'Riverdale' Season 4 Episode 11: Did Jughead lose the sudden death round against Bret?
This article contains spoilers for 'Riverdale' Season 4 Episode 11: 'Chapter Sixty-Eight: Quiz Show'
We've had enough of flashforwards teasing the death of Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse), and in this episode titled 'Quiz Show,' we were intrigued at Jughead's upcoming duel with Bret Wallis (Sean Depner). At the end of the episode, Wallis chose words that alluded to the death of Jughead and this had us wondering, did Wallis kill to win?
There has been an intense amount of speculation on whether Riverdale's favorite intellectual, Jughead, actually died after the cliffhanger of Season 4 Episode 9 'Tangerine'. The creators then teased the death of the writer with flashforwards of Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) near Jughead's body cradling bloody rocks, and Betty, Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) and Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) in a lineup with Donna, Jugheads classmate at Stonewall, admitting that she saw the trio kill Jughead. While we so badly wanted to put the blame of Jughead's upcoming death on Dark Betty in a hypnotized trance, this episode gave "Bugheads" an obvious enemy, Bret, a motive.
The Quiz Show Championship with finalists Bret from Stonewall Prep and Betty from Riverdale High gave Betty a different level of anxiety. She finds out that she did not get accepted into Yale, her dream school, because the Ivy League Legacies did not want to tarnish their name with the daughter of "The Black Hood" as their student. In an effort to escape the shadows of her father, Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Munro) aka "The Black Hood", Jughead introduces his girlfriend to a Yale recruiter so she has another chance at a bright future. With the promise of getting another shot at being admitted to Yale if she brings the win to Riverdale, Betty delivers an impeccable performance. Betty's mother, Alice Cooper (Mädchen Amick), tried to help her daughter win by stealing the answers to the questions - Betty, of course, did not use them.
Unfortunately, even though Betty took the win, it was revoked when Principal Honey (Kerr Smith) conveniently finds the ripped-up sheet of answers in the trash of Betty's Green Room. The culprit? Bret Wallis. This gives Jughead, Betty's knight in shining armor, all the more reason to take down their new rich villain. Jughead confronts Bret challenging him to an "old-fashioned" duel in a sudden death round of a rivalry using the code of the Quill and Skull's society of the founding fathers as leverage. Bret agrees but not before he delivers a fair warning to Jughead saying he isn't scared but - "amused at the thought of your pony-tailed girlfriend weeping over your dead body."
Riverdale may have given us that easter egg to satiate our urge to figure out why one of the most important characters is going to succumb to Riverdale's antics, but it added more confusion as per usual. The end of the episode is a flashforward scene that sees Archie and Betty at Pop Tate's with Betty telling Archie in tears that Jughead is "never" coming back and she does not know what to do.
Who else is as desperate for answers as we are?
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.