“Don’t panic,” teen Betty Cooper says in the Riverdale Season 4 finale while standing over the 734th dead body of the series. At this point in the finale episode, “Killing Mr. Honey,” the group of friends has… well, killed their principal Mr. Honey after abducting him, locking him up in a remote cabin, waterboarding him with maple syrup, and (unbeknownst to them) leaving him to die. Just another normal day in Riverdale.
Except things can be deceiving on this show — after all, Evelyn Evernever was a 26-year-old cult wife masquerading as a high school student ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ — and the gang killing Mr. Honey is actually an alt-reality within one of Jughead’s stories to get into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The gang didn’t actually kill Mr. Honey, right?
Great question. As far as we know, Mr. Honey isn’t dead, he’s just out of a job after faking a video from The Voyeur to cancel prom. But, after a homemade video is delivered to Betty and Jughead that depicts the gang (in masks) killing Mr. Honey (again, in a mask), there’s a very plausible chance that the real Mr. Honey was actually killed by the impersonators. And if it wasn’t the real Mr. Honey tied up in the cabin, whoever it was is a goner. Deceased. Another one bites the dust. Stabbed hundreds of times, d-e-a-d.
So what exactly is happening with Mr. Honey? Is he dead? Is he alive? Has The Voyeur upped the ante with real human lives? Let’s break down what we know:
Mr. Honey May Not Be Dead, But Someone Is
The Theory: Mr. Honey was not in the homemade video, but whoever was is no longer with us.
Breaking It Down: The easiest way out of this storyline as we approach Season 5 in 2021 is to find Mr. Honey alive, without a job, but also without a hundred stab wounds in his torso. (Take your wins where you can get them, Honey!)
In the video that Jughead and Betty watch in the final moments of the season, we see a “Mr. Honey” mask restrained in a chair, chaotically reacting to the threat of the abductors surrounding him. Two things can be happening here:
- The “Mr. Honey” mask is in on the creepy video and is not actually in any imminent danger. That is not very fun and also very unlikely. This is Riverdale — people are dyin’ all over the place. Plus, are they using retractable knives? Me thinks not.
- The “Mr. Honey” mask is an innocent person (but not the real Mr. Honey) and is not involved in The Voyeur videos. Basically, he was used as a pin cushion by the masked group of friends.
The second scenario is pretty plausible, right? The group of watchers seems to be ready to chill Riverdale’s teens to the core, so stepping up their stalking to murder doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. (If I’ve learned anything from 300 episodes of Criminal Minds it’s that bad guys become more confident as time goes on and often escalate their actions. There’s also this more scientific report that says the same thing.)
But wouldn’t it be a totally underwhelming reveal to find out that someone we don’t know (or really care about for that matter — sorry bud) was killed by this maniacal group? Imagine waiting until Season 5 to find out some dude named Mike Roberts, from the neighboring town of Greendale, was abducted outside a gas station and killed. Seems pretty tame for Riverdale, which brings me to...
The Masked Mr. Honey Was Actual Mr. Honey
The Theory: The real Mr. Honey was abducted by the masked people and is now super dead.
Breaking It Down: We know Mr. Honey was fired from the school after faking a Voyeur video to cancel prom. Turns out, though, Mr. Honey may not be such a bad guy, after Jughead reads the recommendation letter Honey wrote for his application to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Speaking of, we can thank the corn-filled state of Iowa for the possible demise of Mr. Honey.
It’s very likely that the Voyeur/videographer is well-aware of Jughead’s story, considering the video sent to Betty and Jughead outlines much of the submission essay (the people involved, the target, the remote location).
There’s only one person we know of that read Jughead’s story: Elizabeth “Betty” Cooper. Could Dark Betty be behind all of this. I’d love nothing more, but probably not. Realistically, the people involved are smart enough to get their hands on the story, whether through Jughead leaving his computer laying around school or through some type of computer program that spies on him (probably doable by someone who, oh I don’t know, works for the FBI?)
Someone Is Trying To Frame Jughead
The Theory: Someone from Stonewall Prep is at it again and framing Jughead for Mr. Honey’s murder.
Breaking It Down: I’d really like to think we buried this one in the forest where the Stonewall students thought they killed Jughead, but for the sake of being a completist, we’ve got a few loose ends to clean up when it comes to Ms. Donna Sweet.
At the end of Season 4 it was revealed that Donna’s life mission was to get into Stonewall Prep to avenge her grandmother’s murder and reclaim the Baxter Brothers contract. She wanted to re-launch the series focusing on Tracy True, her grandmother’s creation, but Betty had another plan for Donna. Betty threatened to release the medical evidence that Donna was behind the Stonewall murder mystery storyline if she didn’t walk away from the contract.
We know Donna is capable of framing someone (see: the entire fourth season), and she very well could have bugged Jughead’s computer while at Stonewall to see his story about Mr. Honey. And she certainly has a few deranged people in her corner to mask up and kill Mr. Honey. But the theory falls short when considering this would mean that two of the show’s biggest mysteries (the Voyeur and Stonewall) are connected to the same person.
The creator of Riverdale tweeted out that the premiere episode of Season 5 will be titled “Climax.” It’s no “What Happened To Mr. Honey,” but if we’re building up to some type of climactic reveal, perhaps we’ll find out who is under those incredibly upsetting masks and what they did to (the possibly fake) Mr. Honey.
Images: CW