It’s been quite a big week when it comes to shocking reveals on comic book based TV shows, now hasn’t it? Just days ago, we finally learned the true identity of Savitar over on The Flash and last night, Jason Blossom’s killer was exposed on Riverdale. Granted we’ve known that episode 12 would imbue us with such knowledge for weeks, but the revelation itself was no less shocking.
As it turns out, Jason was murdered by his own father, Clifford, upon finding out that he’d been running drugs. Interestingly enough, executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa told Entertainment Weekly that there was actually a shortlist of possible killers going in. Things such as this aren’t unheard of in the realm of serialized storytelling, as writing teams may often call audibles along the way not only to keep the public in the dark, but to also assure they go in the route best suited for the narrative.
“When I went in to pitch the season to Warner Bros. and CW, Greg [Berlanti] was like, ‘Roberto, you can’t go into that room without knowing who killed Jason Blossom or they’re going to lose their minds. So when I went in, I had three likely suspects — F.P., Hiram Lodge and Clifford Blossom. Then, as the season progressed, Hal Cooper started becoming a possible suspect, but then in the end, if the idea of the show is that it’s a subversive, darker take on these sunny, wholesome characters, we started thinking, ‘What would be the darkest thing that could happen, the most taboo, most transgressive thing that could happen? That would be that a parent would shoot or kill a child.’ Probably halfway through the season, we narrowed our top three down to one, which was Clifford.”
Now that we have this particular mystery behind us, we can’t help but wonder what lies ahead in season 2 and what seeds next week’s season finale will plant. One question already on the minds of some is whether Clifford hanged himself in order to take his secrets to the grave or if, in fact, his wife and daughter did the job for him, to which Aguirre-Sacasa replied:
“I will say that the question you’ve just asked is definitely something we’re going to play into season 2.”
Be sure to catch the season finale of Riverdale next Thursday, May 11 on The CW. In the meantime, you can view an extended trailer embedded at the top.
