that Cheryl and Toni are a queer, interracial couple, but Cheryl drives me crazy with how self-centred she is.

We learn after graduation that her mother has killed the rest of the Blossoms because Cheryl wanted to rule them and they said no, so her mother got rid of them. Geez. Now Cheryl has locked herself up in their manor to keep the curse away from her, rolls eyes.

OK, so skip ahead… seven years.

I honestly thought after graduation, the show would be over… but I know that would have only been 3 episodes.

So here we are seven years later.

Archie joined the military and spent a good seven years there, but when he gets hurt he’s sent home. His pal, Eric, from the military ends up joining him where they go back to Riverdale, a place that is dying. Hiram has opened a town and is directing all traffic and funds to this new town, leaving Riverdale in the dumps.

So Archie’s plan, save Riverdale. Le sigh.

He calls the gang back to Riverdale and surprisingly they all come running.

We find out that Betty has joined the FBI academy, she hasn’t graduated yet, but she’s close. Jughead became a famous author, but he’s struggling to write the next book and he’s struggling with a lot of debt. Veronica married her father it feels, I don’t even remember his name, Cam? Caleb? … Chadwick. He’s threatened by her wanting to work and make her own way, he’d rather have her stay at home and be a housewife with no thoughts or opinions, ugh.

Veronica goes to her father to help scare him, but he won’t help her, just like she wouldn’t help him earlier with the business. So she has to deal with her husband on her own. I hate the whole thing. Veronica is so much better than that, I honestly don’t get how she fell for a man like that.

Archie wants his house back, but the Goolies have made his house a drug den. Betty goes back to her mom and her sister Polly, but when Polly comes home at weird times, she investigates. Her mom gets mad when Betty tries to bring up how weird it is. I kinda agree because apparently Betty hasn’t been back in seven years, so how dare she come back and judge how they live their lives. But at the same time, something is really going on with Polly.

Lastly, Cheryl is still cooped up in her manor painting, and apparently being the town’s money monger. I guess she has all the money from her family that she’s just storing away as well as being an extremely gifted painter.

Toni is still in Riverdale too, and she’s pregnant but she won’t budge on that.

Kevin is also still in Riverdale and is dating Fangs.

I like the retirement party they have for Pop, and now his granddaughter, Tabitha is running the shop. I like the addition of Tabitha, but I have a feeling she’s going to end up with Jughead after all the time they spend together. After he asks her to lie for him when debt collectors come to town, she hires him at Pops.

Then he has this weird alien attack, that might have to do with suppressed memories, guess who’s by his side… Tabitha.

In order to save the school from Stonewall Prep, they gang are going to become teachers at Riverdale high.

Hiram of course is pissed because he says a school provides hope for the town and so he has inside sources who are telling him what’s going on. That Archie wants to 1) start a football team 2) wants to start a firefighting squad, Toni wants to start up a cheerleading squad and Hiram keeps trying everything to shut them down, including starting arson.

Veronica creates Riverdale bucks, or dollars or whatever, but the students she has running it get greedy and make more than they should and of course her father finds out and that’s cut.

He whole thing with her and Chad is nauseating, she wants out, but then he shows her his best side and she falls for him until Archie comes around and he’s a complete dick to Archie for no reason… or maybe it is for a reason. Archie still has feelings for her… but he’s also sleeping around with Betty. Good lord.

Betty has a lot going on, Polly has gone missing and they can’t find her. They keep finding missing girls, none of them Polly. Polly does manage to call them, but they still don’t find her. So truckers are murdering girls? Great.

Then, surprise! Kevin and Fangs announce they are getting married and Toni is having their baby. Holy, talk about coming out of left field.

We learn that Toni has a condition where it’ll be harder for her to get pregnant later on in life so she agreed to be a surrogate for the boys… only Kevin seems to be backing out.

And of course Cheryl is hurt by all this. Toni tried to be friends with her, but Cheryl wasn’t having it, then when she wanted to get Toni back she just went too far and said the baby could be theirs as well and they could live in the manor and Toni just flat out says no, good for her.

So, Riverdale High is back in business and Hiram is not happy about that. Veronica needs to stop making deals with her father because it never goes well. Her father was willing to beat kids up in order for their football team to win because if Riverdale keep losing he’d take it all away, this man is psychotic. Just when Veronica wins, he can’t lose – so what does he do, sets the prison on fire and lets all the inmates go. This obviously causes havoc on Riverdale and makes them look bad.

Veronica is trying to get out of her marriage with Chad, but instead he just wants to prolong everything for what, I don’t really know, all I know is he is on her father’s side and he won’t let go of Veronica. Veronica is a strong woman; on her own I believe her to be very powerful.

Then I don’t even know what is going on with Betty. They find that the blood on the payphone is a match to her sister, so I’m like oh damn she’s dead… nah she’s still out there somewhere, but Betty can’t be on the case anymore because her partner thinks she’s too close to the case… then it’s revealed he’s writing a book/paper on her family and the serial killer gene, wtf? Alright then. Even her brother Charles, who escapes from prison so he can be married… talk about wtf moments, thinks the book/paper is weird.

Hiram is also trying to get Cheryl’s property and the maple trees because without them Riverdale is truly nothing. Cheryl is good at getting him off her case, her grandmother is weird. She’s like to Cheryl, you can’t be happy, if you’re happy the trees won’t provide sap… hence the curse… geez. But when Hiram doesn’t get his way, he lights the trees on fire… soon the whole town will be on fire.

That’s okay because apparently Riverdale has some sort of alien business… where is this show even going anymore. Apparently the Lonely Highway is where truckers go to pick up girls and then the girls get abducted by aliens… or something like that, I don’t even know.

I think Jughead is supposedly on the case, but could he mixing fact with fiction. On top of writing his book, which I’ll get to, he’s dealing with one of his students who has run away or something. Jughead thinks he’s been abducted by this alien thing.

Jughead has a lot going on; the man is trying to write a fiction book about god knows what. He takes some sort of hallucination and trips real hard. He asks Tabitha to watch over him, but she doesn’t really want to; she just wants to be his friend… but then turns around and calls herself his girlfriend when an ex comes to town. Okay then.

Then there’s a break in the story where we get Hiram’s backstory, and it’s not quite clear, just yet, why we’re getting this. I also feel like some of this story conflicts with stories we’ve heard in the past, but I can’t quite remember and I’m too lazy to look it up.

So the flashback starts because Reggie wants out from under his father’s thumb; his father has all these ideas of their lives together in business, but Reggie doesn’t want that, he’d rather work with Hiram. We’re also reminded that Reggie’s father used to beat him, so I’m like wow he actually is on speaking terms with his father.

Anyways, so we get Hiram’s backstory where he’s told there is palladium and their family move to Riverdale to locate it because it’s a rich mineral. When the mine his father was working in is destroyed he must go back to his shoe shine business, but Hiram has none of that. Instead he starts to work for a gangster to provide for his family.

This is also where he changes his name from Jaime Luna to Hiram Lodge… also can we talk about how it as Hermione who helped him pick his name, alright then.

Anyways, when his father is gunned down because he went to the gangster to tell him to release his son, he’s killed. It doesn’t take Hiram long to figure it out, but this gangster goes into hiding and Hiram climbs the mob ladder to get where he is.

Now, we learn that he built his prison where here is a bunch of palladium, to finish what his father started but was too chicken to finish, he had the inmates digging for it. But now that they’re all free, I guess he has other plans up his sleeve. As both Hermione and Veronica said, he’s never happy with what he has.

So now Reggie stops working for Hiram and starts working for… Veronica to help steal her father’s investors. Interesting.

Of course Cheryl and her mother start a church and doesn’t that scream cult? She drags Kevin into it, at first he’s against it, but over time he’s joined in. I think it’s for the better because he was filling really crummy about himself and I think now that he’s truly got all his feelings for Fangs out and is starting to do what he loves (musicals) he can officially move on.

I feel like I’ve mentioned this before (possibly, I can’t remember) but why do they use new and old technology? Like we have all these phones with cords and why is Veronica using a freakin mobile phone from 1990? Like it’s huge and has an antenna of all things, like why? Why can’t they stay consistent? It’s almost like Riverdale is behind on technology.

What is with all the exposition heavy episodes? First Hiram, now Jughead. Jughead went missing and now all of a sudden he’s back in Riverdale for AA meetings? We get his story of how he got from point A to point B but geez it was like a recap of the season for Jughead.

And speaking of, Tabitha pairs up with Betty to go looking for him. When they can’t find him the two team up to look for Polly’s killer on the lonely highway. Such a weird pairing. Betty’s dark side comes out and she finds him and she gets her mother’s blessing to kill him… but he does it himself? That seemed SO farfetched that he would bite his own tongue off and die choking on it. How do you bite your own tongue off?!

Also, just wanted to touch on Archie because he’s been having the craziest war flashbacks, like so debilitating he has a hard time doing anything. When Cheryl asks him to form a group to mine her maple field before Hiram can get the palladium, Archie loses it… plus there was serious carbon monoxide poisoning happening… yikes.

We get an episode where Josie and the Pussy Cats reunite and for the most part I liked it. I honestly don’t remember the other two girls from previous seasons, but I like that when Josie comes back to puts all the characters in their place and takes them off their high horses, like yes girl!

When Veronica calls her father a little bitch was great. Hiram gives Chad a gun to kill Archie because Veronica’s one true weakness is Archie… he fails miserably. Then Hiram tries himself, blowing up the mine he was working in. Obviously Archie pulls through though.

In the end Veronica does end up killing Chad in self defense when he goes after her, but that ruins her changes of moving to New York and working there.

Then we finally, finally find Polly after all this time. Betty, with the help of Jughead, a former student and Nana Blossom they find out there are Blossoms living out on the lonely highway a family who have been running it… crazy. I’m glad we finally have closure on that story, even if it’s sad Polly is dead.

Also, why am I strongly shipping Fangs and Toni? Like, they be so cute! Ah I’m glad they’re together, my favourite ship because now everyone is switching lovers. Veronica and Archie break up, so now Betty and Archie are a thing and Veronica and Reggie are a thing, which I have to say also a ship I can get with. Jughead and Tabitha are cute, but nothing special.

The season ends on a bang… literally.

Hiram gets the Gooley’s to do his dirty work by starting fires around town; this time they’ve gone too far and set fire to Pop’s.

So they save the town by blackmailing Hiram out of it. Just when we think Hiram is going to leave Riverdale… oh of course he’s not going to go or go quietly. He leaves, but not before planting a bomb under Archie’s bed. So now we’re left wondering if Archie and Betty are still alive.

Also, we have an ancestor storyline coming up as Cheryl finds the remains of them buried in the mines. I’m sorta interested to see where that goes.

I’m here ready to bring on the next season.