‘Riverdale’: “Hereditary” Synopsis Teases Unexpected Visitors at Thistlehouse

It may be mid-November by the time Riverdale‘s “Chapter Sixty-Three: Hereditary” airs, but things are still getting pretty spooky in the Town With Pep, as teased in the just released episode synopsis.

Directed by Gabriel Correa and written by James DeWille, Riverdale Season 4, Episode 6 is a riff off 2018’s Ari Aster directed horror flick of the same. That’s a relatively recent reference for Riverdale, which usually prefers to stick to kitsch from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. But before we delve too far into what that all might mean, let’s take a look at the synopsis, and then break it all down:

UNEXPECTED VISITORS — As Archie (KJ Apa) struggles to keep the neighborhood kids away from Dodger’s (guest star Juan Riedinger) influence, he turns to an unexpected ally for help. Jughead (Cole Sprouse) uncovers a mystery surrounding the author of the Baxter Brothers books, while Betty (Lili Reinhart) confronts Charles (guest star Wyatt Nash) about his past. Finally, Veronica (Camila Mendes) deals with a major shake-up at home, and Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) and Toni (Vanessa Morgan) get some unexpected visitors at Thistlehouse. Marisol Nichols, Madchen Amick, Mark Consuelos, Casey Cott, Skeet Ulrich and Charles Melton also star. Gabriel Correa directed the episode written by James DeWille (#406.) Original airdate 11/13/2019.

First up is the Archie storyline, which picks up from this past week’s episode, “Dog Day Afternoon.” There, Archie met the latest adult Riverdale adult resident who is obsessed with damaging his perfect abs, Dodger. Just like the Artful Dodger from Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist,” this one is using kids to do his dirty work out a local den of iniquity: an arcade. Faster than you can say “I’m gonna wreck it,” Archie beat up five armed adults all by himself and stole their money in order to fund his own boxing based community center.

Naturally, that’s going to continue to lead to issues with the criminal Dodger, though as for what unexpected ally Archie might turn to? Just gonna throw it out there, but who better to take on a crime boss, than another crime boss? Chances are Hiram Lodge (Consuelos), née Jaime Luna, will be joining forces with his old enemy.

On to Jughead’s storyline, which includes more intriguing teases for what’s going on at Stonewall Prep. We know his grandfather, Forsythe Pendleton Jones I, briefly attended the school, and in the midseason finale Jughead will be seeking him out for info on the “Baxter Brothers foundation.” I’m starting to feel a little bit like that GIF of Charlie Day from It’s Always Sunny, but how does Stonewall Prep connect to the Baxter Brothers books, and then to the foundation — and FPJ The First? And more importantly, other than his nose for mystery, why is Jughead seeking it all out?

While Jughead is getting deeper into that side of the show, looks like Betty will be picking up on a dangling question from her boyfriend last episode: can she trust her newly discovered half-brother Charles Smith? After being thought dead for years, he popped up again as an FBI agent working with their mother, Alice (Mädchen Amick), and helped Betty take down cult The Farm. Still, there are a lot of questions about him. Why was he missing for so long? What was the deal with Chic (Hart Denton) saying he killed Charles back in Season 2? According to showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Charles is actually a good guy and on the level. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t also serious discrepancies in his backstory.

As for Veronica dealing with a major shake-up at home, that’s most likely the introduction of her own half-sibling, Hermosa Lodge (Mishel Prada). Hermosa will turn up during the previous episode, “Witness for the Prosecution,” and side with their father Hiram during the double trial of the Lodge parents. Presumably they’re all getting out of jail, because this is Riverdale and that’s how the law works there. So Veronica is potentially going to go from living at the Pembrooke with her butler Smithers, to a full house featuring her ex-con parents and an older sister with some serious sibling rivalry, raring to go.

Okay, back to Hereditary, because it’s time to talk about Cheryl and Toni’s storyline. First of all, mild spoilers for the movie but it all kicks off with the death of a family’s grandmother/mother, a desecrated grave, and things only getting more horrifying from there. That grandmother thing has fans nervous that the beloved Nana Rose Blossom (Barbara Wallace) is going to get killed off the show, hence the title of the episode. Is that possible? Sure, anything is possible — and we know someone is going to die during the Halloween episode, airing October 30.

But Riverdale episode titles are rarely so on the nose — check out last week’s “Dog Day Afternoon,” which dealt with a stakeout/hostage situation in only the vaguest sense of the words, versus the plot of that Al Pacino starring movie. Though I’d still put Nana’s survival chances at about 50/50 regardless (she’s clearly having bouts of dementia and maybe crawling through the walls at night?), chances are the episode title refers to the increasingly complex Blossom family tree. I talked about it at length in a previous piece, but there have been long-standing fan theories that Cheryl and her deceased brother Jason (Trevor Stines) may be the Blossom triplets, as they are in the comics.

That seems to be supported by two pieces of evidence: Nana mistaking Cheryl for her mother Penelope last episode, and saying she “thought I saw the triplets in the fire”; and that as of “Halloween,” Cheryl is going to have some sort of sailor doll named Julian. Julian is, in fact, the name of the third Blossom triplet in the Archie Comics, so there’s some sort of riff going on there. Whether those unexpected visitors this episode are Julian (the human, not the sailor puppet) and company? Stay tuned.

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

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