[thunder crashing]
[doorbell ringing]
[ominous music playing]
Min-Min. You made it.
[speaks in French]
I've alerted the auction house of my whereabouts,
so if you're sacrificing me to your crimson gods, don't.
First of all, they're goddesses,
and I would never dream of doing such a thing to you, pet.
Consider this evening an apology.
You said over the phone you finished a new series of paintings.
That's the only reason I'm here.
Let's get to it then.
Welcome to my little Night Gallery, I like to call it.
Where the depths of the human psyche are plumbed,
and all manner of nightmares are summoned up and bound to canvas.
I'm sensing Goya, Dali, Bacon.
My heroes.
Tell me about this one.
Ah, yes.
It's about a hero,
haunted by his past and plagued by the trauma of his present.
Uh, my nightmares have...
been so vivid, Dr. Winters.
But confusing too. I mean, everything's...
jumbled up.
That's your subconscious trying to make sense of the senseless.
Your anxiety is normal, given the trauma you went through.
We can get it under control with anti-anxiety medication.
No, no, no. No pills.
Okay. No pills.
You know, there are other ways of dealing with anxiety, like EMDR.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprogramming.
Tell the story of what happened to you
while I move my hand back and forth like this.
You follow my fingers with your eyes,
so that as you remember, your body stays in the present.
Should we try it?
[ominous music playing]
[Archie] Private Butler.
We called him Bingo.
I...
I let him die.
He was caught in no-man's-land.
I was in a foxhole with Jackson, who was bleeding out.
Repetition takes power away from the memory.
Tell me the story again.
I gotta admit, you were right about Dr. Winters, Eric.
She's a miracle worker.
You do an EMDR with her?
Doc's got me on this drug regimen. Meds will help with the nerve pain.
-What about side effects? -Nothing serious.
[knocking on door]
[door closes]
No.
Gentlemen, I've only recently learned
what everyone else in town seems to have known for weeks,
if not months, that, allegedly,
the largest deposit of palladium on this continent is beneath my maple groves.
Which is why I need a team of brawny, strong men to reopen my mines
and harvest the precious metal before Hiram Lodge steals it.
So, naturally, I thought of you and, um, Andrews Construction.
I don't have any experience mining.
Archie, you've been a soldier, a fireman, a football coach,
a teacher, and a bounty hunter?
Is a miner so far outside your purview?
Opening existing mines is doable. I ran a crew in Alaska for a spell.
Okay. Count us in.
We'll set up one of my dad's old trailers and run the whole operation from there.
[Cheryl] Perfection.
And can you start immediately?
Ready to do this?
Yeah. I can smell the palladium from here.
Halt. Before you go forth, I would like to offer my blessing as ministress.
Gather round and join hands.
[Fangs] You know, uh...
-I'm not religious. -Keep an open mind.
[clears throat] To our Brother Divine, in entering this dark cavity,
help keep our strapping muck-men safe from harm and danger,
and let their great labors lead to even greater riches.
-Amen! -Amen!
Amen.
All right. In you go.
[suspenseful music playing]
You okay, Andrews?
Yeah.
Yeah, let's do this.
[snoring]
-Where's Kev? -He wasn't hungry,
-so he kept on digging. -What?
No. No one works in the mines alone.
[door opens]
[ominous music playing]
Kevin!
Kev, are you in here?
Kev!
[gun cocks]
[gunfire and explosions]
[gasps]
-Archie. -Kevin, you can't stay back alone!
Look what I found.
It's a maple miracle.
Well done, Archie.
I'd suggest a celebratory toast, but you have to get right back to it.
[Winters] Another good session, Archie.
Dr. Winters,
if I agreed to take some drugs for my PTSD,
what would you prescribe me?
A low dose of anti-anxiety medication, as we discussed.
-Why? Did something happen? -A crazy flashback.
I have a crew depending on me now, so I can't get squirrely on them.
These will help.
-[snoring] -Have you guys ever heard of the Mothmen?
Yeah. Jug was investigating them.
I saw his sketches, but they're just a hoax, right?
Maybe.
There were some stories from the truck drivers
who worked in the mines when they were open.
And every so often,
they'd talk about these...
humanoid creatures that lived underground.
With big red eyes.
To absorb as much light as possible. Not to mention they were cannibalistic.
Okay. Enough storytelling. Get back to work.
[Bingo] Archie!
Help me, sarge!
[ominous music playing]
[Archie] Eric!
Eric?
Eric, you okay, buddy?
Eric?
Hey. Are you okay?
[Frank] Archie? You okay?
You ran out like a bat out of hell.
-I'm fine. I had to get out of there. -What happened?
I'm fine, Uncle Frank.
Someone's messing with me.
Someone's messing with my head!
What were those pills?
Sergeant Andrews, you can't burst in here--
What were those pills you gave me? Huh? Psychotics?
Hallucinogenics? LSD?
Whatever drugs she wants you to take, don't. She's experimenting on us!
Who do you even work for? Who do you work for?
Some government corporation? Let me guess. It's Hiram Lodge.
The rum-maker?
I don't even know that man.
-Leave or I'm gonna call security. -No. What were those pills?
You heard the doc.
Fine.
I'm gone.
-[Archie] Jackson! -Yo.
Jackson.
Stop seeing Dr. Winters. Okay? She's dangerous.
-What are you talking about? -Listen, she's using us as guinea pigs.
With all due respect, I'm not gonna stop seeing Dr. Winters.
I don't think you should either. You got a lot of baggage.
More than you let on.
Losing that many men?
That's not easy.
I'm surprised it didn't break you.
[door opens]
[Frank] Hey, there he is.
Hey. Uncle Frank.
Uh, hey, listen. Me and the guys were talking, and...
we think you should take the day off. Rest up. Take your mind off things.
I'm not taking Dr. Winter's meds anymore.
They should be flushed out of my system.
Yeah. I don't think you should go underground.
You could get caught up on the payroll, so we don't fall behind.
-We'll come back and have lunch together. -Yeah, yeah. Cool. Sounds good.
Great. Okay.
[indistinct shouting]
[shouting continues]
[ominous music playing]
Uncle Frank!
Kevin!
Uncle Frank?
He loves me. He loves me not.
-Kevin. -He loves me. He loves me not.
-He loves me. -Archie!
-[Kevin] He loves me. -[Fangs] Archie?
-Can you hear them? Can you hear them? -Hear what?
The Tommy-knockers singing in my head!
Fangs, listen. Look at me.
There's monsters! There's monsters here!
Reggie! Reggie! Reggie! Look at me!
Take Kevin and Fangs, get them out of here. Okay?
Take Kevin and Fangs, get them out of here.
Okay.
Go! Go!
-Uncle Frank! -You are a devil.
-And all devils go to hell! -Eric! Stop! Eric!
Stop it. Eric! I'm not your enemy.
Yeah. You are. You're the devil!
No. I'm not!
[coughing]
-Uncle Frank, you okay? -Yeah.
-What is going on down here? -Gas. It's gas.
We gotta get everyone topside ASAP.
I wanna hear it from the horses' mouths.
What happened to your crew? Why has the digging stopped?
It's not safe to work.
Given the state of delirium of the men, those tunnels are full of carbon monoxide.
It's odorless, and if you breathe enough of it,
it causes hallucinations, violent outbursts.
Which all of us have been experiencing to greater or less degrees.
That's annoying. How do we fix it?
We can hook up a pump to make sure there's fresh air.
Yes! Do that.
And I'll order a flock of canaries.
But I want you back in there digging ASAP.
[dramatic music playing]
What are you doing here?
Dr. Winters, please.
It turns out I was suffering the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning.
But I took my aggression out on you and for that I'm sorry.
Don't cut me loose. I need help. I haven't told you this, a lot of men--
A lot of men died under my command.
I started seeing one of them, Private Bingo, but now I--
Now I'm seeing all of them.
I don't know what you want me to say, Archie.
I'm scared to be alone with you after how you came in here last time.
And if you're experiencing
such an extreme level of hallucination, then...
I don't think it's safe for you to be around anyone.
-[thunder crashing] -[Minerva] These paintings, Cheryl,
their subject matter is somehow...
more haunted than before.
Thank you, Minerva.
[Minerva] My God.
Inspired by my poor, dear cousin.
Wrestling with the question: "Who is the true monster,
the ghoul our girl is hunting or the girl herself?"
[ominous music playing]
[Tabitha] I am not as used to this as you are.
But we just caught a man who might be the Highway Killer.
Are you sure we shouldn't hand him over to the authorities?
No. If we do that, I could get cut out of the investigation.
He might have killed Polly.
I know I can get that information out of him.
It is what I do.
But I think it's time you bow out, Tabitha.
Just let me handle this, okay?
-Wait, are you serious? -Deadly.
Please trust me.
Okay.
But if at any point you need backup,
I'm here.
I don't want any other girls dying and that includes you.
Yeah.
[grunting]
Hi. I'm Betty.
What's your name?
Martin.
No, it's not. That's not your name.
That's the name on the driver's license you've been carrying around.
But the real Martin Tucker died almost, mmm, 50 years ago?
I'm with the FBI. So you should really start telling me...
about the women you've killed along the Lonely Highway.
All of them.
If you're with the FBI,
then why am I in some shop class
instead of in jail right now?
I want a phone call.
I am a citizen of the United States.
I have rights.
Mm-hm. Yeah. Well, actually, you're not in the United States anymore.
You're in Riverdale.
Welcome.
And killers of women do not have rights.
And if you're thinking of yelling for help,
it's a long weekend.
Let me guess.
You're one of those women who runs around entrapping men,
gets off on it.
Who hurt you?
A bitter boyfriend?
[screaming]
Okay. Well, I'll be back.
Maybe next time we can have a more fruitful conversation.
If not...
guess I'll just have to get creative.
[suspenseful music playing]
Mary-Catherine Avery,
last seen two years ago waiting tables at a diner in Seaside.
Nicole Houston, missing a year ago while hitchhiking to Canada.
Polly Cooper, last seen this past summer.
Hmm, I thought I recognized her for a second, but, no, I was mistaken.
Alison McCall.
It's been a minute, but I never forget a face that pretty.
-[grunts] -Where is she?
An old hiker's trail in the northeast corner of Swedlow Swamp.
She's underneath a gorgeous sycamore tree.
You just gotta dig!
So did you find her? She's a real bitch, isn't she?
[grunts]
They're dog bones, you psychopath.
Oh, right.
That's where I buried my old dog after she passed away.
Poor little thing.
Sorry about the confusion, Agent Cooper.
How do you know my name?
There's been stories up and down the highway
about some crazy, rogue FBI agent out looking for her sister.
Polly. Where is she?
If I knew and if I told you, you'd be like every other woman,
casting me aside after getting what you want!
Fine.
Let's talk about something else.
Why did you start doing this?
-I wanted to see how it would feel? -And?
-How does it feel? -No different from hunting with my family.
These-- Uh...
These people that you're hunting...
aren't animals.
They're human beings with families.
No, they're just prey.
That's how I see it.
[door closes]
[Betty] Mom?
I have to tell you something.
What is it, honey?
I... captured a trucker.
I think he's the man who may have killed Polly.
The man who's been killing the young women on the highway.
Oh, my God.
One thing serial killers do...
is dehumanize their victims before killing them.
It's risky, Mom, but I believe that if he saw you...
really saw you as a grieving mother
and Polly as a human being...
he might confess.
There's no guarantees but maybe...
I'll do it.
Okay. Good.
Okay.
[Alice] I wanna tell you about my daughter, Polly.
This was her at 10 years old.
My little golden girl.
She loved to dance and swim.
She was a baton-twirler. [sobs]
You can't imagine what it's like to be a mother
that has no idea where her child is.
[dramatic music playing]
Your--?
-Your daughter? -Yeah?
Your daughter squealed like a pig when I slit her throat.
-[squeals] -You monster!
I'll kill you! I'll kill you!
Hey, hey.
-Please. -No!
-[Alice sobbing] -Stop it.
[Alice wailing]
[Betty] We're not getting through to him.
Have to push harder.
Okay, appealing to his humanity didn't work.
But maybe if he believed that he was actually going to die,
maybe then he would talk.
Why don't you just kill him, Betty?
Mom, come on.
-That scumbag killed my daughter. -It's not gonna make you feel any better.
I'll feel better knowing that my daughter's killer's dead.
So do it, Betty.
As your mother, I give you permission.
Kill that monster.
I wanna try one more thing first.
[Betty] I know my sister's dead.
I've accepted that.
So I'm asking you one more time to tell me where Polly is.
Please.
There's no earthly reason for me to do that.
Okay, then.
Here's what's gonna happen next.
I'm not gonna kill you because I want you to suffer.
So...
I'm gonna start carving pieces off of you.
First, I'll use a chain saw on your feet.
I'll cut them off at the ankles and then cauterize the wounds.
[man] Mm-hm.
And then I'll cut off your legs at the knees...
cauterize those wounds.
And then your upper legs at the groin.
And then I'll move on to your hands, sever them at the wrists.
And by that point, you might die of a heart attack, but I don't know.
You seem pretty strong.
And I have a couple tricks up my sleeve.
Wait. Okay, wait.
Did your sister have blue eyes and a tattoo of the infinity symbol?
And did she ever go by the name "Patty" instead of "Polly"?
Yeah.
Do you remember her?
Not in the least.
[dramatic music playing]
[panting]
Please. Just kill me.
Just kill me, please.
[TBK] You tiny, pretty thing.
I'm not going to kill you.
I'm gonna carve pieces off of you.
First, I'll use a chain saw on your feet.
Then I'll cauterize the wounds.
["The Wild One" playing]
♪ You called once In your mysterious ways ♪
♪ I don't know how ♪
♪ I don't know when now I lost my mind ♪
[Alice] So, Betty...
did you do it?
Nope.
But he did it himself.
Bit off his own tongue.
Swallowed it.
And choked to death on it.
Maybe he was afraid of what I was gonna do to him,
or maybe he finally felt guilty about what he'd done.
So he takes his secrets to the grave and we're no closer to finding Polly.
We'll have to wait and see what Dr. Curdle's autopsy report says.
Do you feel better?
Now that he's dead?
I do. I think some lives were saved tonight.
Do you feel better?
Yeah.
But based on a few things he said,
my gut's telling me that he's not the only killer.
I think maybe there's a family of them hunting together.
[suspenseful music playing]
[thunder crashing]
[Minerva] My God.
It's remarkable, isn't it?
Portrait of a young writer caught betwixt fact and fiction,
memory and madness, truth and trauma.
Interpret it for me.
Let's just say it's about the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
And about addiction.
[group leader] Would anyone new like to start us off?
Uh... Yeah. Sure.
Uh, my name is Forsythe Pendleton Jones III.
[all] Welcome, Forsythe.
It's just kind of weird being in here at night not as a teacher but as a...
An alcoholic.
We're happy to listen to whatever you want to say.
I guess I'll start with when I left Riverdale.
After high school, I joined the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
I thought Iowa was gonna be an escape,
but in reality, my freshman year was actually kind of boring.
So I focused on my craft.
Origins of storytelling stuff, like Greek myths, Dostoyevsky,
The Sopranos.
And every afternoon at dusk, I'd segue from coffee to whiskey.
And I'd start writing.
And from those late nights came the first few chapters of a novel
and, I hoped, my ticket out of Iowa.
So I polished the pages and sent them off to a hundred literary agents in New York.
And one got back to me.
A guy named Samm Pansky. He was an old-school legend, and he wrote:
"Hey, kid. Drop me a line next time you're in New York."
So I took Samm up on his offer.
Based on what I've read,
you got a lot of talent, kid.
I got you something.
-What's this for? -What?
An agent can't get his client a gift?
[jazz music playing]
Wait, are--?
I have an agent? Are you my agent?
Welcome to the Samm Pansky family.
-[Samm laughs] -[line rings]
Hey, Betty.
Oh, I'm surprised you picked up.
My roommate has some company over, so I'm just killing time.
Yeah, that's rough.
Um...
I got an agent.
He signed me after reading two chapters of my new novel.
Jug, that's huge.
Congratulations.
Please tell me your Iowa friends
are taking you out for a celebratory drink.
Yeah, uh, they are but later.
[Jughead] And that night, I decided that I was gonna move to New York City
and become a proper writer.
In my new apartment, in the East Village,
I was hit with a lethal case of writer's block.
Luckily, my girlfriend, Jessica, knew where to score some maple mushrooms.
-Do you have it? -Yeah.
-Perfect. Oh, yeah. -Hey.
When I was tripping on shrooms, it...
just felt like...
doors to my mind just swung right open.
I wrote 200 pages that night.
And from that crazy, raw first draft came The Outcasts.
Well...
I think The Outcasts...
is gonna be a monster YA hit. [laughs]
And let me tell you, YA is hot. Which means moola. Lots of moola.
YA it is.
The year leading up to the publication of the book was just a whirlwind.
I was drinking pretty steadily.
And though Jess had moved in, I was still holding on to the past.
Or more specifically, my ex.
[tender music playing]
[Jughead] Spoiler alert.
It was not a great night. No.
It quickly began to derail after I got a call from Betty...
All right. Bye.
...saying she wasn't going to be able to make the book release after all.
Stumbling in the general direction of my party, I called Betty,
and I left her just this crazy, super-toxic voicemail.
-[Betty] Please leave a message. -[voicemail beeps]
Betty. Of course you bailed.
You've been blowing me off for years.
Why should I have even expected anything different?
I see you, Betty.
I see now...
what I should have seen seven years ago.
You pretend to be nice...
but really...
you're looking for weak spots.
And when you find them,
you just press on them like a bruise.
Like when you hooked up with Archie, you really found the one person...
[glass shatters]
...that would hurt Veronica and I the most.
And you just went there.
You're a cold, fake, duplicitous bitch.
And when people read my book, everyone is gonna see that.
And then...
I vanished.
I was swallowed up by the dark.
So "swallowed up by the dark," was that a metaphor?
[Jughead] No, I wish.
One moment I was stumbling in a back alley,
and the next moment I was waking up in a hospital room.
[monitor beeping]
Where am I?
Hey, hey.
You're okay.
You're at St. Vincent's.
You went on a bender, Jones.
An epic one.
The hell happened?
Actually, I don't wanna know.
-How long was I out? -A few days.
Oh, my God.
[Jughead] Oh, I wish I could say that that signaled a fresh start
for Jess and I but nope.
No, we kept on drinking and fighting and...
Certainly not writing.
[cell phone rings]
So when my old pal Archie Andrews called out of the blue,
I came home.
Here. To Riverdale.
But something was still gnawing at me, at my mind and my sanity.
And, uh, I was still drinking.
Heavily. Heavily.
And shortly after that, I hit rock bottom.
On skid row, no less.
Then I figured I needed to go back to New York City.
Find out what happened to me the night of my book release
when I lost those days of my life.
So I went back to St. Vincent's Hospital
and requested a copy of my discharge records,
which said I had been treated for a rabies infection.
So I went to see Jess.
Rabies.
What the hell happened? Jess.
Just tell me.
You disappeared the night of your party.
And three days later, you ended up at St. Vincent's.
The doctors said when you came in, you were out of your mind,
raving and ranting.
About what?
She told me that I had been...
yelling about a Rat King.
A man...
that lived underneath the streets of New York City.
Wait. I'm sorry.
A what?
Yeah. No, let me explain. Um...
The night of my book release, I never even made it to the party.
Moments after I left that voicemail for Betty,
I fell down a sinkhole that had opened up in the pavement.
Yeah, it's rare, but I guess it happens.
There must have been some impulse in me
to just vanish or walk away from the shambles of my life.
Because I thought to myself, "I could stay here."
So I pushed together a couple crates and formed this kind of cot,
then I tried to sleep.
But that is when he showed up.
[man] Who are you?
-[Jughead] Samm? -I'm the king of the underworld.
And you are a trespasser here.
-No! No! -What good are you?
I mean, what do you even do?
I'm a--
I'm a writer.
I tell stories.
I can tell you a story. Let me tell you a story.
All right.
Go ahead.
Tell me a story.
Now, luckily, I had a copy of my book, The Outcasts, on me.
So I read it aloud.
And the Rat King ate it up. [chuckles]
[Rat King clapping]
[whoops]
That's what I'm talking about. You're a born storyteller.
And because of that, I want you to stay down here with me,
-where you'll regale me with your tales. -That sounds great.
I'll come back tomorrow when everything will be prepared for your arrival.
There,
away from my responsibilities and expectations,
deadlines and dead-end relationships, I, uh...
I was very eager to join the Rat King's domain.
But that night... she came to visit me.
[Betty] Jughead.
Jughead, wake up.
Betty. What the hell? What are you doing here?
I'm saving you.
You're in danger. You need to get out of here.
-Danger? What do you mean? -Listen to me.
The city floods the sewer once every two weeks.
That's happening any minute, okay? If you stay down here, you will drown.
-Come with me. -[dramatic music playing]
Betty walked behind me...
urging me through those dark tunnels.
It was a lot like that Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
The two young lovers try to escape the underworld together.
Well, somehow,
I made it to the light and to civilization.
Some back alley in the East Village.
I was dirty.
I was just out of my mind.
I was also infected, which I didn't know at the time.
So the cops found me, and they picked me up,
and they took me to St. Vincent's Hospital.
[siren wailing]
Betty saved me in the darkness like she had so many times before.
So how much of what you told us was true?
That's a good question.
Well, when Jess told me what I told her at the hospital, I felt...
that I needed to return to the physical site of that core trauma.
That darkness.
And it took me two days, but I found the alley
and... the sinkhole that was now paved over.
And next to it, there was a sewer grate, which I pried open.
And I entered the abyss.
[eerie music playing]
It was definitely familiar.
I'd absolutely been there.
Confirmed when I found a copy of my book.
Scribbled in the margins was the story of the Rat King and his captive
that I had completely made up.
Going to the source of my trauma made me understand the Rat King
was just a fiction I'd conjured
to distract myself from what really happened down there.
The night of my book launch, I was angry...
and drunk.
And I fell into a sinkhole and I lost consciousness.
And when I came to, I couldn't scream for help because I was covered in rats.
[rats squealing]
I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, they would crawl into it.
[group leader] Oh, that's so--
It's horrible.
The worst part was that--
The whole event just...
made me realize how alone I was.
You know?
That night was supposed to be one of my greatest triumphs,
and I was in a dark hole.
Literally and existentially.
And no one...
Like, no one missed me?
At all?
[dramatic music playing]
And that's what I'm dealing with now.
Just the wreckage of my life.
Step one is, I need to get my drinking under control.
-That's why I'm here. -We're glad you are.
Thank you for your share.
All right. So who's next?
[Minerva] Well...
[thunder crashes]
A truly masterful showing, Cheryl.
Hope you know I didn't just bring you here for the paintings, Minerva.
Although, there is one more piece I'd love to show you.
I painted us as...
Psyche? Revived by Cupid's kiss.
It's gorgeous.
Do you love it?
Cheryl, last time I was here, your nana suggested sacrificing me
to an angry eldritch terror.
Are you saying you feel nothing, Min-Min?
Look, I do love the painting.
And despite our last encounter, I still have feelings for you.
But I'm about to leave on an art-buying trip to South Africa.
In the morning?
Yes, I'm afraid so.
Well, that still leaves us with tonight, doesn't it?
Yes.
[theme music playing] s us with tonight, doesn't it?