Riverdale: Is Jughead Really Dead?

All season on Riverdale the narrative thread of the popular The CW series has been leading up to an unthinkable crime: the murder of Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) apparently at the hands of Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) with their friends Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) and Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) serving as unwitting accomplices. Last week, it appeared that the murder had finally happened and Wednesday night’s “How to Get Away With Murder” confirmed it. However, even with Jughead all but confirmed dead, the mystery of what is really going on is more convoluted than ever.

Spoilers for Wednesday’s episode of Riverdale, “How to Get Away With Murder” below.

Most of “How to Get Away With Murder” centers on just how badly Betty, Veronica, and Archie are at, well, getting away with murder. They don’t get their stories straight. They behave suspiciously. Betty even colludes with her brother Charles to conceal and destroy evidence of the crime while also trying to trap Donna Sweett and Bret Weston Wallis into confessing to Jughead’s murder. At no point is it suggested that Jughead is alive. Instead, everything moves forward with Jughead first being missing and, then, when his body is found — something else orchestrated by Betty — his death.

While it would appear that Jughead is dead, the episode also makes it pretty clear that despite Betty and friends being responsible for at a minimum improperly disposing of Jughead’s body, the real killer is Donna. As the episode plays out, Betty and her friends begin to suspect that Betty may have actually killed Jughead herself exactly as it was presented last week with Donna invoking a new fugue word and sending Betty off. However, with Charles’ help, Betty goes back to that moment and it’s discovered that Donna used a powder drug on her that would have made her black out and left her incapable of killing anyone. By episode’s end, Betty makes it clear to Donna that she’s going to get her for what she’s done.

But does any of this mean Jughead is really dead? Given the harassment and torment that Jughead experienced at Stonewall all season as well as Bret’s recent blackmailing of him that resulted in Jughead leaving the school and losing his Baxter Brothers contract as well as the publication stealing his work in the process it’s probably worth considering that this entire murder mystery is one long play by Betty and Jughead to not only get revenge, but expose Bret, Donna, and their ilk for their accumulated bad deeds. Jughead’s body being found and identified — not to mention FP’s very real-seeming grief — does seem like a pretty extreme measure but given how smart the Stonewall kids have been thus far it’s not a stretch to consider that Jughead knew he would have to make it seem real.

The idea that Jughead’s “murder” may not be quite real is one that has sort of been teased in a previous flash forward. At the end of “Quiz Show”, a flash forward shows Betty meeting with Archie and Pop’s and she tells him that Jughead is never coming back. The scene itself is a bit ambiguous, but it also seemed to suggest that whatever is actually going on, Jughead may simply be gone and not actually dead, though it’s also possible that what started as an elaborate plot to serve justice on Bret and Donna went too far and Jughead really is dead.

Whatever is going on, Riverdale‘s big mystery continues to unfold. Next week’s preview shows Betty and company arrested for the murder.

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.