Warning: Spoilers ahead for season two, episode 14 of “Riverdale,” titled “The Hills Have Eyes.”
There’s a new romance brewing on “Riverdale,” and this time it involves Cheryl Blossom.
Wednesday’s episode of the hit CW drama started with a lonely Cheryl struggling with her mom’s trysts and hiding her emotional turmoil. But by the end of the episode, the show set Cheryl up with a surprising potential love interest: Southside Serpent Toni Topaz.
Fans were shocked and thrilled.
Cheryl’s loneliness is clearly addressed at the episode’s start. Her mother, Penelope, is upset about Cheryl spilling the beans to Betty Cooper about Hal Cooper and Penelope’s affair. Cheryl brushes her mother’s “love” aside, and Penelope snaps. She hurls verbally abusive barbs at her daughter.
“You’ve never known love, Cheryl, except to rip it apart,” she says. “Cause you are a jealous, spite-filled, starving, emotional anorexic.”
While at school, Cheryl overhears Betty, Veronica, Archie, and Jughead talking about the trip to the Lodge family lake house. When Cheryl asks what to bring, Veronica tells her it’s a romantic weekend trip for couples. Later, an upset Cheryl spitefully calls Jughead and tells him about the kiss between Betty and Archie.
Toni walks into the bathroom and asks if she just told Jug about the kiss for no reason. Toni tries to have a conversation with her, but Cheryl snaps and storms out of the bathroom.
It’s not until the two run into each other at the movie theater to see “Love, Simon” that the romantic tension starts to build.
“My God, what do you want?” Cheryl asks when Toni approaches her. “And why do you keep stalking me?”
“I’m not,” Toni says. “I came to see this movie with Fangs, and he bailed on me. Are you OK?”
“I’m alone at the movies, and I’m trying to stay away from my mother who has turned our house into her sexual playpen, so no, I am really not,” Cheryl responds.
Toni asks if she wants company for the movie, and the two venture inside.
“Love, Simon” — a real movie in theaters March 16 — is about a gay teen hiding his sexuality from his parents and friends. Cheryl cries in the theater during a scene between Simon and his mother.
After the movie, Cheryl and Toni go to Pop’s Diner. Toni mentions Cheryl’s tears, and Cheryl breaks down.
“I never cry at movies. Real life’s tragic enough, but when Simon’s mom said he used to be such a carefree kid growing up and then at a certain point he stopped being that happy kid cause he was hiding his secret just,” she sobs and trails off. “Everyone thinks I’m this loveless monster, but it isn’t true. I loved someone who loved me, and my mother destroyed it.”
Toni thinks she’s talking about her brother, but Cheryl denies it.
“Her name was Heather,” she says. “She was my best friend in junior high. She used to sleep over every weekend, until one night my mother caught us in the same bed. She said I was deviant.”
“Cheryl, I am so sorry but you have to know your mother’s wrong,” Toni says. “You’re not loveless, you’re not deviant, OK? You’re sensational.”
This potential romance confirms many fan theories that Cheryl is bi or queer. When Cheryl drew an image of her and Josie together earlier on the season, fans suspected she had a crush on Josie.
In a video Q&A with fans in late February, actress Madelaine Petsch addressed a question about her character’s feelings towards Josie. She said Cheryl is exploring her sexuality.
“[Cheryl] is still figuring out what her sexuality is,” she said. “She is definitely interested in both women and men, so I would say she is bisexual.”
Fans will have to wait and see how the relationship between Cheryl and Toni develops as the rest of season two progresses.
