Riverdale · A Viewer's Companion
Welcome to Riverdale, the town with pep — where every family keeps its secrets in the maple syrup.
The core four are easy: Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead. It's everyone around them that tangles — parents who all dated each other in high school, long-lost sons turning up on doorsteps, and a feud between the Coopers and the Blossoms that's older than the town itself. The borders sort the bloodlines: maple red for Cooper & Blossom, Serpent green for the Joneses, purple for the Lodges, gold for the Andrews.
Spoiler-safe mode is on: death markers, secret-reveal labels and finale outcomes are hidden on this chart and in the notes below. Use the “Spoilers” button in the top bar to show everything again.
Why you're confused — the essentials
Five families, one diner, and a mythology that rewrites itself roughly once a season. These five cards cover most of it.
Cooper and Blossom: one family, two names
Generations ago the Blossom brothers ran the maple business together — until one murdered the other and the survivor's line split off under a new name: Cooper. Season 1 said the Cooper ancestor was the victim. Season 2 flips it: as Hal tells it, Great-Grandpappy Cooper was the killer, who took a new name and fled with his half of the empire. Either way, the feuding families are cousins — which made Polly and Jason's romance a family scandal twice over.
The Black Hood is at the breakfast table
The masked killer terrorizing the town is Hal Cooper — Betty's own father, continuing what he calls his family's "purging of sin" (his father, it turns out, was the Riverdale Reaper). Arrested, escaped, and finally shot dead by Penelope Blossom in the Season 3 finale: one town villain executing another.
The lost-son shuffle
Alice gave up a baby boy as a teenager. The "Chic" who moves into the Cooper house in Season 2 is not him — he's an impostor who stole the real son's identity. The real one is Charles Smith: Alice and FP's child together, resurfacing in Season 3 as an FBI agent… who inherited rather more of the family darkness than his badge suggests.
Northside vs. Southside
Riverdale's real border isn't the river, it's a class line. The Southside Serpents — the gang FP leads and Jughead was born into — face off against the pastel Northside. Half the show's tension is people crossing that line: Jughead at Riverdale High, Alice hiding her Serpent past behind a picket fence, Archie caught in the middle.
The Lodge machine
Hiram Lodge steps out of prison and starts buying the town — the diner, the drive-in, eventually a prison of his own. Hermione runs his errands all the way into the mayor's office, and Veronica spends the whole series switching sides between her conscience and her surname.
Everyone's parents already dated
Fred Andrews and Hermione Lodge. FP Jones and Alice Cooper. A Season 3 flashback puts all the parents in one 1990s detention room — the Midnight Club — which is why every grown-up in town trades loaded looks. Fred, the town's steady conscience, is the still point the whole show turns on.
The name decoder
Half the cast shares surnames, nicknames, or suspiciously similar first names. Keep these apart:
Chic vs. Charles
Both billed as Alice's long-lost son. Chic (Hart Denton) is the unsettling impostor of Season 2. Charles (Wyatt Nash) is the real one — Alice's secret baby with FP, introduced properly in Season 3.
Polly vs. Betty
Sisters in the same pastel house. Polly (Tiera Skovbye) is the fragile older one — Jason's fiancée and mother of the twins. Betty (Lili Reinhart) is the ponytailed sleuth who narrowly escapes nothing.
Jellybean vs. Juniper & Dagwood
All three sound like candy. Jellybean ("JB") is Jughead's little sister, a Jones. Juniper and Dagwood are Polly and Jason's twins, growing up in the Cooper house.
Hermione vs. Hermosa
Hermione is Veronica's mother. Hermosa is Hiram's secret daughter from Miami — the half-sister sprung on Veronica in Season 4.
Why is Alice sometimes "Smith"?
She was born Alice Smith on the Southside and became a Cooper by marriage. After the divorce she takes her maiden name back — and "Smith" is also the surname her secret son Charles carries.
All the Joneses are Forsythes
FP is Forsythe Pendleton Jones II and Jughead is Forsythe Pendleton Jones III. "Jughead," "JB," "FP" — the nicknames are how the family copes with the name.
Nana Rose vs. Penelope
Nana Rose is the whispering grandmother in the wheelchair. Penelope is Cheryl's mother — adopted from an orphanage by the Blossoms and groomed to marry Clifford, her own adoptive brother.
Not family — but always at Pop's
Toni Topaz
Southside Serpent, photographer, and Cheryl's great love — one half of "Choni."
Kevin Keller
The sheriff's son and Betty's best friend — Riverdale High's musical-theater conscience.
Pop Tate
Keeper of Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe — the neon heart of the town that every era of the show shares.
Tabitha Tate
Pop's granddaughter, who takes over the diner in Season 5 — and Jughead's heart soon after, before being revealed as the town's literal guardian angel.
Chart reflects the main, present-day timeline through the end of the series (Season 7 — spoilers to there). Season 7 hurls the whole town back to 1955 for one last supernatural senior year; in the finale, an 86-year-old Betty — the last of the gang — revisits one perfect day and learns what became of everyone, including that she, Archie, Veronica and Jughead simply spent that year together, all four of them. Portraits are stills from the Riverdale wiki, cropped and served from this site; the two feud ancestors are never shown on screen and appear as monograms.