"Why would Jason be tortured only to be killed and dumped in the river? I guess someone might have been trying to make him suffer, but then why decide to shoot him in the head? It seems more likely that they were trying to get information out of him. Maybe the reason they couldn’t was because they got the wrong kid. When they finally realized it, they decided they had to kill Jason to keep him quiet. The show seems to be deliberately keeping Archie (the main character) at an arm’s distance from the central mystery, which I think is intentional beyond as a means for allowing Bughead to get their sleuth on. I’m not sure why anyone would want to kill Archie, but I think we will come to learn that either his father’s business, his absentee mother, his affair with Ms. Grundy or some yet-to-be-revealed detail put Archie in a position to know something or have access to information without realizing its importance."