It's Jughead's birthday on tonight's Riverdale, meaning it's also Jughead's least favorite day of the year.
In "The Lost Weekend," Betty (Lili Reinhart) throws her boyfriend a birthday party, despite warnings from all of her friends that a party is the last thing Jughead (Cole Sprouse) would want. Things only get worse when Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) shows up in the mood for revenge, and what was supposed to be "inner circle only" turns to chaos, complete with red Solo cups and a whole bunch of secrets on the edge of everyone's tongues, with a miserable Jughead at the center of it all.
And that, according to Cole Sprouse, is exactly why Jughead is so miserable.
"I think just because the attention is all on him," Sprouse told reporters after as screening of the episode, when asked why Jughead hates his birthday so much. "I think there are probably some deeper underlying psychologies behind it, but I think he's one of those characters that is a little bit vain, and considers himself, honestly, to be a little better than the people he surrounds himself with. When he's thrust into this supernormal, kind of conformist idea of an American party, that complicates a lot of that. I also think he's an introvert, so he's nervous around large groups of people. I think the attention being all on him is something he would legitimately have a distaste for."
Since it's Betty who throws the ill-fated party, you can expect Betty and Jughead's relationship to face a few hurdles over the course of the next couple of episodes, as the two realize just how different they are.
"I think when [creator] Roberto [Aguirre-Sacasa], Lili and I were talking about the purity of Bughead, we had said, 'Well, it is a bit unrealistic, there has to be this tension between just how fundamentally dissimilar the two are as well,'" Sprouse said. "That was actually what we ended up playing a little bit with in [episode] 9 and then 10."
And as we all know from the promos, Archie's mom Mary (Molly Ringwald) also makes her grand entrance tonight as she and Fred (Luke Perry) work on finalizing their divorce. The issues with his parents provide Archie (KJ Apa) with a great reason to let loose as he deals with his conflicted feelings.
"I think for Archie, he loves both his dad and his mum, but I reckon there's definitely a part of him that wants his parents for minute to get back together again," Apa says. "He can see his mum being home again in Riverdale, and it's kind of bringing back all these memories of them being a proper family, and it was kind of ideal to him."
All of this—and much, much more—will be dealt with over the course of tonight's epic party, and you're not going to want to miss it!
Riverdale airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on the CW.