Riverdale Season 3: 4 Ups & 6 Downs From 'Fear The Reaper'

3. The Search For Jellybean

A group of people playing a board game in order to save a member of their family is the kind of madness that only Riverdale can pull off and, thankfully, that's exactly what it did in 'Fear The Reaper'.

In an episode that was full of wasted potential and a significant lack of stakes, the Jones' quest to track down Jellybean was the only narrative that felt like it carried the weight that it should have. Jughead, F.P. and Gladys were so desperate to save JB that they were willing to rob town landmarks, risk their lives and yes, even play a freakin' board game with a drug dealer to do so.

As a result, Kurtz's phone call was appropriately harrowing because Jughead's sister was about to die and, due to the fact that he was being threatened at gunpoint, he was powerless to stop it.

Whether it was down to the strong performances from Cole Sprouse, Skeet Ulrich and Gina Gershon or the fact that the writing was actually consistent, this was the first time in a really long time that Riverdale was an edge-of-seat watch and it's a darn shame that the rest of the episode couldn't produce anything that remotely matched the natural tension of this arc.