Riverdale Season 3 Episode 17: The Raid Review

For our review of the last episode of Riverdale, click here.

Synopsis: Betty enlists Cheryl’s help to infiltrate The Farm, while Archie and Veronica help an ally from his past. Meanwhile, Jughead’s attempt to put a stop to Riverdale’s drug trade puts him on a collision course with Gladys. Finally, Hiram breaks some surprising news to Veronica. (CW)

Writers: Greg Murray and Ace Hasan

Director: Pamela Romanowsky

Rating: TV-14

Running Time: 45mins

Airs: Wednesdays at 8pm on The CW (United States)

“The Raid”starts off with Jughead and the Serpents doing a simulation raid with FP and Tom Keller. They fail to work as a team and have to do the drill over again. As Veronica talks about her family troubles, Evelyn arrives at Pop’s asking to put up Farm flyers for an open house. Veronica takes one look at Betty and knows they are already planning to go and scope it out. Meanwhile, FP brings up the burnt trailer to Gladys and the family as Jughead and his mom verbally spar.

Kevin gives a group, including Betty and Veronica, a tour of the Farm’s building. They run into Alice, who is surprised that Betty came by. Her mom blames Betty for their strained relationship and promptly leaves. This causes Betty to go into a Farm interview with Evelyn and learn more about this institution. Betty decides to bring in reinforcements and looks to Cheryl for help. She acts as emotionally unstable bait to lure Evelyn into trying to recruit her.

They bug Cheryl’s outfit and send her into the Farm’s building for her interview. Evelyn’s interview with her is interrupted when Edgar arrives to take over the process. He gets her to open up about Jason’s death and manages to persuade her about the Farm. At school, Betty asks Cheryl to dig deeper into Edgar’s backstory and his motives. Cheryl sits down with Edgar and asks him about his tapes and Edgar seems suspicious. He stops their conversation to show Cheryl something, but her microphone cuts out. The next day at school she avoids answering any of Betty’s questions making her suspicious.

Betty decides to raid the Farm by herself as she goes looking for Edgar’s tapes. She breaks into the broom closet and finds boxes upon boxes of catalogued tapes. Betty steals Cheryl’s tapes to try to convince her to never go back. However, Cheryl wants to go back because she saw and talked to Jason in Edgar’s mysterious room. She decides it is time to have a chat with her mother. At Pop’s, she questions if Alice loves the Farm because she is allowed to talk to Charles and she agrees. This revelation makes Betty decide it is time she had a sit down with Edgar Evernever.

Veronica returns home to an enraged Hermione. Hiram is opening his prison and made sure not to invite Hermione, the mayor, to the ribbon cutting. She believes that this lack of appearances will let their enemies know about their split and will inevitably lead to Hermione’s demise. Veronica sits her parents down and tries to reason with them to fix their marriage because nothing is more important than family. However, Hiram believes that ship has sailed.

Hermione heads to work and finds two dead fish on her desk leading her to believe that someone has marked her for death. Veronica confronts Hiram about this believing it to be him, but he swears it wasn’t. She wants her dad to protect Hermione by not divorcing her. At the prison opening, Hiram brings both Veronica and Hermione to show his commitment to her. Later that evening, Hiram reveals to Veronica that their marriage was annulled which would keep her protected, but allow them to move on. Veronica sent the dead fish as a scare tactic to force her parents to stay together, but he saw right through it.

Jughead confides in Archie about the situation involving the drug trade and Gladys. He has no idea how to deal with it, but figures they should start at any hot spots to destroy Gladys’ infrastructure. Sweet Pea tricks one of the Gargoyles into trying to sell him Fizzle Rocks. This allows Jughead to interrogate him and learn that the gang is selling drugs on street corners marked with gargoyles on telephone wires. The Serpents scour the city and take down the dealers one-by-one, but on their last block they ruin FP’s bust. They argue at home about Jughead’s desire to save the city all by himself and FP tells him to sit it out.

Meanwhile, Archie gets a surprise call from Mad Dog. Turns out that the detention center is being shut down and everyone is being transferred to Hiram’s new prison. Mad Dog believes they will start the fight club back up and wants Archie to help him find freedom. He calls Veronica to talk about this issue and she suggests appealing to Governor Dooley. Archie blackmails the Governor with revealing the fight club to news outlets if he doesn’t pardon the inmates.

The Governor obliges and allows the inmates to go free. Mad Dog’s first choice is to try to find his family, but the rest of the teenagers have no idea where to go. Archie decides to give them rooms at the gym while they find their way. While Mad Dog and Archie have a friendly boxing match, they are interrupted by Elio. He came by to try and poach some of the ex-inmates for some matches, but Archie tells him to get lost. At Pop’s, Mad Dog reveals to Archie that he found his grandmother and younger brother, but they live in a building infested with Gargoyles. Archie tells him that they will get rid of those pesky gang members. He goes to Jughead and convinces him and the Serpents to help raid the apartment complex.

They breach the building and take it floor by floor to dispose of any Gargoyles. The Gargoyles start to pull guns on them, but the Serpents and inmates are able to subdue them. Mad Dog holds back a few gang members as Archie and Jughead enter the Cook’s lair. They grab Kurtz, but he pushes himself and Jughead out of a window and makes a run for it. He comes home and berates his mother for almost getting the Serpents killed. While he wants to tell FP about this, Gladys wants to keep this little dispute between them. Jughead agrees and vows to take down her whole operation.

Back at the gym, Archie and Mad Dog can’t find Baby Teeth, but Mad Dog has something to discuss. He wanted to get his family out of that building and took Elio’s offer to protect them, even if that means going back to the life he was avoiding. Later, the gym gets a mysterious package delivered to them. It’s a chalice with a quest card saying “Defang a wolf cub”and inside is a tooth. They believe it is what is left of Baby Teeth. Meanwhile out in the woods, FP responds to call where a person lays praying at a Gargoyle King altar. It’s Baby Teeth, symbols drawn into his back and his teeth removed.

Questions

• What is Edgar Evernever’s deal?
• Is the Red Paladin Quest over?
• What does Baby Teeth’s death mean?
• How long until FP learns about Gladys’ plan?
• Will Betty forgive her father?
• How are The Farm and The Gargoyle King connected?
• What is Gladys’ plan?

Overall, The Raid was a good episode. The gang may be separated, but when you’re fighting a war on two fronts you have to have each other’s backs. The Farm and the Gargoyles continue to be a nuisance that plagues Riverdale, but thankfully the residents are banding together to take down their common foes. It’s frustrating when the teenagers have more common sense than their adult counterparts, but that’s the beauty of Riverdale and its campy, good fun.

Score: 8/10

What did you think of “The Raid”? Where do you see this season going? Let me know in the comments below!

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