WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Riverdale season three episode 19, titled Fear the Reaper.
Riverdale producers threw another spanner in the works when they revealed Betty Cooper’s (played by Lili Reinhart) dad, Hal (Lochlyn Munro), had died under the suspicious circumstances in the latest episode, sending fans into a frenzy.
The Black Hood bandit had previously begged his daughter to set him free, so Betty turned to Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos) for help.
She asked Hiram to transfer him to one of the “waterfront rooms” at the prison, which he agreed to do.
While Hiram saw to getting Hal transferred, Betty busied herself with The Farm, digging for information on Edgar and Evelyn Evernever.
Betty discovered Edgar (Chad Michael Murray) will adopt Juniper and Dagwood, following his marriage to her mother, Alice (Mädchen Amick).
Upon further research, she learned Evelyn Evernever (Zoé De Grand Maison) has been going from school to school posing as a junior when she is really 26.
As if that was not enough, when she called on Ms Weiss to do a background check on her she found out Evelyn is not Edgar’s daughter, but his wife.
After, Betty enlisted her aunt Penelope Blossom (Nathalie Boltt) to save the twins from Edgar, however, she only managed to rescue Dagwood.
Given she had no other option, Betty convinced Toni Topaz (Vanessa Morgan) to help her break into The Farm to save Juniper.
Toni did as she was asked, but it was a trap and Betty found out her mother knew Edgar was married to Evelyn.
Then, Edgar tried to persuade Betty to join them and was almost successful until she remembered the levitating babies from a previous episode and fled.
The episode for Betty ended with her finding out her father, Hal, had been killed in an accident during his prison transfer.
Despite all the drama she went through in this edition of Riverdale, fans of the show latched onto the final nail in the coffin – her father’s death.
Most bellied the concept Hal had died as nobody was shown and characters are known to mysteriously return from the dead.
Taking to Twitter to debate Hal’s death, one person wrote: “I don’t think Hal is dead, my theory is that he killed all the inmates to escape and go back to Riverdale because he told Betty in the last episode that he wanted to go home.”
Agreeing, another added: “Nah. Hal isn’t dead. This was probably his plan all along. In fact, it’ll probably be Hal or Chic in the Gargoyle costume that Betty is confronting with a gun during the promo for next week.”
A third commentator stated: “Until I see Hal’s dead body, I will not believe that he is dead Riverdale.”
Someone else said: “There is literally no way in hell that Hal is dead Riverdale.”
Riverdale continues next Wednesday on The CW in the US and today on Netflix in the UK.
