Who Will Be Riverdale’s Second Death?

Last weekend at WonderCon, Riverdale star Luke Perry seemingly confirmed rumors that there would be a second character death on the Archie Comics adaptation before the end of the first season.

During a press room interview with Showbiz Junkies, Perry said that “it was too soon for them,” but that the deceased had it coming, suggesting that whoever it is wasn’t an entirely good person.

That’s harsh: while the world of Riverdale is a dark one full of some pretty desperate and often cruel characters, the notion that somebody deserved to die is a hard pill to swallow, especially coming from Archie’s dad.

Still, that’s a pretty good clue as to who it might be, right? Even in the context of a show that’s full of intrigue, betrayal, and mystery, the vast majority of the characters couldn’t be considered to “deserve” to die.

So let’s take a look at a list of likely suspects. Read on, and let us know @comicbook if we missed anybody!

More Riverdale news:

• Booze, Brawls, & Archie’s Mom Come to Riverdale In “The Lost Weekend” Trailer
• Riverdale Writer Creates Game of Thrones-Style House Posters
• Riverdale’s Cole Sprouse Talks “Bughead”
• Riverdale EP On If Jughead’s Dad Killed Jason

JENNIFER GIBSON

“Miss Grundy” is certainly a character that a lot of folks might suggest deserves to die.

A teacher who took sexual advantage of Archie — and who, given her predaliction for redheads and her past history with him, might have had a relationship with Jason Blossom, too — is definitely someone who might end up on the list for Archie’s dad, especially if the town were to find out and more of Archie’s world could start to implode.

That said, while Fred was certainly angry and disappointed when he found out about the relationship between Archie and his music teacher, he was right there in the room when Archie and Betty decided to give Grundy an “out” and run her out of town, rather than sending her to jail or worse. And he didn’t speak up, or indicate he was uncomfortable with that decision at all.

PENELOPE BLOSSOM

She’s a pretty despicable person and a pretty terrible mother, but at least so far we haven’t found anything out that would push her into “deserves to die” territory.

There’s certainly still time for at least one more major Blossom Family secret to come out — and obviously the math changes if we discover that she or her husband was involved with their son’s death in some way — but at present, Penelope is mostly just a crappy mom — hardly worthy of a death sentence.

ALICE COOPER

Another fairly unlikely suspect, because Alice is starting to show her humanity.

Maybe that’s why it was “too soon?” Either way, we’re going to guess that if one of the Coopers is the victim, it’s probably Hal, who has been getting creepier and more unstable the last few episodes, and who has been a fan-favorite pick as the killer ever since the pilot.

Still, Alice is certainly somebody who Fred wouldn’t like; the two of them have butted heads every time they’ve shared the screen.

CLIFFORD BLOSSOM

First off, we’ve said for a few weeks now that Clifford Blossom is a solid candidate for the killer. This week’s episode might have done a little bit to put us off that theory — after all, with Jason’s death, Clifford’s hold on his family’s company has become much more tenuous — but he’s a bad dude, either way.

And he’s someone who, along with Hiram Lodge, has done quite a lot to hurt the people of Riverdale and the Andrews family in particular. Ignoring this week’s theatrics with trying to pimp out Archie to Cheryl in order to stabilize his company, Clifford is generally a cruel and petty man, who has decided to take his business frustrations out on Fred Andrews.

A SOUTHSIDE SERPENT

We’re going to go out on a limb and say that not only with F.P. Jones (Jughead’s dad) live, but that it’s unlikely anyone would say he got what was coming to him if he did die.

That said, if other major players in the Southside Serpents were introduced in the final few episodes, or if Joaquin — the teenage Serpent who is manipulating Kevin Keller — were to be killed off, an argument could be made that members of a violent gang who have already been responsible for quite a few bad things in the show might “deserve it.”

Furthermore, killing a member of the Serpents could set some very bad things into motion for season 2, while not losing a major character who the fans are deeply invested in.

JASON BLOSSOM’S KILLER

There’s a rumor circulating online that the second death might be one of the final things the audience sees in the finale: an accident that comes like a bolt from the blue and shows one character offstage while introducing someone new who might or might not be invovled with the event.

Whether or not that’s the case, the idea of a last-minute death in a show that’s revolved around a murder mystery so far leaves the obvious question: is the next person to die killed by the same person who killed Jason Blossom?

…Or perhaps the next person to die is the person who killed Jason. After all, that death left a lot of emotional carnage in its wake.

HAL COOPER

Like the Southside Serpent idea, this presents us with a dangerous and unpleasant character, whose comeuppance would provide fairly little in the way of upsetting the character dynamics of the show.

Hal Cooper has largely been a non-presence in most episodes, and now that he’s starting to really make himself known, he’s doing so by making life worse for his family. He’s been kicked out of his home and arguably has basicall nothing left to lose.

If we had to make just one bet about who the next to die is? Hal Cooper.