It all started in Sweetwater River, so who is to say that Riverdale Season 5 won't return to its roots and revisit one of the most sacred (and haunted) locations in Riverdale. In fact, judging by a new Season 5 poster for the CW series, Sweetwater River may be the key to understand what is in store for the upcoming episodes — because from the looks of it, Jason Blossom may be alive... and well?

Riverdale creator, Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa, teased the upcoming January season on Tuesday with a series of emojis and a graphic of a very creepy hand emerging from the ground (or possible river) with the caption, "Nothing stays buried forever... #Riverdale Season Five coming soon."

Of course, there are a lot of people who have died throughout the four seasons of the show — remember Ms. Grundy? RIP — but only one of them has become a Dead Icon, and that would be one Jason Blossom, Cheryl's sometimes-dead-sometimes-alive-all-the-times-horrifying brother who died in the first episode of the series.

So how could Jason — who was killed, came back as a nightmare zombie, and finally laid to rest in Season 1, just to be brought back to Thistlehouse as a decaying corpse at the end of Season 3, and kept as a petrified rag doll and given a Viking funeral in Season 4 — still be alive?

Read that back and remember — this is Riverdale, anything is possible.

If a more thorough dissection is what you're looking for, here are three theories that could possibly explain that hand and its connection to Jason.

Theory 1: Jason Is Alive? Somehow?

This one is tough, given the fact that all of the evidence points to Jason not only being dead (we all had to live through rotting corpse Jason) but being cremated on the Sweetwater River in Season 4. With that said, nothing is impossible in the world of Riverdale.

If Jason is alive, there are a few possible options that explain the things we know as fact. 1) Someone who looks just like Jason was killed in Season 1. 2) The Blossom twins are actually the Blossom triplets. 3) In The Farm's true mission of "ascension," Jason was pushed to the furthest limits of life and was reborn. (Yeah, that last one is a bit of a stretch — but so was Edgar Evernever jetting off in a self-made rocket ship.)

It seems pretty unlikely that Jason, the human-being, is alive and well... but that doesn't mean he can't return to Riverdale in another form.

Theory 2: Embrace The Supernatural, Weirdos

"Something wicked this way comes," Betty Cooper said during Season 2, hyping fans up for the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina crossover that never was. But, given the fact that CAOS (on Netflix) is ending the month before Riverdale returns, if there ever was a time for Sabrina Spellman to make her way over to Riverdale, it would be now.

While supernatural territory seems to be the only territory Riverdale hasn't wandered into, yet, if the show decides to approach Jason's return as a zombie return, we could chalk it up to a spell gone wrong in Greendale, or as a potential nightmare come to life. Hear me out.

We know Episode 4 of Season 5 is called "Purgatory," with the first three episodes are acting as closure to the sudden end of Season 4 due to COVID-19. So, if Season 5 truly begins in Episode 4 with the much-promised time jump, we may find the characters not only in the purgatory between college and the real world, but possibly facing their own hellish fears like the return of corpse Jason or this one, which Aquirre-Sacasa teased in September.

Theory 3: Jason Is Dead, But Will Resurface

Metaphorically, Aguirre-Sacasa is right: Nothing stays buried forever, the past is never dead, and history always repeats itself. One of the most shocking and truly heartbreaking moments in Season 1 of Riverdale was when it was revealed that Jason didn't die on July 4th in Sweetwater River in a boating accident with Cheryl, but instead by the hand of his own father, Clifford Blossom, who is also now dead.

But, what if Jason — and possibly Clifford — play a bigger role in an overarching mystery on the series? For one, the Voyeur still remains nameless, and while the chances of the stalking videographer being a dead teenager seem, well, slim, Jason's death — or those involved in Jason's death — may be the key to figuring out who is torturing the gang in Riverdale. Could the videotape of Jason's murder explain the videotapes we're seeing now on Riverdale?

Until the series returns in January, we'll be left wondering who is coming back to haunt Riverdale, literally or figuratively. But if Aguirre-Sacasa's emojis are any indication, and are even tied to each episode of the series, we're in for some real heartbreak.

Images: CW