Pick Your Jaws Off the Ground — It's Time to Talk About Riverdale's Season 3 Premiere

Let's be honest: Archie somehow always manages to do something in nearly every episode that makes us say, "Bruh . . . why would you do that?" And there is definitely a moment like that in the premiere. A deadlocked jury is unable to reach a verdict for Archie, declaring a mistrial. That's when the district attorney, Ms. Wright, offers to give Archie a lesser jail sentence if he pleads guilty, and against his own mother's advice, Archie takes the deal.

Not only does he want to keep his friends and family from having to sit through another trial, but a part of him feels responsible for Cassidy's murder because he didn't do anything to stop it. Sure, it's sad that he's so hard on himself and feels so guilty about something he had little to no control over, but he definitely doesn't deserve to go to jail for murder. How is that going to look on a college application? *Sigh*

The season premiere also reintroduces Dilton Doiley, who has some eerie appearances in the first half of the episode. First, he's at Pop's playing a board game with Ben — yes, THAT Ben — then, at Cheryl's pool party, he's creepily looking at Jughead from afar. At first, it seems like he's just a weird side character to remember in the back of your mind, but it becomes apparent that Dilton is significant. He shows up to Jughead's house in a panic, warning Jughead about someone (or something) named the Gargoyle King. Later on, when Jughead returns home after Archie's hearing, he discovers an eerie sketch that matches the monstrous figure that was briefly shown in the season three trailer.

But that's not the craziest part. The sketch also serves as a map that leads Jughead to an area near Pop's and Fox Forest Park, and what he finds there is wild, to say the least. He sees a structure of the monster that was in Dilton's drawing but then finds Dilton and Ben hovering face down on the ground with strange symbols carved into their shirtless backs. They're also surrounded by candles and a weird blue liquid. Dilton and Ben appear to be dead, or at least in a paralytic state, until Ben finally moves and is gasping for air, unable to say anything because he's foaming at the mouth. Yeah . . . we were pretty petrified too. Something weird is definitely going on. What happened to Dilton and Ben? What is that monster thing? Why did Jughead think it was a good idea to go to the woods alone?! Ugh, so many questions.

Betty's family has always been astoundingly dysfunctional. After her father was revealed as the Black Hood in season two, we all could safely assume that his actions would have a lasting impact on the Cooper household. Now, in season three, we see that the shock of it all has led Betty to be in denial and her mom, Alice, to casually join in on the farm cult fun that Polly had previously raved about. In many of the tense interactions between Alice and Betty, Alice keeps talking about some guy named Edgar who's in charge of the "farm" and how he can help Betty cope with everything. Alice also expresses concern over Betty forging a pharmacist's signature in order to get more Adderall prescriptions — a secret that Polly somehow knew about. But just when we thought the Cooper storyline was intense enough, the final scene of the premiere proved us wrong . . . so wrong.

When Betty hears noises coming from outside her house, she slowly makes her way to the backyard, and what does she find? Oh, you know, just Polly and Alice holding Polly's twin babies over a fire. They then release the twins, but instead of dropping into the fire, the babies start levitating. Betty is so horrified by this that she falls to the ground and has a seizure, which is how the episode ends. If your mouth was agape, don't worry — you're not alone. Maybe this is all a part of some nightmare that Betty is having, maybe the Adderall causes her to have some weird side effects like hallucinations, or maybe Alice and Polly are just batsh*t crazy. It's hard to tell right now, but it might be some tie-in to the new Chilling Adventures of Sabrina show. Rest assured, we'll be glued to the TV screen next week to see what happens.