Lili Reinhart on Season Two of 'Riverdale': There's Challenging Times Ahead for Betty Cooper
Riverdale‘s mid-season finale left more questions than answers, especially now that we know Svenson may not be the Black Hood after all. Lili Reinhart told us the situation is far from being resolved, and she has every reason to believe the murderer is still at large. “Things don’t feel right…like, there’s still some deep, dark, unspoken mystery going on,” she explains.
And if the Black Hood mystery isn’t enough to deal with, there’s plenty of other drama brewing in Riverdale. Betty and Jughead—and Archie and Veronica—are still in relationship limbo, Josie has a stalker, Cheryl’s obsessed, and who knows what’s up with the Lodges. There’s also the upcoming birth of Polly’s baby and the arrival of Betty’s brother, Chic.
When the show returns on January 17, the good news is that there won’t be much of a time jump. “It’s just after Christmas break,” Reinhart says. “It’s not two months or anything like that. It’s just two weeks [that have passed].” The arrival of Betty’s brother will also bring the topic of Betty’s mental health back into conversation. “You definitely see that a lot more in the second half of the season,” Reinhart says. “When Betty digs her nails into her hands, it’s kind of when things are happening with her family. That’s her trigger, whether it be her mother, her brother, or Polly. I think that’s something to keep in mind.” Also, with the introduction of her brother, “she’s very curious to see if he has that darkness inside him as well. There might be some sister/brother bonding over mental health issues.”
That darkness isn’t just internal, either. Reinhart doesn’t say whether Betty will don her black wig again, but her makeup does get little darker and her overall look will be “a little more made up.”
And if Betty didn’t have enough going on in her life, it looks like her friendship with Veronica will also be put in jeopardy. “I think that concept is challenged in the second half,” she says. While one would think it’s because Veronica might find out that Archie and Betty kissed, Reinhart indicates that it goes way beyond that. “Not to give too much away, but I think there is definitely challenges to come in Betty and Veronica’s friendship, and it’s a result of their parents, to be honest,” she says. “It’s like, how do they navigate their friendship with the parents that they have? And if their parents are at war, does that mean the kids are at war? That becomes very, very heavy in the latter half. The concept of Betty and Veronica putting each other first does become challenged.”