‘Riverdale’: How Does The Farm Connect to The Gargoyle King?

Spoilers for Riverdale “Chapter Forty-Eight: Requiem for a Welterweight” past this point.

There have been two main mysteries running through Riverdale Season 3. The first is the identity of The Gargoyle King, a monstrous figure behind the potentially evil role playing game Gryphons & Gargoyles. The second, running in the background, is what’s up with the new-agey cult The Farm. And finally, after more than half a season, the two came crashing together on tonight’s new episode… Though true to form, the one word that got dropped — “ascension” — raised more questions than it answered.

In the episode, Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) has tracked down an ex-pat of The Farm in order to find out more info about what her mother Alice (Mädchen Amick) is getting into by officially joining up. She knows that Alice is about to go through a baptism of sorts, and that The Farm requires a waiver protecting them from responsibility in case of bodily harm. But what she finds out by talking to the woman, named Martha (Victoria Bidewell), is that her sister died during the process. Basically, the Farm is pulling a Flatliners and bringing their members to the brink of death to, according to them, illuminate some universal truths. Martha calls it “ascension,” which immediately makes the alarm bells go off in Betty’s head.

That’s because the players obsessed with G&G have been regularly dropping the terms “ascend” and “ascension” throughout the season, specifically in reference to Ascension Night. In the flashback episode “The Midnight Club,” The Gargoyle King (identity TBD) invited all of Riverdale’s future parents to Ascension Night, the final round of playing the game. That led to the death of the school’s principal, and the disbanding of The Midnight Club. Decades later, the players of G&G are still trying to ascend, which usually involves drinking cyanide laced fruit drink from a chalice and then dying.

Of note, Alice seems to actually briefly die during the baptism, before Betty manages to resuscitate her. When she returns, she’s changed, claiming to have seen the truth of the world and that she’s fully committing to The Farm.

So… What’s going on here? How, exactly, does The Farm connect to Gryphons & Gargoyles?

First off all, the way the two cults (and I think we can call them both cults) deal with “ascension” is linked, but different. For Gryphons & Gargoyles, ascension involves drinking liquid and dying in order to join The Gargoyle King in his (I guess) heavenly paradise. For The Farm, ascension involves being dipped in liquid and dying, but if you make it through you’ll see the future, prophecy, your true purpose. So similarities, but not exactly the same thing.

That is, until you consider Kurtz, a new character played by Jonathan Whitesell. You might recognize his face from his role as Luke on Beyond, or Bryan on The 100. But here, he’s playing the new leader of The Gargoyle Gang, having jumped into the void left when the two previous leaders were arrested/killed. He’s just like his namesake from Apocalypse Now, muttering insane ravings about the truth of the universe from deep in the woods. Except what he’s saying about the true shape of the world as illuminated by Gryphons & Gargoyles, and what Alice is talking about from nearly dying during her baptism are pretty close together.

Here’s a theory for you folks: The Farm and Gryphons & Gargoyles aren’t the same thing, but they started in the same place. We know The Gargoyle King and the game began at evil nunnery Sisters of the Quiet Mercy. What if one sect of the burgeoning cult went in one direction, the other in another? Lots of real religions end up this way (perhaps you are familiar with Judaism and Catholicism?), sharing DNA while coming at their beliefs in different ways. That might mean that one, central figure is behind both of them (say, Chad Michael Murray’s Edgar Evernever); or it might mean there was a split between the founders that led to these two branches.

Or, honestly, they could be the same thing and we just don’t have all the clues yet.

Regardless, Martha’s mention of “ascension” is the first real connection between these plotlines. And given we’re now all in on The Farm, it’s clear it won’t be the last.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

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