Riverdaleor should I say Rivervale?is starting off season 6 with a bang!
And by “bang,” I mean a cut-out human heart!
Let’s get into it!
Cole Sprouse on ‘Riverdale’.Colin Bentley/The CW
And they’re related.
Our narrator then walks us through town, catching us up on how everyone’s doing.
Or more accurately, he’s crying incessantly.
It’s a classic remedy for colic, I’m sure you’ve heard of it.
So… Tony heads to the woods!
And here you thought the parents in Riverdale were questionable!
Veronica and Reggie
Meet Rivervale’s power couple!
And yet, something is off in their relationship.
Even in this alternate universe, Reggie can’t help but feel inferior to Veronica’s ex, Archie.
Or at least they’re trying to be.
But when Alice gets sick of waiting and straight-up invites Franks to her bedroom, he turns her down.
He later explains that, when he was a mercenary, he had a wife and child.
Ever since losing them, he’s been scared to start anything new.
(Are you seeing a through line yet?)
And, spoiler alert, she’s right!
But do you want to guess who has a solution?!
He’s found something in the woods.
Specifically, he found a deer that had been sacrificed on some kind of altar.
(Where exactly she got these girls, I’m unsure.
Last I checked, she only had one teen in her possession.)
Cheryl sends them all away, which brings us to the town meeting.
Now that Thornhill has succeeded, the town needs a maple tree reforestation plan.
Archie proposes that every family in Rivervale gets one sapling to grow and care for.
But Cheryl has a plan of her own.
At Thornhill, Cheryl’s trees have dried up.
Cheryl believes if they reinstate their pagan traditionsincluding sacrificesthe Maple Maiden will bring her trees back to life.
First things first, she gets her girls to make pagan dolls that seemingly kill Archie’s saplings.
(Like she said, the old ways.)
However, they also agree that there’s no rush.
They’re still in their 20’s so it will happen whenever it happens.
Or… maybe not.
Betty visits Dr. Curdle Jr. and finds out that she essentially can’t have kids.
Not only that, but she’s the fifth healthy young woman struggling with this in Rivervale… (Some things don’t change, even in an alternate reality).
Once the pie is consumed, the sins of the town will dissolve.
But it has to be consumed by someone strong enough to shoulder that burden.
And naturally, Cheryl’s targeting the other redhead in town.
(To be fair, if he can fight a bear, he can eat a pie.)
Something seems off as soon as Betty and Archie arrive at the festival.
Everyone in town seems to be pushing Archie to compete in every event.
I mean, each event is literally Archie versus one other person.
First up, Arch beats Jughead in a pancake-eating competitionin which they both somehow ate more than 100 pancakes?
!and then Reggie purposefully loses to him at sawing a log.
Cut to: Archie wakes up in the middle of the night to a phone call from Kevin.
He says Cheryl has Betty and Archie better come quick!
At Thornhill, the entire townKevin includedis waiting for Archie.
Betty informs him that her plan worked, and she’s pregnant.
Cheryl then explains that women can’t be sacrifices because they must bear children.
Men, however, are perfect sacrifices.
Especially Archie, the town’s one true pure heart.
Veronica then hits Archie over the head with a rock.
And when he wakes up, he’s tied to the altar, and Cheryl cuts out his heart.
So THAT just happened!
But if this is only a five-episode event, I appreciate that Rivervale came out swinging.
