'Riverdale' Revealed Hiram Lodge's Master Plan & His Scary Team Of Accomplices & OMFG

One character has been a big mystery all season on Riverdale, and Wednesday night's finale finally revealed what he is really up to. No, I'm not talking about the Black Hood (although, the finale did put that mystery to rest as well), but rather Veronica's mafia-boss dad Hiram Lodge. Hiram's mysterious plan for the town of Riverdale has been kept largely under wraps for the entire season, but the Riverdale finale revealed Hiram's master plan and it is so much bigger than we all thought... and involves a lot of characters that we did not know he was secretly working with this whole time.

Spoiler alert: Don't read on if you have not yet seen Riverdale's Season 2 finale, "Brave New World." We have been getting a few details about Hiram Lodge's grand plan for Riverdale throughout the second season, but it still remained mostly murky until it was all laid on the table in Wednesday night's season finale. Earlier in the season, Hiram told Archie that he was buying up properties in the South Side so that he could build a massive prison, and he had his wife Hermione run for mayor in order to ease the process. But when Hiram gathered his gang of secret supporters to go over the plan, we found out that the prison is only the start of what the mafia kingpin has in mind for the new Riverdale.

First, let's go over Hiram's team of co-conspirators. It was not really a shock to see his handpicked sheriff Michael Minetta sitting among the group at Hiram's newly obtained Whyte Wyrm bar, and the same goes for his hired muscle Penny Peabody and the leader of the Ghoulies, Malachai. But two characters that we did not know were on team Hiram before now also showed up for the meeting: Claudius and Penelope Blossom. I mean, it's not really a shock to find out that Cheryl's evil mom and uncle are on the dark side, but apparently they have been cozied up to Hiram this whole time.

With his shady crew finally revealed, Hiram lays out their true plan for what he calls The New South Side, which basically involves plummeting the struggling area into even more crime for his gain. He plans to funnel drugs through the new prison, and everyone working with him has their own role:

• Claudius Blossom has inherited his brother's drug business, and will get the drugs into the prison.
• Malachai and the Ghoulies will serve as the prison's guards, while secretly dealing Claudius' drugs.
• Penny Peabody will use her legal knowledge to lead and protect the Ghoulies.
• Sheriff Minetta will, of course, be keeping the town's actual authorities from finding out about any illegal dealings at the prison.
• Penelope Blossom will be part of the next phase, saying that she was promised a brothel that she will run in the new South Side.

Since the finale also wrapped up all that Black Hood stuff (Tall Boy was revealed to be the second Black Hood, and then swiftly killed), it seems clear that the brunt of Season 3 will involve Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead trying to stop Hiram and his team of accomplices from completing their plan of bringing even more crime and shadiness into Riverdale. After all, Hiram's crew's only concern did seem to be Archie and his friends.

But before the Core Four can go after Hiram Lodge in the new season, they will have to figure out some way to get Archie out of prison. In order to protect his plan after Archie threatened to expose him, Hiram had Sheriff Minetta arrest Archie for the murder of the Shadow Lake cashier Cassidy, who fans will remember was actually killed by Hiram's hitman Andre after he broke into the Lodge's cabin. So, I guess get ready for a lot more evil Hiram when Riverdale returns for Season 3.