New ‘Riverdale’ Theory Suggests That a Fan-Favorite Is Helping The Black Hood

Could one of Riverdale‘s fan-favorite high school students be helping the Black Hood as he hunts his way through the community weeding out “sinners?” That’s the thrust of one fan theory that pairs the masked serial killer with Ethel Muggs, the character played by Stranger Things’s Shannon Purser.

The theory is that Ethel might be helping the Black Hood, which could explain why there was a second message created where handwriting did not match the first. Since then, fans have wondered about the possibility of two Black Hoods, although during a recent set visit, some members of the cast dismissed the idea, saying it was more likely that Black Hood was obscuring his true handwriting instead. The theory essentially holds that the most likely Black Hood candidate would be Ethel’s father, who was nearly ruined by the Lodges in season 1 and attempted suicide.

“The Black Hood has said he is going after Riverdale‘s sinners, and he is interested in Betty, especially her dark side,” wrote user NancyRiverDrew on Reddit. “That was most prominently shown in chapter 3, when Dark Betty tortures Chuck in Ethel’s hot tub. For a second, we see Ethel peak her head around the corner and smile as Betty dunks Chuck’s head into the water. Veronica, despite being a victim of Chuck’s harrassment, is horrified; Ethel smiles. She also doesn’t have much of a reaction when Betty lashes out at Chuck in the cafeteria in chapter 10. Dark Betty and Ethel — they’re “the same.”

The theory further holds that Ethel, who has had a difficult life and is socially ostracized at many school and social events, may be seeking justice for that treatment as well as for what her father endured at the hands of the Lodge family.

They also note that when Betty is lured out to the woods to an abandoned house to try on a black hood, the hood is wrapped in a red ribbon not unlike the ones Ethel often wears in her hair. In a recent episode of Archie Digest: A Riverdale Podcast, the question came up as to whether that abandoned house in the woods was the same one where Archie and Reggie had driven to rescue Ethel from a mysterious figure in a van who appeared to be following her back in the season’s third episode.

You can hear that Archie Digest episode above.

Riverdale airs on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.