Here's Everything We Know About The Gunman On 'Riverdale'

All through the first episode of Riverdale, every time Archie was asked what happened in the diner, he hesitated. Sometime clearly went down, something off camera, that happened between the time we saw the gun go off and we cut to Archie driving his father pell mell to the hospital. Something big and deep that Archie didn't want to tell the Sheriff, or his friends. Could it be a clue? What did the shooter say to Fred Andrews?

Well, it turned out, when Archie *finally* fessed up to Jughead, Veronica and Betty after Pops fed him and all his friends waiting at the hospital for moral support, that it wasn't anything the shooter said at all. Instead it was Archie being afriad that these hero monikers that Jughead's been laying on him were false. He wasn't strong and brave and true. In fact, when the gunman turned the weapon on Archie... like Pops, he went blank.

He closed his eyes, he didn't try and save his father. He didn't try to tackle the gunman. He just sat very still, on his knees, with his eyes shut, as the shooter stole his father's wallet right in front of them, and then walked out of the diner.

So much for heroism then. At least Archie is man enough to admit his failings, and how hard it is to do right in the moment. (Which in a way, makes his earlier heroics int he finale where he pulled Cheryl from the icey waters all that much more amazing.) But that still leaves us asking deep questions. Such as: What did the shooter say to Fred Andrews?

It says a lot that we assume there were words spoken by the so-called "Angel of Death" (so-called by Pops anyway, though it seems the nickname has stuck for now.) We have no proof anything was said at all by out killer before shooting his victim.

To be honest, our Angel doesn't seem like the loquacious type at all. As we saw at the end of this week, when he wandered in to Miss Grundy's new place in Greendale, who was illegally molesting a new underage student, he didn't say much of anything. He just got on with the breaking of her neck.

So why would he speak to Fred Andrews? And if he did, what did he say? "The Lodges send their regards"?

That might be the sort of words spoken if indeed he were an assassin hired by Hermione or Hiram to take Fred out for refusing to sign over his part of the land deal. Veronica certainly suspects one of her parents as being behind all this.

But Pop's naming of our killer "The Angel of Death" and his second victim being someone so utterly random in the scheme of things suggests instead this is a serial killer of some sort. Someone who is coming to Riverdale to cleanse the terrible sinners of the town.

If so we would assume the killer wouldn't lean over and say something about the Lodges, or even a South Parkian style "You took our jobs!" Instead he might have leaned over and whispered Fred deepest darkest secret to him, the thing that makes a black mark upon his soul, a crime so heinous it cannot be washed away by prayers and tears.

What exactly is it that Fred has done (other than sleep with Hermione) that could warrant him a visit from someone who is cleaning up the worst sinners in Riverdale? Considering that last season revealed the Coopers and the Blossoms are inbreeding, it must be the sort of secret that only a deathbed confession would hold.