[thunderclap]
[doorbell rings]
[Cheryl] Min-Min, you made it.
[thunder rumbling]
[speaks French]
[thunderclap]
[Minerva] I've alerted the auction house of my whereabouts.
So if you're thinking of 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.
I hope you'll 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.
[sighs]
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 easily get it under control
with some, anti-anxiety medication.
No, no, no pills.
[Dr. Winters] Okay, no pills.
You know, there are other ways of dealing with anxiety, like EMDR.
Eye movement, desensitization and reprogramming.
You 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?
[suspenseful music playing]
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.
[sniffles]
Repetition takes power away from the memory.
Tell me the story again.
[Archie] I got to admit.
You were right about Dr Winters, Eric.
[Eric] Yeah, she's a friggin' miracle worker.
[Frank] You doing EMDR with her as well?
Nah, the doc's got me on this drug regimen.
The meds will help with the nerve pain.
- What about side effects? - Nothing too serious.
[knocking at door]
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 sits beneath my maple groves.
Which is why I need a team of brawny strongmen to reopen my mines,
and harvest the precious metal before Hiram Lodge steals it.
So naturally, I thought of you and Andrews Construction.
Cheryl, 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?
If it's opening up existing mines, that's doable.
Hmm.
I ran a crew in Alaska for a spell.
Okay. Count us in.
We'll set up one of my dad's old construction trailers
and run the whole operation from there.
Perfection. And can you start, oh, immediately?
[Archie] Ready to do this, boys?
[Reggie] Hell yeah, I can smell the palladium from here.
[Cheryl] Halt! Before you go forth, I would like to offer my blessing as ministress.
Please gather around and join hands.
[Fangs] You know, uh, I'm not really religious.
[Kevin] Keep an open mind, Fangs.
[Cheryl clears throat]
To our brother Divine, in entering this dark cavity,
help keep our strapping muckmen safe from harm and danger.
And let their great labors lead to even greater riches.
- Amen. -[Miners] Amen.
[Nana Blossom] Amen.
[Cheryl] All right, in we go.
[suspenseful music playing]
-[Reggie] You okay, Andrews? -[Archie] Yeah.
Let's do this.
[Frank snoring]
Hey, where's Kev?
He said he wasn't hungry, so he just kept on digging.
What?
No.
No one works in the mines alone.
[thudding]
[Archie] Kevin!
Kev, you in here?
Kev?
[clanking]
Kev!
[gun cocking]
[gun firing]
[Archie yells]
[rumbling]
[Archie yells]
-[Kevin] Archie! - Kevin, you can't stay back alone.
Look what I found.
[Archie pants]
It's a maple miracle.
Well done, Archie.
I'd suggest a celebratory toast, but I know you have to get right back to it.
[Dr. Winters] Another good session, Archie.
Dr. Winters.
If I agreed to take some drugs for my PTSD,
What would you prescribe me, exactly?
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.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Reggie] Have you guys ever heard of "The Mothmen"?
[Archie] Yeah. Jug was investigating them.
I saw some of his sketches,
but they're just a hoax, right?
[Fangs] 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.
[Archie] Okay, that's enough storytelling.
Let's get back to work.
[grunting]
[man] Archie.
[clanging]
[grunting]
Help me, Sarge.
[Archie] Eric?
Eric, are you okay, buddy?
Eric?
Hey!
Are you okay?
[Frank] Archie? You okay?
You ran out of the mines like a bat out of hell. what's going on?
Yeah, I'm fine. I just had to get out of there for a second.
- What happened? - I'm fine, Uncle Frank. [breathes heavily]
[bangs shelf]
Someone's messing with me. Someone's messing with my head.
[bangs door open]
What were those pills you gave me?
Sergeant Andrews, You can't burst in here when I'm...
[bangs desk] What were those pills you gave me, huh?
Psychotics? hallucinogenics? LSD?
Whatever drugs she wants you to take don't take them.
She's experimenting on us.
Who do you even work for?
Who do you work for?
Some government corporation?
Well, let me guess...
- It's Hiram Lodge. - The rum-maker?
Archie, I don't even know that man.
- You need to leave now. - No, no no.
[Dr. Winters] I'm gonna call security.
[Archie] What were those pills?
-[man] You heard the doc. - Fine.
I'm gone.
[door slams]
-[Archie] Jackson! - Yo!
Jackson.
You've got to stop seeing Dr. Winters, okay?
She's dangerous.
What are you talking about?
Eric, listen to me. She's using us as guinea pigs.
With all due respect, I'm not going to stop seeing Dr. Winters.
And I don't think you should either.
You got a lot of baggage to deal with, Sarge,
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, Archie. Me and the guys were talking and uh,
we think maybe you should take the day off. Rest up, just take your mind off things.
Uncle Frank, I'm not taking Dr. Winters' meds anymore.
They should be completely flushed out of my system.
Yeah, all the same. I don't think you should go underground.
Look, if you want to do something, maybe you could get caught up
on the payroll, so we don't fall behind.
We'll come back, and have lunch together.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cool. Sounds good.
Great. Okay.
[indistinct chatter]
[faint scream]
[dogs barking]
[indistinct shouting]
[Archie yells] Uncle Frank!
[high-pitched squeals]
Kevin?
Uncle Frank?
[Kevin] He loves me. He loves me not...
-[Archie] Kevin? -[Fangs] Archie, can you hear them?
[Kevin faintly] He loves me. He loves me not...
[Fangs yells] Archie!
[Kevin faintly repeats] He loves me. He loves me not...
- Can you hear them? - Hear what?
♪ Tommy Knockers singing in my head ♪
Listen to me...
[Reggie] Monsters! Monsters! There's monsters down here.
Reggie! Reggie!
Look at me, take Kevin and Fangs and get them out of here, okay?
Take Kevin and Fangs and get them out of here.
[Reggie whimpering] Oh, my God.
Go! Go!
[dogs barking]
[Archie] Uncle Frank!
[Eric] You're a devil. All devils go to hell!
[Archie] Stop! Eric!
Stop it!
[Archie] Eric. I'm not your enemy here.
You are. You're the devil
No. I'm not.
[coughing]
- Uncle Frank. You okay? -[Frank] Yeah.
What hell is going on down here?
Gas. It's gas.
We gotta get everyone topside ASAP.
[Cheryl] Okay. I want to hear straight from the horse's mouths.
What happened to your crew?
Whyfor has the digging stopped?
Cheryl, it's not safe to work in your mines.
[Frank] Given the state of delirium most of the men were in,
I'm guessing those tunnels are full of carbon monoxide.
[Frank] It's an odorless gas.
If you breathe enough of it, it causes hallucinations, violent outbursts.
Yeah 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 in the meantime, I'll order of flock of canaries,
but I want you back in there digging, ASAP.
What are you doing here, Archie?
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,
But don't cut me loose, Doc. I need help.
I haven't told you this, but a lot of men...
a lot of men died under my command,
and at first I started seeing one of them, Private Bingo.
But now...
Now I'm seeing all of them.
I don't know what you want me to say, Archie.
I'm genuinely scared to be alone with you
after how you came in here last time.
And if you're truly experiencing
such an extreme level of hallucination,
then I don't think it's safe for you
to be around anyone right now.
-[thunderclap] -[Minerva] These paintings, Cheryl.
Your subject matter's somehow
even more haunted than before.
Thank you, 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?
Look, I'm not as used to this kind of thing 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 proper authorities?
If we do that, I could get cut out of the investigation.
This guy might have killed Polly.
I know I could 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, all right?
- 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.
[groans]
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 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-hmm. 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, and 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, I guess I'll just have to get creative.
Mary Catherine Avery, last seen two years ago
waiting tables at a diner in Seaside.
Nicole Houston went missing a year ago while hitchhiking to Canada.
Polly Cooper last seen this past summer.
Mmm. I thought I recognized her for a second,
but no, I was mistaken.
Allison McCall.
It's been a minute, but I never forget a face that pretty.
-[groans] - Where is she?
There's an old hikers' trail in the northeast corner of Soweto Swamp.
She's underneath the 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.
-[groans] - 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]
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 all 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.
I want to tell you about my daughter Polly.
This was her at ten years old, my little golden girl.
She loved to dance and swim.
She was a baton twirler.
You can't imagine
what it's like to be a mother
that has no idea where her child is.
Your...
Your daughter?
Yeah?
Your daughter squealed like a pig when I slit her throat.
[screams] You monster!
Hey, hey!
Please.
-[screaming] - Mom, stop.
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.
That's not going to 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 want to try one more thing first.
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 going to happen next.
I'm not going to kill you because I want you to suffer,
so I'm going to start carving pieces off of you.
First, I'll use a chainsaw on your feet.
I'll cut them off at the ankles and then cauterize the wounds.
Uh-huh.
And then I'll cut off your legs at the knees,
cauterize those wounds,
and then your upper legs at the groin.
Then we'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.
[breathing heavily]
Please.
Just kill me.
Just kill me. Please.
You're a tiny, pretty thing.
I'm not going to kill you.
I'm gonna carve pieces off of you.
First, I'll use the chainsaw on your feet.
And I'll cauterize the wounds.
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 going to 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.
[thunderclap]
[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.
[man] 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-- 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.
When I left Riverdale after high school,
I joined the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
Now I thought Iowa was going to be an escape.
But in reality, my freshman year
was actually kind of boring.
So I focused on my craft,
the 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 I sent them off to like
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?
Wait...
I have an agent?
Are you my agent?
Welcome to the Samm Pansky family.
[chuckles]
[phone line ringing]
Hey, Betty.
Oh, uh, I'm surprised you picked up.
My roommate has some company over, so I'm just killing time.
Yeah, that's-- That's rough.
Um, I got an agent.
Yeah. He signed me after reading,
like, two chapters of my new novel.
Jug, that's huge.
Congratulations.
Please tell me you're 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? -[Jess] Yeah.
Perfect timing.
I was tripping on shrooms...
It just...
It felt like, doors to my mind swung right open.
I wrote 200 pages that night.
From that crazy raw first draft
came the"The Outcasts."
Well...
I think the "The Outcasts"
is going to be a monster YA hit.
And let me tell you, YA is hot, which means moolah.
Lots of moolah.
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.
[Jughead] Spoiler alert.
It was not a great night. No.
It quickly began to derail after I got a call from Betty
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.
[recorded voice of Betty] leave a message
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.
So you pretend to be nice,
but really, you're just 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
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,
in the next moment I was waking up in a hospital room.
Where am I?
Hey, hey, you're okay.
You're at St. Vincent's.
You went on a bender, Jones.
An epic one.
Hell happened?
Actually, I don't wanna know.
How long was I out?
A few days.
Oh, my God...
[Jughead] I wish I could say that that signaled a fresh start
for Jess and I,
but no, no.
We kept on drinking and fighting
and certainly not writing.
[cellphone ringing]
So when my old pal Archie Andrews called out of the blue,
l came home, here, to Riverdale.
But something was still gnawing at me,
at my mind, at my sanity.
And 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.
Try and 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,
requested a copy of my discharge record,
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 book release party.
And three days later, you ended up at St Vincent's.
The doctor said that when you came in, you were out of your mind
raving and ranting.
About what?
And 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.
Uh, a what?
Yeah, no, let me explain.
Um...
the night of my book release,
I never even made it to the party.
I mean, 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've been some impulse in me to just vanish,
walk away from the shambles of my life,
because I thought to myself "I could stay here."
So I pushed together a couple of crates,
and formed this kind of cot and I tried to sleep.
But that is when he showed up.
Who are you?
- Samm? - I'm the king of the underworld.
And you are a trespasser here.
No! No!
What good are you?
What do you even do?
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.
[scoffs]
[Rat King clapping]
Wow! That's what I'm talking about.
You're a born storyteller.
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 for you tomorrow.
When everything will be prepared for your arrival.
There,
away from the responsibilities and expectations,
deadlines and dead-end relationships
I was very eager to join the Rat King's domain.
But that night she came to visit me.
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 right now.
"Danger." What you mean?
Jughead, 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.
Betty walked behind me,
urging me through those dark tunnels.
It was a lot like that Greek myth of Orpheus and Euridice.
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 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.
They picked me up and they took me to St Vincent's Hospital.
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,
the darkness.
It took me two days, but I found the alley,
a sinkhole that was now paved over.
Next to it, there was a sewer grate which I pried open.
And I entered the abyss.
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 completely made up.
Going to the source of my trauma
made me understand that the Rat King was just a fiction
I had conjured to distract myself
from what really happened down there.
The night of my book launch, I was angry,
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 squeaking]
I was afraid that if I opened my mouth they would crawl into it.
That's so... It's horrible.
The worst part was that,
the whole event just made me realize how alone I was.
You know?
Like, 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.
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.
And we're glad you are.
Thank you for your share.
All right, so who's next?
Well. A truly masterful showing, Cheryl.
I 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, the 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 the country
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.