Riverdale: Who Killed Jason Blossom?

Who killed Jason Blossom?

While Riverdale isn’t particularly preoccupied with this mystery — there is plenty of other stuff going on, mostly character-driven — the question will obviously be hanging over the show and the town for a while following the reveal in tonight’s pilot that Jason didn’t drown as had previously been reported.

So we put together a list of the five most likely suspects in the killing of Jason Blossom — and trust us (we’ve seen a few episodes ahead), these things can change from minute to minute.

After watching the pilot, though, here’s our response. Let us know in the comments if you think somebody else did it entirely.

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Riverdale stars KJ Apa as Archie, Cole Sprouse as Jughead, Lili Reinhart as Betty Cooper, Camilla Mendes as Veronica Lodge, and Luke Perry as Archie’s father Fred Andrews, among others. The series’ showrunner is Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Archie Entertainment’s Chief Creative Officer and the writer of Afterlife With Archie, the publisher’s wildly popular zombie series.

Riverdale debuted tonight on The CW. You can check out our review of the pilot here.

FRED ANDREWS

One of the only people in the main ensemble who could credibly be the killer, we have nothing that justifies it in our mind, except our innate, anal-retentive desire to have five suspects and the fact that actor Luke Perry has said that he’d like Fred to be the killer, because he’s never played that kind of character before.

SMITHERS

…because the butler did it. Duh.

A bit more seriously? We know that Hermione appears to be up to no good, we know that her husband is under indictment for crimes serious enough to have their finances frozen and their homes presumably seized via the RICO Act. That indicates a level of danger in the family as a whole.

And, yeah, when they’re broke and broken, she can come home to a smiling Smithers who is still willing to do anything for her.

POLLY COOPER

Betty’s sister might not appear in the pilot — and as Veronica Mars‘s Rob Thomas has frequently said, there’s an idea among many writers that you should meet the perpetrator in the first episode of a TV mystery — but she’s discussed quite a bit, so that probably counts.

This seems like a pretty good candidate, in the sense that her life was apparently ruined by her relationship with Jason — but being institutionalized is a pretty good alibi, and if she had escaped it seems likely it would have been reported by now.

Also, what are the odds she would go after Jason versus her mom…?

CHERYL BLOSSOM

Things don’t look good for Cheryl here. She told everyone that the boat capsized and her brother drowned, but he was the captain of the water polo team, so drowning seems like an unlikely (if entirely possible) fate. That likely means some people had their doubts even before he turned up with a bullet hole in his head that, in terms of timing, seems like it only could have been put there by Cheryl. Who else was out there in the woods at 6 a.m., when Archie and Ms. Grundy heard the shot?!

ALICE COOPER

Okay, we’re just going to come right out and say it: Alice Cooper seems like the most unhinged person in Riverdale — and all things considered, that’s a pretty competitive field.

And considering that most of her righteous anger is directed at Jason Blossom, it seems pretty easy to imagine her taking a shot at him.

The fact that she runs the local paper also means that she can be influential in derailing any investigation into his death by nudging public opinion in the wrong direction.