'Riverdale' Reveals Who Shot Mark Consuelos' Hiram Lodge

Riverdale has been careening into truly bonkers territory over its last few episodes, and the show [...]

By Hannah Barnes

Riverdale has been careening into truly bonkers territory over its last few episodes, and the show continued its run with Wednesday's episode, "Chapter Forty-Six: The Red Dahlia."

WARNING: Spoilers ahead!

This week, the CW drama finally let viewers in on just who shot Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos), with newly-appointed sheriff F.P. Jones (Skeet Ulrich) copping to the crime.

As it turns out, the former sheriff, Michael Minetta (Henderson Wade) is fully alive and having an affair with Hermione Lodge (Marisol Nichols), something Jughead (Cole Sprouse) was clued into thanks to his trusty Serpent Sweet Pea (Jordan Connor), who was tailing Hermione.

Jughead overheard the covert couple discussing a plot to frame F.P. for an unknown misdeed, which Jughead assumed was shooting Hiram. The teen detective immediately informed his dad of the plan, at which point F.P. revealed that Hermione had asked him to shoot Hiram in the first place. He was happy to do considering the fact that F.P. almost got Jughead killed at the hands of the Ghoulies back on riot night. In exchange, Hermione made F.P.the new sheriff in town.

As viewers already knew, F.P.'s shot didn't kill Hiram, who spent the entirety of this episode laid up in his hospital bed, only to be confronted by a determined Archie (K.J. Apa), who arrived at the unrealistically deserted Riverdale General with a gun, aiming it at his ex-girlfriend's father before someone else showed up instead.

Hidden in the shadows, Archie watched as the intruder aimed their own gun at Hiram, at which point the redheaded wonder fired a shot, scaring the masked Minetta off. Archie then called Veronica to tell her what had happened, conveniently leaving out the fact that the reason he was in the hospital in the first place was to potentially kill her dad. Hiram and Archie later called a truce, which should last for about five minutes.

Ultimately, F.P. and Jughead were able to pull a fast one on Hermione, pinning Hiram's shooting on Tall Boy, who, according to F.P.'s carefully constructed story, resisted arrest and got violent, forcing the sheriff to fatally shoot him. Hermione, who was less than pleased at this development, cleaned up a loose end of her own during the episode's final moments when she shot and killed Minetta herself, and this time it was the real deal.

If it wasn't evident from the first minute of the episode, which saw Jughead delivering his usual narration in an even more dramatic manner than normal, "The Red Dahlia" was the show's noir effort, punctuated by mysterious music, period slang and a few throwback-inspired ensembles courtesy of one Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), who caused some as-yet-to-be-seen trouble for her family when she and Reggie (Charles Melton) burned up all the Fizzle Rocks and drug-making equipment they could find to prevent Hermione from selling it.

Elsewhere in the episode, Betty (Lili Reinhart) stumbled onto the fact that the late Claudius Blossom was likely killed by Penelope Blossom, who poisoned him because he was dumping the runoff from his Fizzle Rocks production into Sweetwater River, which was causing young girls in the town to have seizures.

Kelly Ripa, Consuelos' real-life wife, also made her debut on Wednesday's show as Ms. Mulwray, Hiram's mistress who just so happens to be a health and sanitation inspector. After breaking into her hotel room, Jughead discovered that water tests were ordered on Sweetwater Reservoir, with Ms. Mulwray's letter to the governor advising the quarantine saying that that the water was dirty, though Hiram ultimately had the reports faked so things seemed clean.

While this episode seemed to answer plenty of questions, we still don't know what's going on with the Farm, the Evernevers, the Gargoyle King and the real reason Betty is suddenly making Silence of the Lambs-style visits to her dad in prison, just to name a few of Riverdale's never-ending mysteries.

Photo Credit: The CW

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