Spoilers ahead for the Season 4 premiere of All American on The CW, called “Survival of the Fittest.”
The third season of All American ended on multiple cliffhangers to keep fans guessing (and hoping) over the months of hiatus, and the Season 4 premiere finally revealed what happened to Coop after being shot, Layla after heading off with Carrie, and everybody who had to deal with the aftermath. The good news is that both Coop and Layla survived (although Mo died), and the shots of Spencer in a cemetary turned out to be Spence visiting Corey James’ grave, not Coop’s. Layla is recovering, but what happened with Coop promises to have lasting consequences for multiple characters.
Coop’s fate was pretty touch-and-go for most of the episode, when she had to go into a surgery she wasn’t stable enough for because the only alternative was to let her die with the bullet still in her. Even with the surgery going well enough that Coop survived, she was in a coma for three days. When she woke up, she proved that being shot hadn’t cost her sense of humor, as she pranked Spencer into thinking she had amnesia. But it wasn’t all laughs and relief that she survived, and both she and Preach could be in big trouble as All American keeps going with new episodes.
Preach tried to shoot Mo before Mo could shoot Coop, but he was too late to take her down and spare Coop a gunshot wound. Coop did survive, so Preach succeeded in the respect, but Mo dying means more problems. Nobody seemed all that upset about Mo’s death for Mo’s sake (unsurprisingly), but Preach is a felon on parole, so Mo’s death could mean Preach going back behind bars. He very nearly gave himself up to the cop who came to Coop’s hospital room for a statement, but Coop wasn’t having it.
Before Preach could come clean, Coop came out and said that she shot Mo after Mo shot her, making it self-defense. Unfortunately, there were a lot of holes in her story right off the bat. She told the cop that she didn’t know what happened to her gun or how she got to the hospital, since she passed out and only just woke up, and Preach interjected to stop Coop from saying more without a lawyer. The cop was quite suspicious and planning on coming back, and it probably won’t take many more questions for it to become crystal clear that Coop is lying. And that’s bad for both Coop and Preach.
Preach seemed ready to blame himself for Coop back in trouble, but Patience was out of… well, patience, arguing that the person who is to blame for the drama around Coop is Coop herself. So, Coop survived being shot, but now she and Preach are in a whole new round of trouble. And they’re not the only ones who know the truth of what went down, so it feels more like a matter of when the story will fall apart rather than if it will, in my book. Hey, at least Mo is the only one who died after those cliffhangers!
Find out what happens next for all the survivors with new episodes of All American (featuring more of a certain character) on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW. The All American universe is still growing too, as the Homecoming spinoff is expected to make a midseason premiere in the new year following the backdoor pilot that aired as part of Season 3.
