#riverdaletheories

WARNING: SPOILERS

So, my previous theory got me to thinking: Is there something special about the Coopers, why they've all managed to get involved with the Gargoyle King, or is it just coincidental?

Well, there are no coincidences in Riverdale.

I don't know what exactly the connection is, but here are my scattered thoughts:

-The tattoo artist says that the man who first got the tattoo of the symbols had like Sandy or dirty blond hair and blue eyes (I don't exactly remember the wording). Betty thinks it's Edgar. Except Edgar has green eyes. Now, that's an easy mistake for Betty to make. Like, would you be able to say that you definitely know the eye color of the creepy guy who's marrying your mom and brainwashing your sister, her babies, and your friends into his cult? No. It's an easy mistake for Betty to make, but not for the show-writers. I don't think that Edgar was ever meant to be the guy with the gargoyle symbols. But you know who had blue eyes in season 1? Hal Cooper! (I didn't even realize this until I was looking up pics of him and saw that he had blue eyes in season 1). Of course, I chalked this up to the writers giving the black hood green eyes when they hadn't decided who he was yet and then just turning Hal's eyes green after they decided that he was the Black Hood. But maybe, this eye color change was planned from the beginning. Maybe Hal Cooper, when he still had his blue eyes at the beginning of season 1 (which is around when the tattoo was supposedly gotten), was the guy who got the tattoo and the writers had that planned from the beginning.

-Alice played G&G in high school. Now, could the gargoyle king really have known that she was going to end up being a Cooper? That's unlikely. But maybe (and this is a bit far fetched - like all my theories) there was something special about Alice Smith and the gargoyle king wanted her to be a Cooper. But he saw that Alice and FP were getting close, so he presented Gryphons and gargoyles to them so that he could set up the death so that it would drive them apart and push Alice towards Hal.

-Polly: She's actually probably the simplest. If Jason and Evernever are working together (which my theory is that they are, based on the show basically implying it), Jason intentionally got Polly pregnant to put the idea of running away to the Farm into her head so that even after he "died", she'd still go to the farm. (This also explains why Polly was in the playbook: Jason didn't actually care about her.) Hal was also working with Evernever. Part of the reason he became the Black Hood was to push Polly away from Riverdale and to the farm.

Unpopular opinion maybe but hear me out. Betty is 100% in love with Jughead and completely crushed by what’s just happened. 

Archie, being a teenaged boy with wounded pride on both counts because Veronica wouldn’t say I love you and then the break up, suddenly sits up and notices Betty, knowing she used to have a serious crush on him.

They’ve been friends forever - but always platonic. So, in a world of teenage high emotion and angst, it kinda makes sense that they might lean on each other/explore a tiny bit of curiosity. On Betty’s part, if they do kiss, I see it almost as a curiosity - she used to be so into this guy, and then she’ll realise that all it makes her feel is sadness because he’s not Jughead, he’s not the one she wants.

Whereas for Archie, he could actually realise (or think wrongly) that he does love Betty. He wanted that I love you from Veronica, and knows in the past that Betty was willing to give it. He’s not thinking about Jughead here or Veronica, just his wounded pride. 

I can see this being something that happens because Betty is so crushed and broken and resigned, something she never normally is, but she doesn’t know what else to do to get through to Jughead as in her mind she has tried absolutely everything. But it will reinforce for her that Jughead is the one she wants and she will want things to go back to normal. Archie on the other hand will secretly start harbouring feelings for her, and that’s how they’ll ‘subvert the triangle’ by flipping it a little with Archie being the one who wants her, and has unrequited love.

I have no desire to see this happen, Barchie kiss makes me want to vom, but I’m hoping it actually ends up being a really critical moment in Bughead’s relationship development. Archie has always been one of Jughead’s insecurities where Betty is concerned - I hope if this happens Betty tells him, and shows him she is choosing him. Who knows maybe they’ll even properly communicate and Betty will find out about the Toni kiss, she’ll come clean about the Archie kiss, and they’ll become even stronger as a couple.

I have a confession to make, after the “I’m a weirdo” speech in episode 10, Jughead was soured for me. A combination of poor writing and uncharacteristic dialogue took away some of the realness that Jughead had, and for me, as soon as that happens I struggle to get back on board with a character. However, episode 11, especially when Jughead was to learn of Veronica and Archie’s betrayal, and by extension Betty’s as well, I felt a lot of that familiar “I heart Jughead” fan-girlishness come rushing straight back.

(Also, on that - why didn’t anyone *ahem* Veronica, stand up for Betty and point out that she had flat-out refused to betray him? Betty’s a family gal, and it should have been pretty obvious that she was trying to please everybody, but someone could have at least had her back.)

Moving right along… I feel like this episode was drenched in so much exposition that it physically screamed at you “Here’s the end of the episode at the beginning” - I am of course referring to the fact that in the first scene, where Jughead is sitting opposite FP, we see Jughead’s face as clear as day, but FP’s is shrouded in a haze of fog and dust, obscuring his expressions and acting as an expositional wall between the two characters. As soon as I saw that, I knew that something was about to rip them apart.

I got kind of annoyed by the fact that instead of going straight to the sherif, Archie and Veronica chose to look for Jughead. They were in the trailer, they knew the evidence wasn’t there, they could at least say as much to the police. But no, in TV land we have to create suspense. We all know FP is going to be exonerated for it. The real killer is going to be revealed. Why put the characters (and the audience) through an emotional roller coaster like this?

Less on FP now.

Could there be cracks forming in Cheryl’s belief in her family? Could I be misinterpreting the scenes? The answer to both is probably. Cheryl seems to be realising things aren’t all they seem with her parents, moreso than she ever had before. I’ve long since come to realise Cheryl is almost exclusively up to the exact opposite of what she appears to be, and my logic doesn’t change here. Keeping the ring. Making sure Polly was alive. Lying to her parents. It all seems (in its own way) very un-Cheryl.

Also Betty admitted out loud that she loves Jughead. I don’t even give a fuck if it wasn’t to his face. Finally someone fucking said it.

I have a couple of theories/predictions that are backed up by zero evidence-

- Hal is guilty of something. Maybe not killing Jason, but definitely something. Maybe he’s just an asshole though. I guess we’ll find out.

- Betty is cracking. So bad.

- We already know who the killer is, but we don’t know that we know.

- Jughead and Betty’s relationship will be fine.

- Cheryl will betray her family.

- FP will be released by the end of the next episode.

- Joaquin isn’t as evil as we think.

- Alice Cooper genuinely thinks she’s protecting her daughter.

- “I love you” “I love you too”

- Betty will find out about Archie & Veronica. She’ll be hurt. Jughead will be pissed and say something akin to “I was the second choice, but at least I was one. Now I just feel like this whole thing was a lie”. More drama. truth will be she’s hurt because they lied, not because it’s archie, and she’s so happy that nothing happened with her and archie because it gave her jughead. jughead will feel like an idiot.

- Archie doesn’t move to Chicago with his mother (the show is literally based on the comic that shares his namesake….)

- He will however consider it and his parents will fucking fight.

- FP will try to bargain with the evidence he has hidden (that will likely go missing) (“That’s our insurance policy”) ———

My mother has a theory that Jason isn’t actually dead, that he’s holed away somewhere on the blossom estate, and the whole thing was arranged and bought by his parents for some fucking reason.

I like it, but I’m not hellbent on it. Too many plot holes.

She told me I had to share it with you guys though.

We all know that in episode four, Betty and Veronica broke into Ms. Grundy’s car and found a gun. Well, that gun reminded me of the one found in FP’s trailer, in episode eleven. What if when Clifford (Jason’s killer) found out that Grundy’s car was at Sweetwater River on July 4th, he tried to frame Grundy, by putting the gun in her car and making it looked like she killed Jason, the same gun he tried to frame FP with, by putting it in his trailer.