‘Riverdale’: Just Kidding, Jughead Is Alive After All

Spoilers for Riverdale Season 4, Episode 15 “Chapter Seventy-Two: To Die For” past this point.

The reports of Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) death on Riverdale, have, as they say, been greatly exaggerated. For months now — months! — since a cliffhanger flash-forward at the end of Season 3 revealed a moody scene with Jughead missing, and his friends burning his iconic beanie, the series has slowly been revealing clues that Riverdale’s premier teen novelist had been murdered by none other than his girlfriend Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart). But thanks to a last second reveal on this week’s episode “To Die For,” we now know that Jughead Jones is very much alive.

In case you haven’t been keeping up with the usual insanity over on Riverdale, this season’s mystery has been even deeper and twisty-er than usual. After being recruited for, and enrolling in, an elite school called Stonewall Prep, Jughead found his talents as a writer were finally being respected, even if the students clashed with him. Those students include misogyny personified Bret Weston Wallis (Sean Depner), and the seemingly kind yet actually treacherous Donna Sweett (Sarah Desjardins).

Things amped up considerably once Jughead was hired to be the latest in a long line of ghostwriters for teen mystery series The Baxter Brothers novels, a series that was actually created by Jughead’s grandpa, Forsythe Pendleton Jones I (Timothy Webber). Ultimately, events were manipulated so that Jughead was expelled from school, blackmailed with a sex tape taken by Bret, his novel stolen by the Stonewall students and their teacher Francis Dupont (Malcolm Stewart), and generally things looking real bad for Mr. Jones (and me).

Then events went from bad, to worse. Jughead, realizing that the Stonewall squad was always one step ahead, lured Bret into the woods at an Ides of March party. Donna, meanwhile, blew a narcotic colloquially called Devil’s Breath on Betty, and seemingly handed her a rock slathered in Jughead’s blood, framing her for his murder. Veronica (Camila Mendes) and Archie (KJ Apa) came upon Betty frozen in the woods, and the three of them — seemingly — decided to cover up the murder until they could clear Betty’s name.

And after that, Riverdale put in the work. They showed us the aftermath, from the kids burning their clothes and lying to their parents, to revealing the dead looking body of Jughead in the woods, and later in the morgue. All of that happened on last week’s episode, “How To Get Away With Murder,” ending with the Riverdale Three throwing the Stonies off their game, and waiting to see what would happen next.

Well, now we know what happened next, including the “shocking” reveal of a very much alive Jughead.

In “To Die For,” after much pretending from nearly the entire town of Riverdale, including an epic attempt by Betty and Archie to make Donna think they were in love — proving to the doubtful Donna that Jughead was very much dead, and she had moved on — it was revealed that Jughead has been hiding in a sex bunker in the woods the whole time.

How did he survive? How did he pull it off? Those details will be revealed in full on next week’s episode, “The Locked Room,” but here’s what we know so far. The biggest part of the mystery is that Jughead was, in fact, hit in the head with a rock, and did get knocked out by the Stonies. However, his beanie absorbed most of the blow, saving his life. In order to throw the Stonies off their game and hopefully confess to his “murder,” as well as any other secrets they’re hiding, Jughead pretended to be dead, working with Archie, Veronica, Betty, his father FP Jones (Skeet Ulrich) and even Jellybean Jones (Trinity Likins). After filming a whole documentary about the crime, they also revealed the truth to Alice Smith (Mädchen Amick), and presumably her cameraman Kevin Keller (Casey Cott).

So everyone knows, except for Donna and Bret… Except, the teens screwed up, slightly. While tracking Betty to the sex bunker, Donna spied her and Archie hooking up. She left, but not before seeing they had bought three milkshakes, an impossible number of milkshakes for two people to drink. Regardless, that was enough for Donna to become certain that Jughead is alive, and demand that Bret fall in line behind her.

And there’s one last reveal… Thanks to Veronica’s sister Hermosa (Mishel Prada), Veronica discovers that Donna Sweett isn’t her real name. We don’t find out who she is, but it makes everything clear to Jughead, and presumably will to the audience next episode when we discover her name is really Donna Jughead, and she’s mad because Jughead’s name is just a nickname, and he took it from her. I’m kidding, she’s probably Donna Stonewall or something, I don’t know.

Regardless, Jughead is back, he’s alive, and the status quo has returned: Betty is with Jughead, Veronica is with Archie, and nobody has any doubts about who is in love with whom. Right? Right. Case closed.

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

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