Riverdale Season 3: 3 Ups & 5 Downs From 'Jawbreaker'

3. The Whole Fizzle Rocks Mess

Riverdale F.P. Kurtz
The CW

It's hard to deny that the season's emphasis on Fizzle Rocks hasn't been messy. Not only have the drugs taken hold of the town, they were being used by nuns in an attempt to make the patients of the Sisters of Quiet Mercy seeing the freakin' Gargoyle King. To make matters worse, Jughead's own mother showed up as nothing more than a one-dimensional caricature and decided to take over the drug organization and run it out of her family's childhood home (as you do). Naturally, it got a whole lot messier this week.

When multiple town residents began reacting violently, muttering nonsense and foaming at the mouth, it became clear that there was a bad batch of Fizzle Rocks (or "G" as it's apparently called now). This, however, created a ton of issues both for the narrative and just from a logic standpoint.

First of all, Jughead and F.P. wasted their time tracking down the cook (the Ghoulie known as Kurtz) just to tell us that "he's only the cook" when we (and they) knew this all along. Furthermore, Jughead knew that his mother was behind the whole mess and decided not to tell his father about it. While that decision stemmed from interesting conflict in the past, Juggie's internal struggles weren't factored into the story this week and thus, he was simply there to solve the crime and observe as F.P. tried to piece together the mystery that we're all already aware of.

Also, why would the Sheriff lock two excessively violent people under the influence of drugs in the same cell? Why, when the previous town residents lost themselves in a violent and rabid rage, did the equally rabid Randy stick to the rules of boxing to destroy Archie when he could have just unloaded on him then and there?

A long-form narrative like this needs to maintain continuity and consistency (and logic!) and, unfortunately, 'Jawbreaker' proved to have very little of either.

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Michael Patterson is an experienced writer with an affinity for all things film and TV. He may or may not have spent his childhood obsessing over WWE.