04x16 - Chapter Seventy-Three: The Locked Room

[bunniefuu]

[JUGHEAD] The weirdest thing about pretending to be dead

is that after a while,

you actually start feeling like you're dead.

As in, "dead as a doornail" dead.

[MICROWAVE BEEPS]

For starters, I was underground, as if in a tomb.

Granted, I was hiding out in Dilton's doomsday bunker

and not in a coffin, but still.

Two weeks, no sunlight,

with no sense of time or its passing?

It's gotta be what limbo feels like, right?

Other similarities to being dead.

Not one, but two obituaries about me ran.

A rather perfunctory one in The Riverdale Register.

A second, more irreverent one in the Blue and Gold.

I liked that one.

I had a funeral. Well, a wake.

I watched it on my laptop.

Live-streamed from a camera Betty had set up in the living room.

Betty and I suspected that the Stonies would show up,

and, sure enough, they did.

We wanted to study them

to see if anything they did was suspicious.

Not that there was any doubt in our mind about their guilt.

The Preppies had stone-cold m*rder*d me

and were trying to pin it on Betty.

We just couldn't prove it.

Not yet.

Meanwhile...

The hardest part of playing dead was letting everyone believe

I was in the semi-sweet hereafter.

Our family, our friends.

The lies we had to tell.

The things we had to do to sell that illusion.

Like pretending that my bereft girlfriend had found comfort

in the strong, steely arms of my best bud.

Which turned out to be the greatest misdirect of them all.

Of course, we needed to let some people know the truth.

Except in one case.

My kid sister Jellybean?

Didn't have to be told.

Oh, you found the fake blood. Thanks, Jellybean.

Do you need it for Jughead?

What? What do you... What do you mean?

Do you need it to help my brother?

Jellybean, do you know where Jughead is?

I heard you whispering on the phone to Charles last night.

The walls are super thin.

You don't have to tell me where he is, just that he's okay.

Is he? Okay?

Can you keep a secret?

[KNOCKING ON DOOR]

[JUGHEAD] We brought my dadinto it pretty quick too.

Betty.

I, uh...

I gave that bloody rock to Charles, he said the FBI is gonna have it tested.

And when they do, they will tell you that it's covered in fake blood that you can buy at a drugstore.

[SCOFFS] The hell are you talking about?

I don't want you to worry anymore.

Mr. Jones, I'm really sorry that you've been worrying.

Jughead's fine.

He's... Okay, he's not fine, but he's okay.

Hold on, you know where Jughead is?

- Yes.
- [SIGHS HEAVILY]

I will tell you everything, okay?

But we really, really need your help, please.

I'm afraid to ask, but what kind of help?

For starters, a search party.

[JUGHEAD] Archie went rogue and told his mom too.

Mom, I have to confess something to you.

[JUGHEAD] And then there was Veronica's sister, Hermosa,

who was sniffing around, looking for bones.

All right. What do you wanna know?

Let me ask you straight up, hermanita.

Did you help Betty k*ll her boyfriend?

What? No, why would I do that?

Because that's the kind of thing that secret girlfriends do.

They k*ll each other's boyfriends so they can be together.

[SCOFFS] Okay, I don't know what kind of crypto-lesbian pulp fiction you're conjuring, Hermosa, but Betty and I are just friends.

Well, then, what did happen to that dead Torombolo?

Either you can tell me or I'll just keep digging.

- Don't forget, I'm a licensed...
- Private investigator, right.

Not sure why I didn't think of this before... but maybe you could help us with something.

Me, Betty, and Archie.

How much do you charge, Hermosa?

And is there a discount for family members?

[JUGHEAD] In the months that followed, people will ask us,

"Did we need to do it?"

Go to such extreme lengths?

Maybe, maybe not.

But this I did know...

If I was going to recover without the Preppies trying to k*ll me again

and figure out how to solve my own m*rder,

I needed the illusion to be perfect to buy myself time.

So while above me, a world without Jughead

continued spinning forward,

I pored over every scrap of evidence we'd gathered,

went over every detail of my time at Stonewall Prep,

looking for hidden patterns, hints and clues.

But this was a different kind of mystery

than the ones we'd tackled before.

This wasn't a "whodunnit."

This was a "whydunnit."

More psychological.

I needed to get under my suspects' skin, inside their heads.

I had to let my intuition take over

to draw these disparate strands together.

The missing Stonewall Four.

The "accidental deaths" of DuPont's classmates.

My attempted m*rder. How were they all connected?

A key piece of information came from Hermosa.

Which was that Donna...

Jug?

Jug?

Are you okay?

Yeah, sorry, I was just going over everything one more time.

- What's up, did they find him?
- Yeah, yes. We did.

- Well, I mean, Charles and FP did.
- And did he agree?

Completely.

He's showering as we speak.

- So are we doing this or what?
- Oh, yeah.

We are gonna blow Stonewall Prep out of the water.

[BETTY CHUCKLES]

Crime and Punishment.

A novel of m*rder and its psychological toll.

The floor is open.

Any thoughts regarding Dostoevsky's take on morality?

Hey, guys.

Well, what, did you even miss me?

You gotta be kidding me.

Mr. Jones.

I... I don't understand.
We all thought...

That I was dead? Well...

Yeah, actually for a minute there, I did too.

Yeah.

Hey, what's that oft-used Mark Twain quote?

"Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

What is happening right now?

It is called "getting your comeuppance", Joan.

You guys are reading Crime and Punishment, huh?

How apropos.

You know, the one kind of crime story that we never really touched upon in this seminar was the time-tested genre of a locked room mystery.

Where all the suspects are sequestered in a room.

One or more of them could be the k*ller, but the door is not unlocked until the identity is revealed.

Betty, could you do the honor?

The next bell doesn't ring for half an hour.

So for the next minutes, your asses belong to us.

I knew you weren't really dead.

Good job, Donna.

And yet since you failed to prove it or find Jughead, we had time to figure out all the twists and turns of this m*rder-mystery that we've all been living for the past few months.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[LAUGHS] Don't worry 'cause I'm gonna take you through it,

- step by step.
- No, this is ridiculous.

Mr. DuPont, I'm calling security.

Shut the hell up, Bret. Like I said, for the next minutes, we're in charge. So, give me your cellphones.

- Why the hell...
- Joan, just do what she says.

We have nothing to hide.

I'd get comfortable if I were you guys

'cause I'm going to take you through it from the very beginning.

Starting with that very curious fact that both Moose Mason and myself were invited to Stonewall Prep during our senior year.

Jughead?

Moose! [GASPS]

What the hell?

It's good to see you.

Was it like that when you met my grandfather, Forsythe the First?

He was asked to study at Stonewall too.

You were roommates with him, weren't you, Mr. DuPont?

Yes.

And you're very much like him, Mr. Jones.

Your grandfather was an arrogant fool too.

Why do you say that, huh?

Because he had the gall to consider himself worthy of your little inner circle?

The first iteration of Stonewall's Literary Society.

What exactly is this proving, Mr. Jones?

That this is not a story about a m*rder.

This is a story about grandparents and their grandchildren.

Of the sins from one generation being passed on to the next.

Cycles of v*olence.

Which brings me neatly to my next point.

Halloween.

When I was drugged by you psychos.

I think I...

I think I need some air.

- [JUGHEAD EXHALES HEAVILY]
- No.

You need to lie down.

[SIGHS]

Say hello to the Stonewall Four for us.

[JUGHEAD] Only to wake up in a coffin and be let out a day later.

[BOX CREAKS]

[GASPS] To return to my dorm.

Moose, you are not going to believe what Bret...

And find that Moose had vanished.

So naturally, I assumed he went out the same way as the Stonewall Four, that group of students that mysteriously vanished while attending Stonewall Prep over a few decades.

Oh, here we go again.

Now, Moose's fate was more banal. He joined the Army.

But there's a twist!

Mr. Chipping was the one who encouraged Moose to enlist.

But it was more like forced him to.

He was encouraging me to leave.

Until Halloween night, when it became more than a suggestion.

I mean, he practically shoved me out the door.

So, what was the connection between Moose and Chipping that would make him take his advice?

He recruited me. To play football.

Wait. Mr. Chipping's the reason why you went to Stonewall Prep?

Chipping had recruited Moose the same way he had Jughead and then ran him out of Stonewall Prep.

Meaning what, exactly?

Meaning Chipping knew Moose was going to get m*rder*d and was trying to save his life.

And I would remember that next point. It's gonna be on the qu...

- Oh, Mr. J...
- Shut up!

Mr. DuPont, as they say in Lord of the Flies,

I have the conch.

Now, after Halloween is when things got really interesting.

See, that's when you announced the writing competition.

Chipping has written the last four Baxter Brothers books.

It's time he pass on the torch.

And someone in this very room is going to be anointed the next ghostwriter.

You had already taken a shine to me, Mr. DuPont.

You were asking about my father and my grandfather.

Your grandfather was an excellent writer.

Tell me, how's he doing?

Does he still write?

So imagine my surprise... when I found out that my good-for-nothing drop-out grandfather had actually written the original Baxter Brothers novel.

Which a young Francis DuPont would then steal from him.

It was a % legal transaction. A sale.

[SCOFFS] It's highway robbery.

A measly five grand for an idea that generated millions of dollars.

You exploited Forsythe, Mr. DuPont.

You took advantage of a kid from the wrong side of the tracks.

And if that secret ever came out, can you imagine the damage that would do to the very valuable Baxter Brothers brand?

[EXHALES] Hell.

Someone might k*ll to keep that secret.

Which is exactly what we thought happened with Mr. Chipping.

I told Chipping about my gramps.

And then he talked to you, Mr. DuPont.

And the next day, well...

I think we all remember his dive out the window.

I thought you had urged him to do it.

I thought you had some leverage over Chipping.

I mean, you guys were all part of the same secret society, Quill and Skull.

But it was actually you guys.

It was your blank expressions as you watched him jump.

Call an ambulance!

I just couldn't shake it.

That's when I knew there was a deeper game afoot.

No, Chipping suicided 'cause he was messing around with Donna,

she ended it, and he short-circuited.

Except... they never really had a physical relationship.

Isn't that right, Donna?

We had an affair and it got out of hand.

Mmm-hmm.

Yes, an affair that went down exactly like the affair that you had with Mr. Kotter.

- Uh...
- Except, I looked into it and... turns out there is no Mr. Kotter.

- Rupert, Rupert had demons.
- Oh, he did.

Mrs. Chipping filled us in on all of those.

Yeah, she said that he had been drinking more.

And having trouble sleeping.

... complaining about the Baxter Brothers books.

Wishing he'd never gotten the contract.

So then, we started to ask ourselves, what would turn the opportunity of a lifetime,

winning the Baxter Brothers contract, into a burden?

An albatross? Any ideas?

Your ghostwriter challenge was to devise the perfect m*rder.

What if the real challenge, the real price that someone had to pay was to commit the perfect m*rder?

In order to prove that you could write it, first you had to do it.

I mean, it kind of makes a twisted, pathological sense, no?

And that's what was tormenting Mr. Chipping.

The guilt of what he had done, the blood that he had shed, in order to win the contract.

Mr. Chipping invited Moose to Stonewall Prep to be the next victim.

To be k*lled by the next ghostwriter. One of you.

And Moose was the perfect candidate.

I mean, he was a messed-up kid, he had no family, he couldn't handle the stresses of life.

After my dad was arrested for impersonating the Gargoyle King, it, uh, kinda blew up my life, my family, everything.

I even ended up in a facility for a couple of months.

Chipping ran Moose out of town.

You said it yourself.

Good, you remember.

Okay, we think Chipping couldn't go through with it.

And-or, maybe he just wanted to atone for what he had done.

I mean, whatever the reason.

He ran Moose the hell away from Stonewall Prep and then k*lled himself, it was his only escape.

Pure demented conjecture.

Well, yes and no. Chipping's behavior is hypothesis, but if proven, it shows a pattern of how the previous ghostwriters won their contract.

Same year, same month as Chipping was awarded his contract, a Stonewall student disappeared.

One of the so-called Stonewall Four.

We believe this student was m*rder*d by Mr. Chipping.

Ryan Allan, the previous ghostwriter,

who took up the mantle the same month

another one of the Stonewall Four disappeared.

The sequence holds true for every ghostwriter who preceded them.

It's... It's actually incredibly simple.

Which brings us to a couple months ago, when I was awarded the contract.

But why?

To put a target on my back.

Probably because I was already circling the truth, so he gave you guys a new challenge.

To commit the perfect m*rder, against me, and be awarded the contract.

[BETTY] So, the million dollar question is... who was going to k*ll Jughead? And how?

So, which one of you heartless bastards k*lled me?

It was actually Mr. DuPont that gave me a clue.

When I asked who had re-written my Baxter Brothers novel, you told me they all had a cr*ck at it.

[CHUCKLES] Well, actually, all of your classmates collaborated on it.

And that suggested to me that each one of you had a hand in my m*rder.

- Oh, this should be good.
- Donna, you kept Betty busy.

Oh, good, you made it.

[JUGHEAD] Bret, you led me deeper into the woods,

where I took off the bunny mask I was wearing and put on my beanie.

And was it that beanie

that kept my head from being completely cracked open

when Joan crept up behind me...

and hit me with a baseball-sized rock?

What? How do you know it was me?

Why couldn't it have been Jonathan?

Well, I don't recall Jonathan wearing your perfume.

Yeah, where... Where is Jonathan again?

Or did you k*ll him because he started to develop a conscience?

He had food poisoning, he still has food poisoning.

Okay, Jonathan aside, you had a fool-proof plan, air-tight alibis.

It all should have worked so perfectly, but it didn't.

- Why?
- Because in all your plotting, all of your lurid conspiring and your brilliance, you didn't k*ll me.

I mean, whose job was it to check my pulse?

Jonathan!

[JUGHEAD EXHALES SHARPLY]

Oh, you Einsteins.

All you had to do was hit me in the back of the head hard enough with a rock.

You failed spectacularly.

Yeah, meanwhile, Donna was blowing Devil's Breath in my face to set me up as the ultimate fall-girl.

Devil's Breath? Really?

Yeah, the technical term being scopolamine, which leaves a person highly suggestive and in a drunken state.

Which is why I don't remember when Donna led me into the clearing

where Jughead's body was and placed the bloody rock in my hand,

leaving me literally red-handed with the m*rder w*apon.

After which, the four of you returned to the party

and ran into Archie and Veronica.

Hey, have you guys seen Betty and Jughead?

I think they went that way,

into the clearing behind those trees.

Thanks.

[BETTY] And pointed them to where you knew they would find me.

Standing over Jughead's corpse.

Oh, my God, Betty, what happened?

Jug! Is he breathing?

He's dead.

At which point, one of two scenarios could've played out.

One, Archie and Veronica could turn me in.

Two, they could help me cover up the "m*rder" that I had just committed.

Either way, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

But honestly, you guys could've gotten away with it too.

Yeah, except, again...

You guys didn't k*ll me.

- Archie...
- Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Betty, what happened?

[BETTY BREATHING RAPIDLY]

All right, start pounding on his chest. Right now, okay?

Vee, use the beanie to stop the bleeding.

Go, one, two, three, four, five.

- Come on, Jug.
- [ARCHIE] ... four, five...

Come on, come on, Jug! Come on!

- [VERONICA] Betty, he's...
- Come back to me, Jug.

[GASPS] Jug, hey, hey, hey.

Hey, we're gonna get you to a hospital, okay?

No... No hospital.

Hey, stay awake, stay with me, please, Jug.

Hey. Stay awake, okay?

Though I didn't regain consciousness for another hours.

The worst hours of my life.

Why would you say that, Jones?

"No hospital." Why would a man on death's door say that?

I honestly don't know.

Maybe I had some small feeling that you were going to try and frame Betty.

And I wanted her to have a fighting chance.

I'm... I'm calling Charles, I'm calling Charles.

- What? Why?
- We can trust him. He'll help us, okay?

Hey, Jug.

[BETTY BREATHING HEAVILY]

Charles, I'm in the woods with Archie and Veronica.

Jughead, he's hurt really badly, we need help.

We need your help, please!

We carried Jug through the woods to the old postal road, where my brother Charles was waiting for us with an FBI med-van.

- What happened to him, Betty?
- A head wound.

We slowed the bleeding, we did chest compressions and CPR.

You think he's gonna make it?

We're gonna do everything that we can.

What about us? What do we do?

Go back to where you found him. Clean the scene.

Make absolutely certain that you don't leave anything behind, all right?

Also, your clothes are covered with blood.

You need to get rid of those and get washed up, okay?

[ALL] Okay.

[BETTY] And then we did what Charles asked.

We went back to the clearing.

Threw the bloody rock in the swimming hole.

Took off our clothes and started a bonfire.

What happens if he doesn't make it?

He'll make it.

But what if he doesn't?

He will.

But if he doesn't, then...

Archie... Archie?

- Archie! You listening to me?
- Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

We have to burn all of our clothes including Jughead's beanie.

We'll rinse off the blood in the swimming hole.

After tonight, we never speak of this. Ever.

Not to each other, not to our parents. No one.

We'll finish our senior year, graduate, and we'll go our separate ways.

That is the only way that we won't get caught.

Do it.

That is how it'll have to be if Jug doesn't make it.

But it won't come to that. He will pull through.

He has to.

[BETTY] And then, we went home.

And what happened next was a waking nightmare.

Not knowing if or when Jughead was going to wake up, and wondering if I had actually been responsible.

Wait, but we saw Jughead's corpse at the coroner's office.

Was he in on it?

Who? Dr. Curdle Jr.?

Yeah, mmm-hmm, yeah. We go way back.

[JUGHEAD] You see, Bret, in a town like Riverdale,

everybody's got a price.

And that includes our friendly neighborhood doctor of death.

And while Betty was keeping you guys busy with a game of cat-and-mouse,

I was in the underground bunker untangling this Gordian knot of a year.

And it is crazy how much untangling you can get done when everyone thinks you're dead.

Which brings us, basically, to today.

So, Mr. DuPont, the floor is open. What do you think?

Oh, Mr. Jones...

"A" for effort.

If nothing else, this fiction is significantly more entertaining than anything you ever produced for my class.

Oh, did I forget to mention

that Betty and I went and saw the Baxter Brothers ghostwriters?

And when we told them our theory, they all asked for their lawyers.

What if you did track them down?

And even if you found one who corroborated your wild theories in some vague way, then you will know that I never explicitly directed my students or mentees to do anything criminal.

Oh.

What a canny serial k*ller you are, Mr. DuPont.

But we haven't even gotten to the best part.

Specifically, the three members of your original literary society... who you m*rder*d.

Jane Dallas Brown, Charles W. Chickens, Theodore Weisel...

There it is.

Let's loop back to the original sin, shall we?

When Mr. DuPont stole, and I do mean stole, my grandfather's original Baxter Brothers novel.

A fact known to you, Mr. DuPont, and of course, Jughead's grandfather but also to your inner circle, your classmates.

The corrupt secret at the heart of an empire.

[JUGHEAD] Although it wasn't an empire just yet.

It was a house of cards that you built over many decades.

And the bigger it got, the more worried you became that one little slip of the tongue would send the whole thing tumbling down.

Your life's work would be revealed as a lie, and you as a fraud.

And a thief.

A man of dishonor.

So, you started going after people who knew the truth and started staging their accidental deaths.

You cut brakes. You tampered with fuselages.

You compromised oxygen tanks.

Until there was only one living member of your literary society left.

Betty, I think it's time we let in our guests.

With pleasure.

[DOOR UNLOCKING]

- Forsythe.
- Live and in the flesh.

Hello, Francis.

Why don't you tell him what you told us, Grandpa?

Weisel came to see me before he d*ed.

He hadn't slept for days.

He told me that you k*lled Charles and Jane 'cause they were gonna spill the truth about the damn Baxter Brothers.

He said we knew too much and you were gonna off us, too.

You and I both know Theodore was a paranoid drunk.

But two days later, the expert diver drowned in shallow water.

So he was right, and I was next.

So, I went out for a pack of cigarettes... and never came back.

What were you doing off-grid since , exactly?

Collecting evidence that linked Francis here with the murders of Charles and Jane and Theodore.

I started by calling hotels and motels near the accident sites.

You know what the one thing I couldn't figure out at first was, Mr. DuPont?

That if Moose was invited to Stonewall Prep to be the next victim, then why was I also invited?

I was bait to lure my grandfather out of hiding so you could finish the job that you started.

Took off like a coward after Jughead found me.

But, to my old man's credit, when Charles and I found him the second time, and he heard what happened to his grandson, he figured it was finally time to take your ass down.

[CHARLES] While you were in here playing Agatha Christie, my team was combing through DuPont's house for the last hour.

Now, given the trophies of your victims that we found in your hollowed out OED, and your ghostwriters lawyering up, not to mention Forsythe's detective work...

Well, why don't you tell him?

It's over, Francis.

You... call me a thief and a coward.

I'm not.

I'm a builder.

I built the Baxter Brothers franchise and with that money, I helped build this school.

Without me, neither would exist.

Francis DuPont, you have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

Never. A writer's power is in his words.

Only the meek and the timid choose silence.

Oh, I am a man of honor.

To the end.

[JUGHEAD] After that, it was a matter of dotting I's and crossing T's.

We obtained these text exchanges between you and Donna.

Donna was manipulating you, Joan.

She tricked you into doing her dirty work so her hands would remain clean.

Don't protect her.

I'll see to it that you get a reduced sentence.

Agent Smith, you have nothing to offer me.

Reminder, my father is an ambassador and I have diplomatic immunity.

If you leave the country now, you won't ever be able to return.

And your friends, they'll take all the heat.

They're not my friends.

Hey, why did you lie to Jughead?

You told him Bret had diplomatic immunity, but it was Joan.

I... I lied to Jughead because I was trying to keep him from antagonizing Bret.

You know it was Bret's idea to k*ll Jughead.

Uh-huh. How did you get Mr. Chipping's tie pin?

And don't tell me that you were having an affair.

No one's buying that story anymore.

Mr. DuPont gave it to me.

Said I had to lie to the headmaster, so that Mr. Chipping's death would be ruled a su1c1de and people would stop asking questions.

But I'm just glad that the real monster behind all of this,

Mr. DuPont, has paid for his crimes.

You have a known history of antagonizing Jughead.

Witnesses saw you walking with him into the woods the night he was att*cked.

Have I actually been charged with a crime?

You're facing hard time for both attempted m*rder and the creation and possession of illegally recorded sex tapes featuring fellow students.

Including Jughead and Betty.

Now, I'm willing to reduce your charge to only attempted m*rder if you turn over your collection of videotapes.

Here's my counter-offer, reduce my charge to conspiracy after the fact, which my lawyer will plead down to community service, or Betty and Jughead's puerile sex tape will be released to the world wide web.

Hmm. Let me think it over.

[SIGHS]

That was quick.

What the hell is this?

The counter to your counter.

I understand you've decided to co-operate with our investigation and reveal the location of your illicit videotapes.

Is that correct?

[ALICE] Hidden in a secret compartment behind Stonewall's crest

was a treasure trove of dark secrets.

Illegally recorded videotapes,

more fuel to add to the firestorm of controversy that is consuming

one of the country's oldest and more prestigious prep schools.

For now, Stonewall Prep's doors remain open,

but its secret society Quill and Skull has been disbanded.

For RIVW news, this is Alice Smith.

It's good to be back, Riverdale.

[ALL APPLAUD]

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Your report came out really good, Mom.

Oh, thanks, honey. I had a lot of help from an inside source.

- Mmm-hmm.
- Mmm-hmm?

[BOTH LAUGH]

- I'm gonna head out.
- Yeah.

Wait. Where are you going?
We're about to have cake.

Um, I will be back soon, okay?

I just have one last T to cross.

Hello, Donna.

Going somewhere?

If you must know, I'm transferring to a new school.

Well, I'm glad I caught you then.

I wanted to congratulate you personally.

Jughead and I heard that you're taking over the Baxter Brothers.

The brand is relaunching.

As Tracy True.

Jealous?

Your plan worked, Donna.

You managed to get everyone else to do the actual dirty work.

Hell, even DuPont's dead.

You covered your tracks extremely well.

[CLICKS TONGUE] Betty...

Are you really so delusional you would believe I would mastermind some elaborate conspiracy that caused the deaths of multiple people just to win a YA book contract?

No.

But you would do it for revenge.

Oh, really?

- Revenge for what?
- The m*rder of your grandmother.

Jane Dallas Brown.

One of the classmates DuPont k*lled to cover up the ugly truth that he didn't create the Baxter Brothers.

She was your grandmother.

How could you possibly know that?

A friend of a friend told me.

You dedicated yourself to getting into Stonewall Prep and getting into Chipping's class and each step brought you ever closer to your grandmother's k*ller.

You wanted revenge.

So what was the original plan, Donna?

Win the contract no matter how many people had to die?

And then stage an accident that would take care of DuPont so you could tear down the house that he built?

Fascinating theory, Betty.

You've left out one minor detail.

DuPont didn't merely k*ll my grandmother.

He stole from her.

The same way he did from Forsythe.

Tracy True.

The female teen detective who was introduced in the Baxter Brothers' books.

She was your grandmother's invention.

Now I've taken Tracy back and DuPont is rotting in a grave.

Huh.

How did you really find out about my grandmother?

A private investigator.

At my behest, Hermosa put her private eye skills to good use and did some digging on those Stonewall WASPs.

And your gal pal Donna is not so sweet.

... who supplied us with the medical files that confirmed that you are the granddaughter of Jane Dallas Brown.

Which gives the police a motive and links this entire web of death back to you.

It's circumstantial at best.

But I'll play one last round.

What do you want, Betty?

I want you to walk away from the Tracy True contract.

Why in God's name would I do that?

Fictional though she may be,

Tracy deserves better, as does the memory of your grandmother.

And you certainly don't deserve to profit off the near-death of my boyfriend.

Or... don't walk away. That's fine.

But I will make sure every newspaper of every major city gets a copy of that medical file.

You play nice from now on, Donna.

I'll be keeping an eye on you.

Months at Stonewall Prep away from you guys, what a waste.

Jug, okay. We put a stop to DuPont, we solved eight murders, and we gave closure to every family of every missing child.

I would not call that a waste of time.

I know. It's just...

- I feel... [SIGHS HEAVILY]
- Cheated?

I know.

I know.

You'll find a meaning to all of this at some point.

Okay?

So, Jughead Jones back from the dead.

Color me completely not surprised.

- [BELL RINGS]
- You're not?

No one ever really dies in Riverdale, do they?

But what about you and Archie canoodling then?

Yeah, that was just pretend.

I don't know, cousin. That looked pretty real to me.

Yeah, that was the point.

[SCOFFS]

Right.

All I'm saying is, your secret's safe with me.

Toodles.

- [BETTY SIGHS]
- What did Cheryl want?

Nothing. What did Mr. Honey say?

Well, I don't think he's too happy about it, but he legally has to let me back to Riverdale High.

- That's great!
- Yeah, I just really hope my credits transfer.

On the bright side, no one's gonna try to k*ll me while I'm here.

Don't jinx yourself.

[FP] Hey, boy. Betty.

Hey.

Um, I'll be right down.

Grandpa, I thought you left.

Oh, not yet. [CHUCKLES]

Joining us for dinner?

Ah, Betty and I are actually going to meet Archie and Veronica at Pop's. So...

- Unless you want me to stay.
- No, go have fun.

Yeah.

Should I say goodbye?

Oh, no.

I expect your father and I will still be talking when you get back.

Hey, hold on.

I don't know what's gonna happen with him and me.

But, uh, we're talking, so that's something.

So, thank you. You made all this happen.

- Have fun.
- Yeah.

Betty?

Maybe something good did come out of this whole Stonewall mess.

My dad and my grandfather talking again for the first time in years!

Who would've thought of that?

You think your dad will forgive him?

Oh, I don't know. I mean, they have a lot of bad history between each other, but...

I hope so.

All right, guys.

Let's make a vow.

- [ALL GROAN]
- I know.

I know.

The last time we made a vow to have a normal senior year, everything went to hell pretty quick.

But we only have two, three months left.

Let's end it on a high note.

Are we just gonna ignore the fact that Archie and I will probably not be graduating with you guys?

Jug, okay.

Do you really think Vee and I are going to sit idly by and not help our boyfriends graduate?

Archie Andrews and Jughead Jones, you will graduate.

Even if it takes a thousand tutors, you will set aside everything.

No more mysteries.

And make graduating your sole purpose in life.

Why does that sound like a thr*at?

[VERONICA] Because it is.

To going out on top together.

- Cheers.
- Cheers to that.

Guys, guys, just a reminder.

I'm posting the sign-up sheet for the variety show tomorrow, you all have to perform.
Even you, Jughead.

- Count us in, Kev.
- Oh, no.

Yeah.

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