Riverdale: SPOILER Dies in Season 3 Finale
Tonight was the final episode of Riverdale's third season, and at this point it should be no [...]
Tonight was the final episode of Riverdale's third season, and at this point it should be no surprise that such an event usually brings at least one teary farewell to a familiar character with it. The episode, which centered on Archie, Jughead, Betty, and Veronica being forced to take part in a deadly game of live-action role-playing, pitted the Core Four against various threats, including the Gargoyle King and the Black Hood (Hal Cooper, played by Lochlyn Munro). There will be spoilers ahead for "Survive the Night," tonight's season three finale, so beware from here on out. This was all being done at the order of Penelope Blossom, who organized the game and assembled the players.
And when the game started going a way she didn't like, Penelope arrived with her goons in tow and a gun in hand. She had staged a scenario in which Betty had to decide to shoot her father, or he would kill her and go free to murder more people. When she shot him -- but not fatally, so that he could survive the night -- Penelope berated him and shot him in the head, breaking the rules of her own game and plunging the rest of the night into violent anarchy.
While this one seems likely to be fatal -- nobody, even Jason Blossom, has survived an on-camera headshot -- this is not the first time in the last few weeks Hal has "died." At the end of April 24's "Fear the Reaper," Betty learned that her father had been killed while being transported to Hiram's prison. The accident had no survivors and despite being told this by multiple people, Betty struggled to believe it. She even went so far as to try to warn her mother -- who wouldn't listen. After finally getting some sort of concrete proof that one of the body parts found at the accident site belonged to Hal, Betty seemed to accept things and shifted her focus to helping Jughead trap the Gargoyle King at prom, ending things once and for all.
Except, that didn't happen. In the following episode, Hal was revealed to have survived the crash in spectacularly Riverdale fashion: The master plan to have Betty as the Gryphon Queen and be crowned as Prom Queen to fulfill a quest went a bit awry when Betty was slipped a note from the King to meet her at the site of the first Ascension Night and to go alone. Betty complied and find the mysterious figure, but that wasn't all. Betty was attacked by none other than the Black Hood and subsequently chased around the school where she found various dead bodies, all victims of Riverdale's infamous serial killer.
As fans will recall, Betty's father went to prison for his Black Hood murders so the fact that the Black Hood is back and killing people along with the fact that Hal is "dead" is enough for Betty to suss out what happened there, and fear for her life. It's that fear that sent Betty to The Farm to warn her mother and, at episode's end, to agree to stay at The Farm for safety (that, too, was pretty short-lived).
After last season, Munro teased fans that there could be more to Hal than meets the eye, hoping that he could continue on Riverdale even after his character was imprisoned. This time around, it seems that by trying to escape prison Hal Cooper flew too close to the sun and was burned.
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.
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