Riverdale Recap Episode 10: “The Lost Weekend”

The past few episodes of Riverdale have been closer to Twin Peaks than Gossip Girl, that it’s been easy to forget that this show is at heart a story about four iconic teenagers.

Taking a break from maple syrup drama, “The Lost Weekend,” gets to see the kids (sort-of) let loose at a good old-fashioned house party. Of course, this is Riverdale, so what was supposed to be some light-hearted celebrations quickly turns into a tornado of heated drama.

It’s Jughead’s birthday but for some reason, none of his friends, with the exception of Archie, are aware that their resident Holden Caufield is becoming a year older. While Jughead makes it clear early on that he doesn’t want a celebration of any kind but would rather just go to a double feature at the theater, all of his friends seem to ignore his wishes in favor of a party.

Betty is desperate to focus her energy on throwing the greatest surprise party for her boyfriend because the return of Chuck Clayton drudges up some bad memories. Just seeing him is a reminder of her “Dark Betty” persona which both haunts and terrifies her. It’s a personification of the stress she deals with in order to maintain the public image she’s built for herself.

Of course, Jughead doesn’t realize this and the two have a huge fight in Archie’s garage. He accuses her of trying to be perfect, which she despises, and that their relationship is running on the borrowed time until Archie changes his mind about Betty. It’s a tough spiteful thing to hear, and enough to split our favorite journalists up for the most of, “The Lost Weekend”.

Speaking of splits, Archie is finally coming to terms with his parents’ divorce and not in a good way. While it’s revealed that his mother and father can’t be in the same room without a mediator, he still holds out hope that maybe one day they can reconcile. Going through a breakup with Val as well, Archie hits the bottle in hopes of finding some comfort in alcohol but ends up drunk dialing Fred hoping that he can change his dad’s mind about the divorce.

Veronica is also dealing with parental problems, as she sticks to her decision from last week to not testify on her father’s behalf. Hiram Lodge’s presence has been felt in Riverdale despite not being seen yet and once again he displays his reach from prison in, “The Lost Weekend”.

His lawyer gives Veronica a typed-letter (real heartfelt) where he threatens to bring Hermione down with him if she chooses not to play the part of the happy daughter. Desperate to believe that her mother is a good person, Veronica opts to testify to save Hermione even though this could ruin her relationship with Ethel.

However, once she realizes that FP is the serpent that her father hired to bring down the value of the drive-in land, Veronica jumps on board with the Blue and Gold investigation to learn if her father is, in fact, Jason Blossom’s murderer.

Cheryl may not be on the hunt for Jason’s killer this week but she’s definitely out for blood after Veronica steals the head cheerleader position early in, “The Lost Weekend”. After teaming up with Chuck, the two become agents of chaos at the party where they insist on playing a “game” which turns out to be everyone yelling one another secrets in front of everyone.

Veronica finally says what everyone has been thinking, and accuses Cheryl of loving Jason a little too much which seems to destroy any chance of a friendship between the two. Archie’s affair with Ms. Grundy is also revealed, and someone mentions that he has “Mommy issues” which finally gives a somewhat logical reason to why he fell head over heels for her.

Chuck doesn’t waste the opportunity to finally let everyone know what really happened when Betty coerced his confession out of him and ends up shaming her in front of the entire crowd. It’s sad to see the boy who was shamed girls into silence trying to do the same thing once again but luckily Jughead steps up to deliver a well-deserved right hook.

While he considers running away from his problems immediately after, FP convinces him to go talk to Betty and man up to save his relationship. The two lovebirds end up sharing a genuinely touching moment where they both share their own insecurities and happily snuggling together at Pop’s.

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They aren’t the only two who get a happy ending because Archie and Veronica finally rekindle their romance. Since the pilot when he saw her walk into the diner, it was only a matter of time before these two really got together. While neither seems too keen on telling Betty of their hook-up, this is at least a healthy relationship for Archie. Not to mention Camila Mendes and KJ Apa has had some great chemistry from the get-go that this pairing had been entertaining from the start.

“The Lost Weekend,” ends with some surprising revelations and some momentum that is bound to last until the finale. Joaquin and Kevin look like they’re going to be the new “Romeo and Juliet” romance of the show now that the former looks like he’s developing real feelings for his mark.

Meanwhile, Joaquin isn’t the only Serpent who may have caught feelings because that tense meeting between FP and Alice outside of the house sheds a little bit of light on their past history.

Luckily this is Alice’s only passive-aggressive scene because she seems to be on genuinely good terms with Betty since Hal moved out and the two form a healthier mother-daughter relationship. She also finds the next step in the murder investigation will be looking into the Serpents because as Alice notes, Riverdale isn’t small enough for a gang member to date the sheriff’s son by accident.

Next week looks like it’s going to have even more drama from this as Riverdale returns to the dark maple syrup Blossom empire. From the looks of it, Polly has gotten herself a little too deep into the Blossom’s secrets and that Clifford wears a wig! Thankfully Molly Ringwald blew into town in the final moments of “The Lost Weekend,” so Riverdale won’t be short on any natural redheads.