'Riverdale': With a family boasting of a serial killer dad and an FBI agent mom, what are the Coopers all about?
This article contains spoilers for Riverdale Season 1 to Season 4
One of the founding families of Riverdale, the Coopers have managed to bring forth a hooded killer and a daughter with a split personality — in loose terms — Dark Betty. They are related to the Blossom family through an older generation where a Blossom son took the life of his brother.
It led to the splitting of the Blossom family, cue the Coopers. This secret was hidden until Polly Cooper and Jason Blossom fell in love resulting in twins of incest, Juniper and Dagwood, who are now under the guidance of Cheryl Blossom.
Riverdale's finest residents tried to keep these secrets under wraps but with Alice Cooper under a voluntary trance of a cult leader and a father that can't quit his dark side - the dead bodies gave away more than a few family secrets.
Alice Cooper, with her shining smile, portrayed more of a delusion than her daughters Polly and Betty — surprising, we know. Ironically, she's a reporter but truth in Riverdale doesn't come easy, so we don't hold her accountable for too much of the town's death count.
An overbearing mother and former Southside Serpent, she does not want either of her daughters riding the wrong side of the tracks but they didn't get the memo. With Polly having her twins with Jason, having a psychologically challenging time at the Sisters Of Quiet Mercy and then falling under the spell of Edgar Evernever at the Farm,
Betty had her hands full investigating the so-called spiritual leader while trying to bring the town's victims to justice. She then finds out her "crazy" mother was not in fact under a trance but was undercover with the FBI with her love child with FP, Charles Smith, investigating Edgar - yup, that was a mouthful.
That's Season 4, in Season 1 Betty and the gang had to take down The Black Hood, Hal Cooper - Betty's and Polly's father.
With the series starting off with a cold-blooded murder in the Blossom family, the Coopers took over the spotlight with the Black Hood and his vigilante agenda. Trying to rope in his daughter with some extra gaslighting, Hal managed numerous murders under the cover of his black mask only to be unmasked by his own daughter.
In the process of hunting down killers, Betty got a taste of what she might have genetically inherited - the serial killer genes - which she had confirmed by a doctor. Wanting to escape a dark shadow, she finds herself at the mercy of her father's criminal mind to find answers to the secrets of Riverdale. Of course, she was manipulated, who in the town isn't?
With both the Coopers putting up a front of a happy family facade, the Archie gang had to dig deep and unravel more than a few murders to realize where the Coopers came from and what they're hiding.
Alice is trying to escape her past as a Serpent, only for Betty, by the association to the Serpent King Jughead, to become the Serpent Queen. The dark side of Betty has been brought back in Season 4 of the series just when the Cooper family seems to have settled with Alice killing Edgar and Hal Cooper murdered by Penelope Blossom.
Betty, clearly unable to escape the darkness instilled in her by her father and nurtured by the raw brutality of Riverdale, is left with one question: which part of her is she trying to save?
With the potential to most likely be taken over to the dark side in all of its glory, the Cooper parents have set up quite a drastic lifeline for the future of their family legacy. Although Hal - who is now dead due to the consequences of his actions — had no remorse, Alice and Betty would rather stick to the light.
The thing is Betty or rather Dark Betty might have killed Jughead, in an induced trance state so maybe the dark side of the Cooper family won.
