Riverdale (4×04) Halloween Review

For our review of last episode, click here.

“Halloween“starts off with Jughead and Betty showing Alice, FP and Charles the videotape. Turns out to be someone watching their house. Through the next few weeks, other residents receive videos of someone watching their homes. On Halloween, Alice and FP get a little feisty in the kitchen while they discuss that Jughead and Polly won’t be home for the holiday. Meanwhile at Thistlehouse, Toni is pleading with Cheryl to let Jason go. 

At Stonewall Prep, Moose debates leaving school. He’s 18 and he doesn’t want to deal with the ridicule of his life anymore. For Halloween, Jughead brings some H.P. Lovecraft to class to read, but Bret has to chime in and talk about the Stonewall Four. Turns out the school had a bunch of students vanish without a trace over 30 years. Mr. Chipping tells Jughead not to worry as it is just campus lore. While he looks into this further, he is drugged and taken away by Mr. Chipping’s reading group.

He awakes in a coffin with nothing but a lighter. Hope starts to fade as his lighter goes out. Jughead wakes up to dirt falling into the coffin and after screaming for help,  Mr. Chipping pulls him from the coffin in the centre of their classroom. Turns out it was just a really bad prank from the reading group and Jughead is not impressed. Jughead returns to his room to find that Moose left whether it was to join the army or find his way, but now he has become the Stonewall Five.

Meanwhile at Riverdale, Mad Dog tells Archie that Dodger is planning to hurt some kids on Halloween. Veronica suggests they hold a party at the community centre with some costumes provided by her friend Katy Keene. They get on their superhero costumes and head over to the centre. While the kids are hanging out, Dodger and his crew come in trying to take his mules with him. Archie and Mad Dog stand up for them, but Dodger says he will be back. In fact, he decides to just sit outside and intimate Archie with the threat of guns.

With FP arriving to check in on Archie, Eddie is nowhere to be found. They hear gunshots as FP is seen firing at Dodger and his men and Eddie is on the ground shot. At the hospital, Archie tries to convince Eddie to bring down Dodger, but he has no choice as a child of the streets. Archie decides that he needs to become a vigilante to protect the streets.

Veronica tries to close down Pop’s, but a driver comes in pleading with her to stay open and she decides to make one last meal. He shows her a photo of his family and she calls them beautiful as she gives him his meal. As she gets him pie for dessert, Alice broadcasts the news of a murderer on the loose known as the Family Man. She realizes he is that man and races down into La Bonne Nuit. As he gets into the basement, she turns off the lights. He creeps around looking for her until she lights him on fire and knocks him out.

After burying Jason’s body, Cheryl believes they are being haunting by his ghost in the form of a doll. They get into their costumes of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, but as they get steamy, the babies start to get fussy. When they find that the babies are fine, Nana explains that she heard Jason crying in the chapel. They head down and find the doll sitting in Jason’s old wheelchair. Toni believes Cheryl is screwing with her, but she wants to have a seance to talk to J.J.

They take out a Ouija board and Toni cannot believe what is happening. Nana tells them the truth: It isn’t Jason they are talking to, but Julian who was the triplet that Cheryl absorbed. Toni believes they are in on it together and thinks Cheryl just wants an excuse to bring Jason back home. She offers to bring the body back in exchange for removing the doll and Cheryl accepts. Everything is back to normal in Thistlehouse. Well except for the doll coming back again.

Reggie and Kevin get busted for vandalizing Mr. Honey’s office and the principal decides to sit down with Kevin. He talks about his struggles at school, his feeling of being outcasted. He convinces Kevin to blame everything on Reggie then sends him on his way. Next, he brings in Reggie and gives him a wake up call about how he acts blaming it on his abusive father.  He takes all night to clean up the principal’s office, but as they leave they find Reggie’s car is vandalized.

Betty is having her own Halloween crisis as Black Hoods and Gargoyle Kings pop up everywhere. She waits for Jughead at home, but he is nowhere to be found. After receiving a call from a nose breather, the second is from a distorted voice trying to convince her they are the Black Hood. She hears some thumping from upstairs and comes up to find Jellybean dead on the floor. That is into she pops up and laughs at the prank she just pulled. Betty gets increasingly freaked out until Charles shows up.

They talk about him being a part of the family, but it is interrupted by another call. They are able to trace the voice to the treatment centre where Polly is staying. In order to get back at her, they pretend to be Edgar before she gets into a yelling match with her sister. Charles offers Betty a junior FBI training program believing she is the ideal candidate and she says she’ll consider it. As she tells Jughead about this on the phone, Charles listens in on their phone call spying on his half-siblings. The episode ends with a jump to the future as Betty and FP stand ready to ID a body at Riverdale’s coroner office. The sheet is removed to show Jughead’s lifeless face.

What did you think of “Halloween”? Let me know in the comments below!

If you liked this, check out my YouTube channel The Film Fanatic, my other reviews and my website!

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Instagram and like us on Facebook.

Dylan Phillips