For all the fun and insane theories — including a few of my own — that the Internet cooked up this season, Jason Blossom’s killer on Riverdale ended up being fairly innocuous. The murderer was Clifford Blossom, the victim’s father, who is probably the first or second suspect on many viewers’ minds back in January when the series began. The series has since obscured that possibility with eleven episodes of red herrings, but ultimately, the killer is the most obvious character. It was an unsatisfying reveal, although twists and turns leading up to it were as exciting as this season has been since the pilot episode.
We still do not completely understand Clifford Blossom’s motive for killing his son, but the episode did reveal a number of secrets that might provide the basis for one. The biggest bombshell comes from Betty’s father, Hal Cooper, who reveals that he had stolen the files from Sheriff Keller’s office to keep a secret buried: That the Blossoms and the Coopers aren’t the Hatfields and McCoys, they are more like the Dollangangers. Hal’s grandfather was a Blossom, the brother of Clifford’s grandfather. That means that Polly and Jason are cousins, which means the child developing inside of Polly is a product of incest, which gives the murder mystery the requisite ick factor.
That hardly seems like a motive for Jason’s murder, however. In fact, Penelope Blossom is non-plussed by the revelation because the Blossoms have been keeping the bloodline pure for generations. So why did Clifford kill his son? The most obvious reason seems to be that Jason had — by attempting to run away with Polly — rejected the family business, which as it turns out is not in the maple syrup trade but drugs. The syrup is a front, and it seems that Clifford was the supplier for the Southside Serpents. Perhaps Jason threatened to reveal that secret? Or Clifford is just a spiteful man who shot his son in the head at point blank range because Jason didn’t want to follow his father’s footsteps into a life of crime.
We may never understand exactly why Clifford killed his son, because Clifford hanged himself in the episode’s final reveal, or did he? There remains a possibility that Cheryl and Penelope conspired to kill Clifford, but when Cheryl delivered the episode’s best line — “You did a bad thing, daddy, and now everyone knows” — it made logical sense for Clifford to scurry out to the barn and take the coward’s way out.
It was Clifford who also planted the gun inside FP’s house, or had it planted by another Serpent, most likely Mustang, who Archie and Veronica find dead in his bathtub of an apparent overdose. Mustang also has in his possession a large bag of money from Hiram Lodge, which means the Serpents are as involved with the Lodges as much as the Blossoms. Once the gun is discovered, FP takes the fall and confesses to the murder because — as we find out later — Clifford threatened to kill Jughead if FP didn’t take the rap for the murder. FP is just being a good Dad for once.
FP didn’t kill Jason, but he’s not innocent, either. He helped Clifford hide the body and cover up the crime, although why he did so is not entirely clear. What is clear is video footage from the deus ex flash drive that FP had conveniently hidden in Jason Blossom’s letterman jacket, which he had stashed out in the woods after the murder. Joaquin tips off Kevin to its whereabouts, and Betty finds the flash drive inside the jacket, which contains CCTV footage of the murder. FP could have revealed the flash drive a long time ago and saved Riverdale a lot of heartache, but because of his role in the crime, FP kept it hidden as insurance, and now he, too, faces jail time.
What’s somewhat disappointing about the reveal is that the teenagers here all have clean hands (except for Kevin’s boyfriend Joaquin, who aided FP in the coverup and is now on a bus to San Junipero, a nod to a Black Mirror episode). They were just observers all along, and save for the discovery of the flash drive, the entire saga of the parents might have played out just as it did without their involvement. Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead were chasing red herrings, and while they managed to dig up a few secrets, they were ultimately bit players in their own story. It’s unclear how much that will change next week, when Hiram Lodge — fresh from prison — returns and adds another complication.
What is clear, however, is that the parents in Riverdale are all awful people, Fred Andrews included. Rather than lookout for Jughead — who Fred knew to be innocent — he expressed a willingness to kick him to the curb to protect Archie from the influence of the Joneses. Hermione, meanwhile, is neck deep in a criminal conspiracy with her husband, a crooked land deal, and the Southside Serpents, while Betty’s parents sent their pregnant daughter to a mental institution to coverup a secret that might have prevented Jason’s murder in the first place. When your daughter is schtupping her cousin, it might be a good idea to take her aside and say, “Hey! That fella is your kin, so you may want to steer clear of that particular forbidden fruit.” Given Polly’s reaction to finding out the baby inside her is a product of incest, I suspect she’d have taken the hint.
What’s done is done, I suppose, but while the chief mystery of the first season has been resolved, the complications continue to mount. It seems to be the best course of action for these kids is to put their heads down, stay away from their parents, and ride it out until college instead of playing the Scooby Doo Gang to their parents’ criminal and amoral shenanigans.
