The Gargoyle King Was Finally Revealed In The 'Riverdale' Season 3 Finale

After a full season of guesses, predictions, and theories, Riverdale finally (and I mean finally) revealed the identity of the Gargoyle King in its Season 3 finale episode. It is safe to say that some fans were correct in their guesses as to who was behind the mask, but nobody could have predicted the full extent of the Gargoyle King mystery. Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers from the Riverdale Season 3 Finale, "Survive the Night." Surprisingly, the finale did not even make viewers wait too long to find out the Gargoyle King's identity. The Riverdale Season 3 finale revealed Chic as the Gargoyle King right off the bat, but he was not working alone in his mission to terrorize Riverdale this whole season.

Some Riverdale fans actually managed to figure out that Season 2 enigma Chic was the true Gargoyle King all along a couple episodes ahead of the finale. Recent episodes revealed that the Gargoyle King was a blonde man with blue eyes who had allied with the Black Hood (aka Hal Cooper), which spurred fans to concoct a theory that Chic must be the Gargoyle King. The penultimate episode threw some fans off, though, as Ethel Muggs told Jughead that the Gargoyle King was actually Jason Blossom, whose corpse had indeed suddenly gone unaccounted for.

But the Season 3 finale cleared that confusion all up: The true Gargoyle King mastermind Penelope Blossom forced Chic to dye his hair red and referred to him only as Jason in a hysterical remembrance of her dead son, while Edgar Evernever had actually dug up the real Jason's corpse to help convince Cheryl to remain in The Farm. OK... I guess saying "cleared that confusion up" may be a bit of a stretch here, but at least we know that Chic is indeed the Gargoyle King.

The whole Gargoyle King scheme is explained at a creepy dinner for Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead hosted by Penelope Blossom, during which Penelope reveals herself to be the person behind all of the terrible things happening in Riverdale since the beginning of the series. She admits to encouraging Hal Cooper's homicidal tendencies as the Black Hood throughout Season 2 while the two were having an affair, and once Hal was about to be arrested, he recruited Chic to take his place and sent the boy to Penelope to continue terrorizing the town as the Gargoyle King. Penelope's motive for all this is simple revenge: she admits to hating Riverdale since the being made a child bride when adopted by the Blossoms, and noting how nobody reached out to her after Jason's death.

During Penelope's final test for the core four, Jughead is tasked with fighting Chic. Jughead is able to knock Chic out, and after the trials are finished, he reveals in a voiceover that Chic wound up getting arrested. However, Penelope managed to escape into the night, teasing her possible return to ruin everyone's lives once again next season. At least now Riverdale fans can finally rest easy knowing that the Gargoyle King was Chic taking orders from Penelope all along.