What does Riverdale season 5 have in store for Betty Cooper?
It won’t be long until Riverdale season 5 hits our TV screens as The CW’s wacky mystery series is set to return in January – and its return has come not a moment too soon!
Season 4 was undoubtedly a turbulent year for the show’s scooby gang as the town of Riverdale experienced a number of troubling developments. The most disturbing of those developments revolved around the arrival of mysterious videotapes (that apparently had nothing to do with Bret’s separate videotape collection).
One character who once again found herself out front-and-center when all of this was happening was the town’s own Nancy Drew, Betty Cooper – who would stop at nothing to solve the latest mystery that Riverdale found itself in the midst of. But can she, Jughead, Archie and Veronica finish solving that mystery when the show returns?
With that in mind, let’s take a look at what Riverdale season 5 has in store for Betty.
Where we left off with Betty in season 4
Betty Cooper is a complex character so it wasn’t all that surprising that she had another complex year on Riverdale last season. She had her fair share of mysteries to solve like usual but she also had to accept that one of those mysteries revolved around the “death” of her beloved boyfriend and soulmate Jughead Jones.
But Jughead wasn’t dead and she was in on it all along – once again doing whatever it took to overcome evil. That right there, however, presented her with her own dilemma as Riverdale’s self-proclaimed “Nightmare From Next Door” worried if she was going down a dark route from which there was no return.
She ultimately did, but not in the way the show wanted us to believe she did. And because of that, her forced infidelity with Archie must be addressed.
What should happen
It wouldn’t be Riverdale if the show didn’t have something major planned for Betty Cooper and you can rest assured that one half of TV’s best detective duo will indeed have a big year ahead of her. In fact, both of them will. However, in order for that to happen, some elephants in the room need to be addressed.
As we already discussed in our Jughead character preview, Betty’s moments of weakness with her boyfriend’s best friend, Archie Andrews, must be addressed. As forced as the arc was, it (like everything else) serves a purpose to the narrative and given that it was thankfully tied up incredibly quickly, that confirms that full-blown-affair/Barchie rising was not the purpose of that arc. And that leaves only one thing on the card: A Bughead rift.
Jughead remains completely unaware of Betty’s brief straying with Archie and that kind of secrecy is unhealthy for their relationship. No, in order to move on, Betty must face up to her actions and accept the consequences – and if those consequences mean a Bughead break-up during the seven-year off-screen time-jump, then that’s fine by this writer.
Why? Well, because whatever the great mystery that reunites the gang – who will, at this point, have gone their separate ways – is will also bring Betty and Jughead back into each other’s lives, allowing a more mature version of the couple we all fell in love with to fall in love with each other all over again. And they should ultimately do that by solving the new mystery that the town has presented them with.
Aside from all that, the show really should drop the Betty’s inner darkness arc. It’s always been intriguing and Lili Reinhart portrays it incredibly well, but it went off the rails last season when it expected us to believe she was a serial killer.
What will happen
Riverdale season 5 will be a tale of two parts, with the first couple of episodes wrapping up season 4’s story and the second focusing on the narrative originally planned for it. And, like with the rest of the characters, Betty’s arc will mirror that.
That leaves it pretty easy to figure out where she’ll kick things off because she’ll start season 5 as she ended season 4: Intent on figuring out who the videotape killer(s) really is and if they really killed Riverdale High principal Mr. Honey. She may need to once again rely on her mysterious half-brother Charles Smith to do so. And on that note, she will no doubt be faced with the realization that Charles and Chic are secretly together and may have been planning something evil all along.
Moreover, we do know that Betty will continue to battle with her inner darkness but, like always, ultimately overcome it as she faces the trials that the town presents her with.
That brings us full-circle. It’s not yet clear what awaits Bughead as Betty has yet to reveal the truth about what happened between her and Archie, but it will come out at some point and it will undoubtedly cause tension among the show’s core four. Tension that a new mystery just might be able to help them resolve.
Are you looking forward to Riverdale season 5? Let us know in the comments below!