Riverdale: Who Killed Jason Blossom (This Week)? – To Riverdale And Back Again Edition

Each week, the mystery at the center of Riverdale, The CW‘s dark take on the Archie Comics mythology, deepens — and each week, we’ve been looking at the list of suspects and updating our virtual murder board to ask some tough questions about the iconic characters populating the town.

This week was an interesting one: we learned a lot more about Jason’s own backstory, potentially opening up some new motives for his murder, although a lot of that speculation would lead back to familiar suspects, particularly the Cooper family.

Of course, as we tend to discuss each week, in most well-constructed murder mysteries, the killer should be someone who was there the whole time, and so revelations about long-running characters will take the most precedence here.

All that said, let’s take some theories for a spin and see how they feel…and if you’ve got one we haven’t touched on yet, hit us up on Twitter @comicbook!

This is the last time around for this one, because next week — we find out who actually killed Jason Blossom, and this column title will be obsolete!

More Riverdale news:

• Riverdale’s Hayley Law Wants Rachael Leigh Cook To Meet The Pussycats
• Riverdale’s Hayley Law Auditioned For a Very Different Role
• Riverdale To Recast Reggie Mantle Due to Ross Butler’s Scheduling Conflicts
• Riverdale Casts Its Hiram Lodge For Season 2

MISS GRUNDY

This is an evergreen theory at this point: While we know that she didn’t pull the trigger on July 4, that doesn’t tell us much since we now know that Jason was killed almost a week later, and we don’t know who was doing what on July 11.

The fact that Grundy was having an affair with a teenage student at the same time and place that Cheryl and Jason staged his “escape” could make him potentially vulnerable if he saw Grundy or Grundy saw him on that day and she perceived him as a threat; we’ve already seen her get desperate and manipulative when she felt cornered, but in the case of Jason Blossom…well, it’s difficult to imagine anybody growing up in the Blossom household and being as easily manipulated as Archie Andrews, let’s just call it like it is.

A FOOTBALL PLAYER

We’ve talked about Reggie being suspicious before, and obviously we know that Chuck Clayton is a pretty awful human being.

We also know that the football program at Riverdale turns a blind eye toward some very bad behavior. Is this the kind of culture where two players going off together, and one turning up dead, could be overlooked?

It’s really hard to say: in both real life and from what little we saw in Riverdale, it tends to be that corrupt systems like this are more dangerous to those outside of the system than inside, and that Jason would have been afforded more empathy and protection even from the dirtiest program than somebody who didn’t play on the team.

Of course, he was also apparently a star, and you can never discount the allure of a life-changing opportunity to be the team star and/or get the scholarship that comes with that, etc. etc., in these situations. Even with all the other dirty dealings and terrible secrets in Riverdale, could it be that the thing that got Jason killed was really…mundane? Seems like a stretch, but it’s not impossible.

All that said…what about Reggie? Is it possible that the recasting news is really just to cover themselves for when he’s gone next season and Ross Butler starts signing onto other projects?

SHERIFF KELLER

…Does this guy even have a first name? Seriously!

Sheriff Keller has been on our radar as a possible suspect for quite some time, and the fact that he was apparently complicit in framing FP — oh, and by the way, the fact that he has the gun that killed Jason at all — is pretty damning.

(Also, it’s fun to have him on this list because it really bugs Chris Hayner, one of the hosts of Archie Digest: A Riverdale Podcast.)

Of course, there’s another, and equally compelling, explanation for how he got his hands on that gun…!

CLIFFORD BLOSSOM

Clifford Blossom had the ring that Jason had on his person when he went missing, which is pretty damning. 

We heard early in the season that Sheriff Keller “serves a higher power than God: The Blossoms,” so as Polly and Cheryl  edged close to figuring something out and Clifford thought he might need a scapegoat, suddenly the gun shows up in FP’s possession based on an anonymous tip? That seems…sketchy.

We’ve had our eyes on the Blossoms for some time, but the genuine distress that Penelope seemed to be feeling at the idea of FP having mudered their son doesn’t seem like the kind of thing she’s a good enough actor to fake. That leaves her calm, collected, and wig-wearing husband. IS HE EVEN REALLY A BLOSSOM?

Let’s also not forget the fact that Riverdale is very inspired by Twin Peaks, a show in which Ray Wise’s Leland Palmer murdered his daughter and, when faced with the gravity of it later, had his hair turn white overnight — just like Clifford’s supposedly did. That’s an interesting parallel to be meaningless.

HIRAM LODGE

Here’s the thing: We know that Hiram Lodge will be a series regular next year, with Pitch‘s Mark Consuelos having just been cast.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t guilty. Or at least partially guilty. Even though it looks like FP is innocent, that doesn’t mean Hiram couldn’t have hired somebody to kill Jason Blossom…and maybe that person will be the “second death” that’s been teased.

A good candidate for that? Well…!

JOAQUIN

It seems strange that there’s video of Jason Blossom’s death, as seen in the teaser for next week’s episode, right?

Well, what if that’s because the Serpents were initiating a new member, and the murder was what he had to do to earn his way in? That provides a quasi-believable reason why someone may have recorded it, anyway.

The fact that he’s been “embedded” with the sheriff’s son to keep his eyes on the family for the Serpents is also super sketchy.

And for a character who barely showed up for most of the season, he has been the subject of a lot of conversation the last couple of weeks. Almost like they want to remind us he’s there…!