And that is a wrap on Ethel Muggs.
Riverdale Season 7 Episode 18 brought Ethel’s storyline full circle all while closing the case on the Milk Man murders and preventing a Cold War nuclear disaster. Just another day in the town with Pep, am I right?
The mostly black-and-white episode suddenly warned the town’s residents of the dangers of an atomic bomb as if a threat was imminent.
And the little disaster preparation video led them to believe that in the event of such a catastrophic event, they had any chance of survival. Everyone knows that if an atomic bomb goes off, those who somehow managed to survive would look exactly like the melting man that Jughead and Co. saw outside of the Babylonium, which prompted him to start his investigation in the first place.
Jughead is perceptive and doesn’t take anything at face value, so when Ethel suggested that the melting man was wearing the same uniform her dad did when he worked at the Maple Blossom Factory, he started to ask questions, which ultimately led him to some crucial information given to him by Dilton Doiley, who explained that Mr. Muggs came to his house one day to ask his dad, a science teacher, about a rock he discovered at work called palladium. His father knew that the rock, in its purest state, if detonated, would be more destructive than a hydrogen bomb, so he built an underground bunker just in case.
From there, Jughead knew he was onto something, especially as all roads seemingly led back to the maple factory owned by Clifford Blossom, whose had control over the town this whole time. He even recalled a comic written about something very similar by Ray Bradberry, who, much like the Muggs’, was killed by a Milk Man, thus leading him to question whether Cheryl noticed anything awry at home. This also seems to explain why Clifford convinced the principal to shut down Pep Comics for speaking the truth.
And lo and behold, Cheryl did stumble upon her parents secretively speaking Russian, alluding to the fact that they were likely Russian spies. A further investigation—and I’m truly surprised she didn’t get caught and that the takedown went as smoothly as it did—revealed that Blossom hired the Milk Man to kill any loose ends who may have caught onto what he was doing at the factory.
Things moved at a rapid pace from there with Veronica’s connections at the FBI coming in handy and the agency was pounding on the Blossom door during breakfast to take away an American capitalist seduced by a Soviet sleeper agent. Yes, Riverdale’s writers want you to believe that Jughead and Cheryl, who were quite a dynamic team-up, foiled an attack on the U.S.A. by Mother Russia. Truly, the only show that can get away with something so serious and in such a lighthearted manner. But honestly, it’s a sound ending for the Blossoms and Penelope Pavlina Nikolov Blossom, and it means that Cheryl has finally gotten rid of them once and for all.
I’d also like to thank the writers for giving the characters some common sense for once and not taking their findings to Kevin’s dad Sheriff Keller as Cheryl suggested. After the pushback from the authoritative figures in town, Jughead knew better than to trust the local cop who was probably on Clifford’s payroll.
Thwarting an attack on the country and solving the Milk Man murders all in the same breath allowed Ethel Muggs to get some closure, especially after Betty, who innocently went over to the Muggs’ place to get her friend her birth certificate for a driver’s license, discovered the truth bomb that her parents, Alice and Hal, have been harboring for more than a decade—Ethel is her half-sister.
It’s a cheap-ish way to explain all of Alice’s behavior this season against Betty, but I also wasn’t expecting any kind of explanation, so it’ll do. Plus, Hal got a far better ending in this timeline than he did in the first few seasons; one might say he got off easy.
Despite the Coopers’ offer to legally adopt Ethel and become a family (as if they even know how to be a functioning one at this point), she decided to do what’s best for herself—move on, leave the past behind, and find happiness outside of Riverdale in Hollywood. Who would have thought that the person leaving this small town for the bright lights would be Ethel, but it’s fitting and well-deserved! She truly blossomed into her own after finally getting the clarity she deserved for so many years.
With so much happening surrounding the Cold War paranoia, Archie’s storyline of figuring out his future fell a little flat. It’s hard to believe that this naive boy is supposed to be this show’s hero when everyone else is doing much of the heavy lifting this season as he bounces around without as much as an inkling of who he is or what he stands for. I guess the discovery process is what your high school years are all about, but it just pales in comparison to all of his counterparts who are stopping wars, you know? And especially because the “who am I and what does my future” storyline has been one he’s exploring all season long—he needs new and better material.
Though, I will give him credit for finally standing up to his uncle because Frank was a piece of work. Yes, it was Mary who confronted Frank at the dinner table and told him she thinks he should leave because his vision for Archie doesn’t align with what she wants for her boy, but Archie held his ground and didn’t immediately cave into the manipulation and gaslighting, defending poetry as something that doesn’t make you less of a man. And truly, Frank should be ashamed for using Fred’s name to try to get Archie to enlist as if that would somehow “fix” him when the only person who thought he was broken in the first place was Frank himself.
In the final moments of the episode, Jughead teased another cataclysm that will soon befall Riverdale, noting that Ethel was just the first of many to leave the town in her rearview mirror, but we’ll have to wait until the penultimate episode next week to see what he means by that. The promo for the upcoming episode reveals the arrival of Tabitha Tate—finally—who shows Jughead a video of what looks to be the present as he declares that he remembers it all. Will everyone be present with a choice to either return to their timeline or leave the ’50s? Did she find a solution to restore things to the way they were? Or is there nothing to go back to and are they all trapped in this new reality?
And how does her return impact Jughead’s relationship with Veronica? Unless everyone gets their memory back, his sudden change of heart is going to be considered truly strange.
I have a feeling Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa saved the best and meatiest content for the final two episodes (maybe even a possible Betty and Archie moment?!), which will hopefully provide the closure that all of us who have managed to stick out the show for seven seasons truly deserve.
What did you think of the episode? What are you hoping to see in the final two episodes of the series?
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