Entertainment

Everything You Need To Know About Betty's Brother On 'Riverdale'

by Kayla Hawkins
Shane Harvey/The CW

Riverdale (directed by: Allison Anders, two episodes) fans, it's finally time to rejoice: Season 2 is returning on Jan. 17, and when it does, the show isn't slowing down whatsoever. Even though it may seem that the series ended the whole saga of the Black Hood, in this town, nothing is ever as simple as it seems — just look at the Cooper family. At the end of Season 1, Alice revealed that she had a child at the Sisters of Mercy when she was still a teenager, but where was Betty's brother on Riverdale for the last 20 years? The Season 2 midseason premiere trailer finally gave the first glimpse of Chic and Alice's reunion, and it looks like it's going to be an emotional one.

The first season of Riverdale (written by: Britta Lundin, four episodes) gave a little bit of information about where Chic has been for most of his life. According to what Alice tearfully told Betty, she got pregnant as a high school teacher and Hal wanted her to have an abortion. Instead, she went to Sisters of Mercy and gave birth there, and subsequently gave the baby up for adoption. So the Cooper sisters grew up without knowing of their brother's existence, let alone his personality. But according to what star Lilli Reinhart said to Glamour, even though they don't know one another, she believes Betty's brother Chic may have inherited a signature Cooper trait: The tendency to repress their emotions until a "dark" version of them emerges.

Betty, obviously, has her Dark Betty persona, Alice was once one of the Serpents, and Polly carried out a whole secret relationship with Jason Blossom, but what about Chic? "[Betty's] very curious to see if [Chic] has that darkness inside him as well," Reinhart said to Glamour. "There might be some sister/brother bonding over mental health issues." And now that things are complicated between Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead after that Archie/Betty kiss, Betty might not even have a friend to confide in about the recent changes in her family.

Plus, there's no telling just how dark "Dark Chic" will be. In the midseason trailer, it looks like he's living in a slightly rundown room — but there's no telling if he's a college student in a dorm or living by himself in a bad part of town. It does seem safe to assume that he'll have some kind of deep dark secret, not just because this is Riverdale, home of the deep dark secret, but because the synopsis for the Jan. 24 episode, "The Wrestler," says "Betty unearths some dark secrets about her brother Chic."

Shane Harvey/The CW

In the last episode of Riverdale Season 2, the Black Hood was seemingly unmasked as Mr. Svenson, the janitor turned killer who was still traumatized from not only watching his whole family be killed in front of him, but from identifying the wrong person as the murderer. But while it may seem simple to have the creepy new character become the killer, "Things don’t feel right ... like, there’s still some deep, dark, unspoken mystery going on," as Reinhart said to Glamour. Chic Cooper was also an adopted kid separated from his biological family growing up, so he could have some connection to the murders and attempted murders of the Black Hood killer.

Plus, there's the question: Did Chic grow up close to Riverdale? The Black Hood had a connection (bordering on an obsession) to Betty, and while it's possible that the local school custodian would have observed her closely over the years, it's also possible that her brother would have a vested interest in getting to know her — even though her parents attempted to keep him a secret for most of her life. And if Chic grew up, say, on the South Side, he could feel even more like an outcast after seeing his parents write so much negative coverage about it over the years. But wherever Chic spent his childhood, now that he's reunited with the rest of the Cooper clan, he's going to have to face the darkness that runs through this family and the town they live in.