With a show like Riverdale involving high school students, you rarely see them do actual school work. Sure, you see them in school. And they took the SATs, but that was, like, one episode. Now that the kids are seniors, they’re seeing their guidance counselor, who may or may not know just how messed up some of these students really are, college admissions season has plagued the town of Riverdale, and so has a mass of videotapes being sent to all residents of their house, and just their house, being watched for hours.
Find out what happens in the newest episode of Riverdale, “Chapter Sixty-Five: In Treatment.”
Get on her level. A new episode of #Riverdale starts now on The CW! pic.twitter.com/OKmGtxnl8e
— Riverdale (@CW_Riverdale) December 5, 2019
At Riverdale High, Betty meets with the guidance counselor, Mrs. Burble. Just as they sit down, Alice comes in right before they get started. “So you’re stalking me too, now? Shocker.” Alice assures Betty she didn’t know she’d be there. She came down to talk to Mrs. Burble herself to see if she’d give her any insight on how to talk to Betty. Betty tells Mrs. Burble that is what’s bothering her, her mother. Her control complex, her insane overreactions. Alice tells Mrs. Burble that Betty’s problem is that she’s been rejected from college because she’s too busy having sex. “What Betty needs is an intervention for this irresponsible disregard for her future.” Betty tells Alice she was going to say there were months, or years, worth of psychotic parenting to unpack. Mrs. Burble notes that there are a lot of feelings to unpack and asks Betty if she would mind if her mother joined them for the session.
Mrs. Burble asks Betty if she hides anything from her mother, and Betty tells her everyone does; she learned from the best. Alice says she keeps secrets only when it’s in Betty’s best interest. Betty asks if her joining a cult was in her best interest.
“Not mentioning to me that you weren’t actually brainwashed the whole time, you were just undercover with the FBI, working with my long-lost half-brother who I thought was dead, that was in my best interest?”
Alice tells her she was protecting her. Betty says to explain to her how giving her college fund to the Farm was part of that, and Alice tells her that was when she was under the influence of Edgar. Betty also brings up Polly, the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, and Betty having the serial killer genes. Betty asks Alice if maybe the fact that she’s taking birth control pills in the first place is because she didn’t want to be pregnant at 16 like her and Polly and Alice tells her she hoped she’d raised her to be smarter than them. Betty tells her that being proactive is being smart while she is acting naive. She says she was fine taking care of herself when Alice abandoned her for the Farm, yet she keeps treating her like a child.
Alice asks her if that’s a crime now, a mother wanting to protect her child. Alice brings up what Betty has written in her diaries, and Betty says she has no boundaries and no emotional respect. She tells Alice she needs to stop treating her like a child and accept the fact that she is becoming an adult. Mrs. Burble tells Alice that Betty’s education, relationship, and behavior might make her afraid that Betty is growing up. That may be why she gave away Betty’s college money because if she can control her, she can hold on to her childhood just a little bit longer. Alice says she already lost two children and Betty, growing up and leaving for college, moving on, she’s losing her too. Betty says she can’t be her only hope. Polly is at an asylum; she needs her, she needs help; why can’t she focus on Polly? Alice tells Betty she loves her the most.
Cheryl and Toni are talking in the Lounge at school when Cheryl gets called to the principal’s office. Principal Honey tells Cheryl she’s had 26 absences alone this semester. Cheryl says she’s suffered numerous family deaths, her mother disappeared, she’s raising twin toddlers, and she is the sole caregiver for her Nana. Principal Honey says that is the reason he has decided to put a certified adult in charge of the cheerleading squad. He will let Mrs. Burble interview her and make a recommendation. If she deems Cheryl psychologically unfit, it’s over.
Mrs. Burble tells Cheryl the only way she’s going to get what she wants, her Vixens back, is if she talks to her about herself. Mrs. Burble asks Cheryl if she received a videotape. Although Cheryl doesn’t answer, Mrs. Burble knows she did and asks her how it made her feel.
“I have felled multiple villains with my bow over the years. I’m not afraid of some sad AV pervert with a camcorder older than your blazer.”
Mrs. Burble asks Cheryl if she has ever talked to a professional about everything she’s been through; her mother’s abuse, her brother’s murder, her father’s suicide, her time in conversion therapy, an organ harvesting cult, and her near-death experience in Sweetwater River. Cheryl tells Mrs. Burble Sweetwater was just an accident, and Mrs. Burble says it would be okay to tell her if it wasn’t. She’s endured lifetimes of trauma; it must be exhausting; how has she been coping? Cheryl says she talks to Jason; she talks to her dead brother, and that’s how she copes. She goes into the chapel at Thistlehouse, where her brother’s body is, and she talks to him. She thinks he answers back. Cheryl thinks she’s lost her mind and doesn’t know when it happened. Has she always been this way? Fractured?
Mrs. Burble tells Cheryl she’s not sure Jason talks back, she thinks Cheryl wants him to, but she’s not crazy. She misses her brother. Cheryl tells Mrs. Burble about the hauntings at Thistlehouse, and Mrs. Burble tells her she’s being haunted by grief, by guilt over her family’s misfortune, and her brother’s death. “Brothers. Plural.” Cheryl tells Mrs. Burble she had a triplet, whom she absorbed in the womb and has resurfaced as a doll that’s moving around her house, causing mischief. No matter what she does, he keeps coming back because he’s angry and vengeful. Mrs. Burble says she doesn’t think Cheryl’s being haunted, and she doesn’t think she’s lost her mind. Cheryl cries and asks Mrs. Burble what’s wrong with her. Mrs. Burble tells Cheryl she thinks someone is trying to make her think that she’s lost her mind. She says they can tell the existence of Julian with a swab of Cheryl’s saliva. A test that shows whether a person absorbed a fetus in the womb by analyzing if they have one set of DNA or two. After giving Cheryl the number for a doctor, Mrs. Burble tells her as a counselor that she thinks she’s done A-plus work when it comes to the Vixens. As an administrator, she’s going to recommend to Principal Honey that he bring in a coach to supervise the Vixens while Cheryl focuses on herself for a little while.
During class, Veronica gets a call from Dean Kingsley at Harvard and goes out into the hallway. Dean Kingsley tells Veronica he knows it’s unorthodox, but as Dean of Admissions, he wanted to give her a personal heads up. She’s been accepted for Harvard’s Class of 2024. Dean Kingsley tells Veronica to give his regards to her father and thank him for the rum he sent. Veronica’s joy has turned into a pure distaste for her father.
Veronica meets with Mrs. Burble, who congratulates Veronica on getting into Harvard, her dream school. Veronica says it was her dream school; now it’s her nightmare. She didn’t achieve Harvard. Once again, her father meddled in her affairs and, apparently, bought her way into the school with rum, threats, money, charm, who knows. It’s humiliating and infuriating. Veronica tells Mrs. Burble that now, she’ll never know if she could do it on her own. Hiram did this to prove he can and will always control her. This is what he does. Veronica says her father fake-sold her two businesses and then conned her into running them. Then charged her protection, lured her boyfriend into crime, and then tried to kill him in front of a crowd at an illegal boxing match. He had her mother arrested and brought his secret illegitimate daughter back to Riverdale to try and make Veronica jealous. Mrs. Burble asks Veronica if she’s jealous of her sister. “Absolutely not. She can have him. They deserve each other.”
Veronica says she wants nothing to do with her father, even though she willingly lives at home. Mrs. Burble points out that Veronica obediently comes when he calls her, she doesn’t think this is hate. It’s an obsession.
“You’re diagnosing me with Daddy Issues?”
Veronica says she has no desire to become her father. She has zero respect for him. “And yet he has instilled in you a drive.” Mrs. Burble tells Veronica she’s locked in a constant battle for identity with her father. She’s driven by compulsive forces like love, sexuality, and obsession. She suggests to Veronica to cut ties with Hiram for good. Veronica says she’s tried that a bunch of times, and Mrs. Burble tells her it only works if she actually wants to walk away. Does she? “Yes.” Mrs. Burble says she should say yes to Harvard, but moving forward, she should not engage with her father on his terms, or else he will be her downfall. “I really, really want to go to Harvard.”
Betty gets home and finds Alice in the kitchen. She sees a check on the table from her mom, made out to her. A college fund. “I love you most, too, Mom.”
Cheryl meets Toni at Pop’s and tells her she got her chimerism test results. She tells Toni to promise her that no matter what the contents of the envelope, she’s there for her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I love you, and nothing would ever change that.” Cheryl looks at her results, and it confirms she is 100% Cheryl Marjorie Blossom. She’s not crazy or haunted. Maybe there once was a Julian in her mother’s mortal womb, but she did not absorb him. As for Thistlehouse, most likely, someone is trying to drive Cheryl mad, and she will find whoever is doing it.
Veronica is in her father’s office. Hiram wants to know why he got a call from Dean Kingsley informing him she turned down her Harvard acceptance. Veronica says there’s been no mistake. She looks better in Yale blue, anyway. Veronica tells Hiram it was one of her dreams until he ruined it for her. Going to Harvard means she’d be letting him dictate the rest of her life. The next 20 years would be mapped out by him.
“I’m finished living your version of my life. You don’t get to own my future. So consider the ties that bind … cut.”
Hiram tells Veronica she’s never been able to walk away from him. Veronica says he’s right, but her guidance counselor told her that there is one way to end this. She has to kill him. But to not worry. She wouldn’t stoop to his level of murder. “I’m going to kill you on the battlefield you cherish above all others. Business.” She will be free of him, once and for all.
In a flash-forward, Veronica, Archie, and Betty are at the police station. FP asks Bret and Donna, who are also at the station, if they’re sure those are the three suspects they saw that night. Bret says it’s definitely them, while Donna admits those are the kids they saw kill Jughead.
We are getting closer and closer to finding out just what actually happened during Spring Break of senior year, and we are already getting some answers about everything else. Next week is Riverdale‘s fall finale, so it’s sure to be a good one. Watch next Wednesday, December 11 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT only on The CW.
