Riverdale Recap and Review - Season 1 - Chapter 12 - Anatomy of a Murder

SPOILER ALERT - Murderers and accomplices were revealed on the latest episode of Riverdale and they’re included in this recap and review. If you haven’t watched it yet, I suggest you do so before continuing.

Game of Thrones meets Riverdale on this week’s episode ‘Anatomy of Murder’. Sure it wasn’t golden-haired creepy rich twins incest, but after this week’s revelations, the Coopers and the Blossoms move one step closer to the iron throne. Now if we could only get some dragons having a burger at Pop’s Diner . . . but I digress.

I truly thought we’d be waiting until the season finale before Jason’s murderer was revealed but apparently we didn’t have to wait that long. I’d like to take this opportunity to a do a small ‘told ya so’ dance. Small because I incorrectly predicted that Joaquin was the one who pulled the trigger, but a dance nonetheless because I did state in my last review (find it HERE) that Clifford Blossom was behind the whole thing. And lo and behold, the creepy wigged one was indeed the trigger man. Let’s dive in . . .

We can probably gloss over the more melodramatic points this week. Alice tends to over-react and point fingers in the wrong direction, Jughead is (believably) upset, Archie is determined, Veronica likes to lounge around in silk. I think I’m digressing again. The point is, a lot happened in this episode but what it all boils down to is this: Clifford Blossom killed his own son.

Before we get to that point, FP confesses to everything, and I mean everything. He spills his guts in magnificent fashion and in such a calm way that a detective who was good at his job would likely begin to think something wasn’t right. But not Sheriff Keller, he likes an easy clean open and shut case. Even if we’re starting to question that maybe Archie and Ronnie did miss finding that gun in the closet, we, the audience, know that FP is lying thanks to Mr. Cooper being the one that stole the murder wall from the Sheriff’s house. So we’re left with a dwindling amount of suspects. A friend told me it could be Hermione and it’s actually not a bad theory as she’s been known to break the law, but she was in New York when the murder happened. It could certainly be Hiram Lodge who we now discover is out of jail and I really, really, REALLY hope the season finale ends with him showing up in Riverdale. But he’s not the killer, the motivation is too vague. After some fairly weak sleuthing from Archie and the gang which involves chatting to Joaquin, we end up at another crime scene.

The serpent that Joaquin overheard speaking to FP is conveniently dead of an overdose which leaves us at another dead end. But that’s okay because we have at least ten minutes of film to kill here so we’ll just keep chasing our tails for a while and we’ll even have Mr. Cooper show up to remind everyone that he’s the one who stole the murder wall and that’s all. Oh no wait, there’s that little matter of INCEST! Apparently the Coopers aren’t Coopers at all, they’re Blossoms. Wait. What? This is an unusual leap because why even bother throwing this tidbit into the mix? It doesn’t serve much of a purpose other than to get Polly out of the Addams Family Mansion.

We’re left with a few loose suspects, no plausible motive, and nowhere for this episode to go. But wait! Joaquin is back to save the day. And it’s true. This episode was only moved along by one character: JOAQUIN! (I feel I deserve a few points back from mistakenly accusing him of being the murderer) Archie’s mom discovers FP’s only phone call from jail was to Joaquin. Joaquin was the one who revealed details of the clean up, and led Archie, Veronica, and Kevin to the Mustang murder scene. He’s also the one who tipped off Kevin where to find the jacket which conveniently includes video footage of the murder. Sure, FP could have just given that information and evidence up when he was arrested, but why bother making things easy?

For all the plot conveniences of how we got to the actual murder in this episode, we’re treated to some great performances in the form of reaction shots when Betty and Co watch the murder video. Jughead returns to his narrator roots and leads us down the path to the big reveal that Clifford Blossom was the murderer all along. I’m hoping it’s not a cop out on the part of the writers that we never get to discover the true motivation behind the murder and I’m assuming that’s what next week’s season finale will be about.

When the police show up at the Blossom mansion, the haunting image of Cheryl and her mother directing the police to the family barn is quite chilling. Clifford, being the criminal he is, pulls a 13 Reasons Why minus the lengthy recording sessions, and hangs himself.

One more episode to go and I’m guessing it’ll end on a neat little cliffhanger. Season 2 starts shooting in a few weeks and instead of 13 episodes, I hear we’re getting a full 22(ish) episode season. This can be good or bad. On the good side, YAY More Riverdale! On the bad side, TV shows can sometimes get a little drawn out and boring when pushed to a full season order. In the end I don’t care, because I’m more focused on the former in which we get more Riverdale. Cue my happy dance . . .
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STRAY THOUGHTS OF AWESOMENESS . . .

- As she’s a lawyer, I wish Archie’s mom had been a little more involved in this episode. We didn’t even get to see the scene between her and FP. I feel like Skeet Ulrich vs. Molly Ringwald would be an epic battle.

- Goodbye, Joaquin. We’ll miss you being a convenient plot device :(

- If you call your kid ‘Mustang’ he’s almost guaranteed to join a biker gang. It’s like calling your daughter ‘Candy’. Congrats, you’re the proud parents of a stripper.

- Did Cliff actually take the easy way out and hang himself or are the Blossom women the far more fearsome of the species? Look into the eyes of evil, and you tell me . . . ?