RIVERDALE "THE WATCHER IN THE WOODS" REVIEW

Chapter 16:

Hey, everyone, Riverdale is back with a brand new episode, with a story arch revolving around Kevin and some discoveries around the black hood's agenda. So spoilers ahead for the episode, let's recap.

The episode picks up straight from last week where Mitch and Moose were shot by the Black Hood. Kevin was 'wondering' in the woods where he finds the scene of the crime and calls the ambulance.

The next day, Archie is at football practice where Reggie tells the team that Moose and Mitch were shot and are recovering in the hospital. Archie meets with his friends at the student lounge, Veronica invites her friends to go to her house to watch some tv. at school, Betty asks Kevin what he was doing in the woods, Kevin says he was going for a midnight run, where in actual fact he met up with a guy who he made out with. Archie heads off to the hospital to visit Moose. Archie asks Moose and Mitch what happened, which they reply that the man in the hood shot them, the man with green eyes; the same man who shot Fred.

On the south side of Riverdale, Jughead attends south-side high where he meets a new serpent friend, Toni Topaz; Jughead manages to revive the school paper as well. However, Jughead brushes of the friendship of some serpents. That night Archie, Betty, and Jughead go to Veronica's house where they meet Hiram; who invites Archie to dinner. That night, Archie goes home and realizes that he needs to be the protection of Riverdale. At school, Archie gets his football team together to create a new watchdog gang called the "red circle" who is out to search for the shooter in the hood.

At school, Cheryl overhears Betty talking to Kevin about going out into the woods.After school, Betty gets home and her parents find a package that was left for them, it is a message from the shooter in the hood (now dubbed the "Black Hood") who says that he was the one behind the shooting of Fred, Mitch, Moose and the murder of Ms. Grundy, and he did this all to show that Riverdale is not as innocent as it seems, as he targetted people who committed crimes. In the package were Ms. grundy's sunglasses and Fred's wallet.

While that was going on, Archie and the Red Circle started handing out fliers about their service. At school, Sheriff Keller tells Archie to stop with his watchdog group, however, the principle stands up for Archie and tells the Sheriff that the students are looking out for each other. At the mayor's office, Mr. and Mrs. Copper show the sheriff and the mayor the letter. The two officials tell the Coppers to not publish the letter, however, they do anyway revealing the motive of the Black Hood to the hole town.

At home, Polly tells her parents that she needs to run away before the Black Hood comes after hood. At the hospital, Kevin checks up on Moose, while Hermione tells Veronica that it is not a good thing for Archie to come to their house. On the other side of town, Jughead is writing the south-side paper, when Betty comes to visit, she also meets Jughead's new friend, Toni.

At Pop's diner, Cheryl sees Kevin goes for a run at night. While running in the woods, Kevin is scared to see Betty and Cheryll, who have come to stop Kevin from running in the woods while there is a murderer on the lose. Kevin ignores Betty as she does not understand the difficulties he has at being himself, and that running in the forest is his escape from the world. Meanwhile, Ethel was walking down a street at night when she notices a van following her. She immediately contacts Archie who goes with Reggie to check on Ethel. The two find Ethel who escaped being followed by the van.

On the other side of Riverdale, Jughead is up at night writing for the paper. He hears a noise in the school and it is the high school serpents, who beat up Jughead for denying their friendship. Jughead gets patched up by Betty, who he tells it was just a bike accident. Toni is in the room, which Jughead tells her not to tell Betty the truth. Toni tells Jughead that he needs to befriend the serpents at the school so they have his back.

That night, Polly says goodbye to Betty as she intends to leave Riverdale with the Black Hood on the lose; Polly is going to live at the farm she was going to live at with Jason. At the Lodge household, Archie meets Veronica and her parents for dinner. Hiram has a private talk with Archie who offers him rum. Hiram tells Archie to not harm Veronica in any way. Hiram comments on Archie's red circle group and suggests that he should use fear on the Black Hood, giving the shooter a taste of his own medicine.

Later on, we see Betty go to the Keller house to see if Kevin is there, however he is not, he is in the forest. Kevin sees a car in the forest, he talks to the person in the car and gets in. The driver of the car stabs Kevin. However, that was a vision Kevin had, predicting what would happen if he got in the car. Kevin goes home and is greeted by his father. Kevin has a chat with his father who is worried about him going out late at night with everything that is going on.

The next day, Veronica asks Hiram if she can work in the family company. Jughead continues to attend south-side high where he befriends the other serpents at the school. At Riverdale high, Betty goes to say hello to Kevin, however, he ignores he breaking up their friendship. The episode ends with Archie and the Red Circle making a video threatening the Black Hood, then we see Hiram watching the video online and smirking.

So the episode was a really good one. To speculate on the identity of the Black Hood, I have a number of theories. There is the theory that the Black Hood is Sheriff Keller, or the shooter is tied to Hiram because he is the only person with knowledge about Fred's adultery. There is also that theory about Cliff Blossom not being dead and being the shooter. But I am placing Sheriff Keller of a Hiram associate at the top of the list.

Cassey Cott was great in the episode as Kevin Keller. It was interesting to dive deeper into the character because we haven't seen Kevin get a major a story arc before. So it was great to see a change. There were some interesting concepts in the story like how Kevin cannot fit in, which I thought was really interesting. I am also looking forward to how the friendship between Kevin and Betty will develop in the season.

The rest of the cast in the episode was great, we had, KJ Apa (Archie Andrews), Lily Reinhart (Betty Cooper), Cole Sprouse (Jughead), Madelaine Petsch (Cheryl Blossom), Marisol Nichols (Hermione Lodge), Mark Consuelos (Hiram Lodge), Vanessa Morgan(Toni Topaz), Madchen Amick (Alice Cooper), Tiera Skovbye (Polly Cooper), Lochlyn Munro (Hal Cooper), Charles Melton (Reggie Mantle),  Shannon Purser (Ethel Muggs), Luke Perry (Fred Andrews).

Overall this episode of Riverdale was a good one which brought us a great storyline with Kevin, and a bunch of new clues and details about the Black Hood, and also the introduction of the Riverdale's new watchdog group, the Red Circle. I will give this episode an 8.5 out of 10. I would like to hear your thoughts on the episode down in the comments below. As always thanks for reading, take care.

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