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RIVERDALE’s 7 Potential Serial Killer Suspects

Warning: major Riverdale spoilers below! Do not read until you have watched the season two premiere, “A Kiss Before Dying.” Seriously, we’re talking real, bloody spoilers! Don’t say we didn’t warn you …

Riverdale is back, and there’s a new killer on the loose.

Everyone’s favorite Hot Archie TV Show (yes, it deserves caps) returned with the season two premiere on Wednesday night, and the fast-paced plot hasn’t slowed down at all. So much happened in the dark, haunting hour. Fred Andrews (Luke Perry) survived his gunshot wound! And hallucinated Archie (KJ Apa) and Veronica (Camila Mendes) getting married (with bagpipes?)! “Varchie” actually had shower sex in the real world! Jughead (Cole Sprouse) and Betty (Lili Reinhart) rode a motorcycle! The evil and manipulative Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos) came home from prison! New Reggie (Charles Melton) had a line!

But none of that compared to the final scene, when all hell broke loose. The night Fred came home from the hospital and Archie began his vigil as a guard dog for their home in case the “angel of death” came back to finish the job, the mysterious shooter was actually on the other side of Sweetwater River in Greendale. Miss Grundy (Sarah Habel) — yes, the pedophile music teacher who took Archie’s virginity back in season one — was up to her old tricks, giving piano and makeout lessons to young high school boys with strong jawlines. Gross.

However, parents of teenage boys don’t have to worry about her predatory ways anymore though, because the angel of death strangled her to death with a cello bow in her own home. Record scratch. Yeah, that happened. Riverdale brought back Grundy, just to kill her off seconds later in the most gruesome, horrific way! Now that is just batshit crazy, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. We now have an attempted serial killer running around, strangling and shooting people. And I’ve got theories on who is underneath that homemade hood.

Let’s take a look at all the likely suspects. The early motives Sheriff Keller (Martin Cummins) and the rest of the gang came up with for the angel of death are someone who had a grudge against Fred, and now (clearly) someone who had a grudge against Grundy and her child predator proclivities. And all poor Archie, in his paint- blood-stained varsity jacket, can remember about his father’s shooter is that the attacker was (probably) a man with piercing green eyes, wearing a homemade black hood over his face that he cut holes out himself. So let’s solve this case before this attempted serial killer succeeds in another hit, making him (or her) a full-blown serial killer.

Grundy’s ex

Remember how Geraldine, real name Jennifer Gibson, was on the run from her dark past before she was chased out of Riverdale by the Coopers and Fred? She was terrified of her abusive ex-husband, who once beat her so badly she ended up in the emergency room with broken ribs and a shattered collarbone. Could we now be meeting this unhinged individual in the form of the angel of death? It makes a morbid kind of sense, and is the most likely suspect: enraged over his ex running away from him, he could have taken revenge on the man who flirted heavily with her (before Fred found out she was sleeping with Archie), and then killed her in a crime of passion. Maybe he didn’t know about Archie’s dalliance with his ex, maybe he was spying on Grundy back in season one and saw Fred’s flirtatious behavior. Maybe the poor teen leaving Grundy’s house after his piano lesson and makeout is the next victim. Grundy’s reign of terror continues!

Any Southside Serpent

Fred, along with Hermione Lodge (Marisol Nichols), fired all the Serpents working as his construction crew back in season one. “What if one of them was pissed off enough to do something?” Archie wondered in the season two premiere. But as Jughead’s Serpent “surrogate dad” who is watching over him while FP (Skeet Ulrich) sits in jail for his part in covering up Jason Blossom’s (Trevor Stines) murder told him, “Serpents don’t wear masks.” And sure, one tortured Serpent’s lies getting debunked made Jughead believe it wasn’t the Serpents, but any other Serpent could have acted alone. The odds alone are what makes this the second most likely suspect.

The Lodges

While it’s definitely not Hermione or Hiram Lodge underneath the hood, they’re definitely not ruled out here. The rich and evil Lodge power couple could have put a hit out on Fred for not selling his shares of the company back to them. As for Grundy’s murder, who’s to say the overprotective mother and father didn’t put a hit out on her to make sure she could never prey on Archie again, thus saving their daughter’s relationship? Never say never. This twisted family is only getting more twisted.

A rival drug cartel leader

Now that we all know that Cliff Blossom (Barclay Hope) was dealing in heroin, not just syrup, it’s not that hard to imagine that a rival drug cartel leader could be making moves on Riverdale, and is starting to off unsuspecting citizens in a show of force. The drug business is no joke!

A zombie

Or maybe it’s Cliff Blossom himself, back from the dead to get revenge for his death. Hey, it’s not the first time Archie Comics dealt with the supernatural.

Literally any character we haven’t met yet

Come on, you were thinking it too.

Cheryl Blossom

Okay, just stay with me here, because this might sound crazy… maybe even crazy enough to be true. We could be watching Cheryl Blossom’s mental unraveling take her to all-new levels of batshit insane. After burning down Thornhill Manor (with herself and her “mommy” still inside!), she concocted a lie to tell everyone: that she was sleeping inside when an accidental fire started, and her “mommy” rushed inside to save her (and not the family portrait she was actually trying to get. Savage!). With Mrs. Blossom laying bandaged in the hospital, covered in third degree burns, no one is able to challenge Cheryl’s story, and her threats to her “mommy” to keep quiet while cutting off her oxygen supply were downright chilling. And kissing Fred’s forehead as he lay unconscious in the hospital? Just so weird. So I have to ask… does Cheryl consider herself an angel of death now? Is she trying to take matters into her own hands and bring her own kind of vigilante, bloody justice to Riverdale? I have no idea why she’d want to kill Fred, but still. This is the least likely, but most bonkers suspect. Don’t count Cheryl out. She cray.

Who do you think is underneath the hood on Riverdale? Tweet me your thoughts, theories and conspiracies at @SydneyBucksbaum. Clearly, nothing is too crazy to be considered!

Images: The CW

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.

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