Is Polly dead in Riverdale?

Update – Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021: Contains spoilers for Riverdale season 5 “Chapter Ninety-Three: Dance of Death”

Sorry Riverdale fans, we have some bad news to share though many viewers saw this coming after “Chapter Ninety: The Night Gallery” when one of the Lonely Highway killers admitted to knowing Polly. Whether he actually was the person to kill her will never be known but she was killed by someone in the Starkweather family, an off-shoot of the Blossoms and distant cousins to the Coopers.

“Chapter Ninety-Three: Dance of Death” slowly reveals this information through the investigation Bughead launches into the disappearance of Tabitha’s friend, Squeaky. She’s the young woman who planned to make her way to California in the first episode of the time jump and was picked up by one of the killers on her way out of town.

After Nana Blossom explains the tangled history between the Blossoms and the Starkweathers, it becomes clear that the Moth Men story is just a rouse to hide the existence of this family for two generations and allow the Blossoms to save face.

When a Riverdale High student by the name of Britta is taken by the Starkweathers after she runs away from home, Betty, Jughead, Toni, Fangs, and Tabitha pay a visit to Dreyfus’s junkyard. Bughead had been there earlier in the season unaware that he and his family were the ones who’d been abducting women off the highway.

There’s a brief skirmish between all involved but eventually our heroes, with the help of a Starkweather who isn’t a killer, subdue their assailants and bring this killing family to justice. Before Dreyfus is hauled off to prison, Betty asks him to tell her where Polly is which he does by drawing her map.

Together Betty and her mother, Alice, find the car in the junkyard that houses Polly’s remains. Finally, the two have closure, but their grieving has only just begun. This is a sad end to Polly’s time on Riverdale and yet another trauma the Cooper women must weather that could drive them apart.

Below is the original copy of this article published Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Riverdale fans have been waiting the majority of season 5 to find out whether or not Polly Cooper died at the hands of the Lonely Highway Killer. Finally, new light has been shed on her case in episode 14, “Chapter Ninety: The Night Gallery.”

Last week, in “Chapter Eighty-Nine: Reservoir Dogs,” Betty managed to nab a killer in her and Tabitha’s honey trap. But it was unclear whether or not he was the murderer who chased Polly down with his truck in the first half of the season.

Spoilers ahead of Riverdale season 5, episode 14

Episode 14 spends a third of its runtime following Betty as she works to manipulate the trucker into confessing to being the Lonely Highway Killer. She attempts to appeal to his humanity, to push him toward remorse in order to tell the truth. When that fails, Betty uses fear to her advantage.

By detailing how she would slowly dismember him, Betty does eventually get the trucker to admit to knowing Polly. His admission of information about her sister leads Betty to believe that he is the Lonely Highway Killer, and she nearly does make good on her threat only to find that the trucker killed himself.

But should we take that interrogation sequence at face value? Or should we question it?

Is Polly really dead in Riverdale?

It’s honestly unclear whether or not we should believe what this murderer said. Before the trucker killed himself, he hedged during most of Betty’s interrogation. She’s the one who said that she’s accepted that Polly is dead. Statistically, the odds are not in her sister’s favor so that makes sense.

The trucker even told Alice that Polly squealed like a pig when he killed her, but he’s also a liar. He led Betty on a chase for one of the Lonely Highway Killer’s victims only for her to end up at a dog’s grave site. He did, however, let slip that he hunted with his family. That clue has most certainly put Betty on a path to find a family of serial killers.

It’s quite possible that Polly is actually dead and the only thing Betty can do is avenge her death by stopping these monsters and finding her remains. But, the trucker killing himself before he could provide any real answers about Polly is suspicious.

As such we’re not willing to say Polly has passed on just yet. This is Riverdale after all. Literally anything can happen. We still don’t know what happened to Polly, but the case of the Lonely Highway Killer does go far deeper than what we once thought.

Hopefully, season 5 gives us answers on Polly’s whereabouts soon even if it’s simply so the Coopers can lay her to rest.

New episodes of Riverdale season 5 air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.