Look. I’m not a fan theorist, or at least I try not to be. That said I like a good mystery and I think I’m a pretty good “detective”. I do spend a decent amount of time trying to figure things out, not because I want to outsmart the show but because I honestly enjoy a good puzzle. On that front, I think by the end of Riverdale Season 2 episode 2, I may have already solved the identity of masked man terrorizing Riverdale, The Black Hood.

I firmly believe that I have identified the killer, and there’s some background to back it up. Probable spoilers and photographic evidence ahead. You have been warned.

The Black Hood is Sheriff Keller.

That’s Keller. Let’s look at The Black Hood.

They’ve been fixated on the eyes, repeatedly showing the flashback to Pop’s Diner. The eyes really struck me. I felt like I’d seen them before. I still believe I have.

Let’s see those eyes right next to each other. Note the crease in the cheek, the wrinkles under the eyes, and the ruddy, slightly splotchy skin.

The eye shape is very, very similar. Keller’s eyes are clearly not as green, but I suspect this will be chocked up to Archie hyper-saturating them in his memory. Beyond the above-mentioned similarities you can also note the shape of his eyelashes. The effect is a bit easier to see if we animate things, so below I have overlaid the eyes directly and animated the opacity.

The Black Hood is actually an existing Archie character, kind of. Dark Cricle Comics (formerly Red Circle Comics) is a subsidiary of Archie and publishes non-Archie comic books. One of them is The Black Hood. In the 2015 incarnation of the character The Black Hood is a violent vigilante that also happens to be a police officer who feels he needs to make up for his failures. Is Sheriff Keller on a mission to clean up Riverdale after feeling powerless to solve Jason Blossom’s murder? If so, what did Fred Andrews do to get him lumped in with a pedophile and a few drug users? Even if I’m right about The Black Hood’s identity, this season of Riverdale is going to be an interesting one.

What do you think?