With every show, especially teen TV shows, there’s a fan-favorite ship, and Riverdale is no exception. However, fans haven’t been able to agree on the best one; some believe the best ship is Betty (Lili Reinhart) and Jughead (Cole Sprouse), some believe it’s Veronica (Camila Mendes) and Archie (KJ Apa), and some even think it’s Betty and Archie. Each couple has had their moment in the spotlight, and also had many troubles — it is a CW show after all. Each one is a great couple, there’s no denying that, but there’s one couple that edges them all out and takes the prize: FP Jones (Skeet Ulrich) and Alice Cooper (Mädchen Amick).
From the very first scene they shared on Riverdale, it’s been clear that FP and Alice have a deep-rooted and very complicated history. But even though the seeds for them were planted early on, it still took four seasons for the show to fully devote itself to the pair. They were a long-awaited slow-burn, but they kept us entranced every step of the way, whether it be simply with the actors' chemistry or the many hurdles their characters jumped over. And yet it feels like they never truly got the love and appreciation they deserved — and they’re arguably the most deserving.
FP and Alice Expertly Balance All the Tropes We Love on 'Riverdale'
While FP and Alice (or "Falice," as their shippers call them) may not always be the first couple Riverdale fans think of when they think of the show’s many relationships, they deserve to be purely for how many tropes they balance and how well each one works for them. Seriously, so many of the cheesy tropes we love in books, movies, and television are given to Falice, and each one is perfect.
First and foremost, they have a past which was made very clear in their very first scene when FP plainly tells Alice, “Snakes don’t shed their skin so easily,” insinuating that Alice’s buttoned-up Northside life is nothing but a facade. It turns out to be true, and we find out Alice was born on the Southside and was a member of the Southside Serpents alongside FP More than that? They also had a fling in high school, which leads to their next trope: they share a child — a secret child. Turns out during said fling, Alice wound up pregnant, and in an attempt to give the baby a better life she linked up with Hal (Lochlyn Munro). Of course, as we now know, that was very much the wrong choice, and he forced her to put the baby up for adoption. It wasn’t until Season 2 of Riverdale that FP even found out they share a child, and it wasn’t until Season 3 that we met the real Charles (Wyatt Nash).
The majority of FP and Alice's relationship in the first two seasons of Riverdale is in the enemies-to-lovers realm. They really can’t stand each other in Season 1, and the same goes for Season 2, except that’s when the soft underbelly begins to show, and you can tell there’s much more to their dynamic. By the near end of Season 2, and the entirety of Season 3, the pair undergo a secret relationship/affair — a sort of friends-with-benefits situation, if you will. And in Season 4 they finally, truly, get together for real. Their lives intertwine, they share a home, and they even share their first on-screen kiss.
And those all just scratch the surface of the beauty of this pair. Throughout every scene FP and Alice share, and even in ones they’re just mentioning each other, there’s a sort of longing that is undeniable. Season 2 of Riverdale dives heavily into longing looks and the softness they reserve only for each other, while Season 4 shows how truly meant for one another they are with how easily they slip into domesticity. Of course, every ship in Riverdale has its own list of tropes — that’s the beauty of shipping in the first place — but FP and Alice’s list feels extensive, but never overbearing. They have a big history, and one that always seems to be growing, and yet it never feels tired or overdone — as the fan reactions to their relationship prove, Falice just simply works.
FP and Alice Are a Dynamic Duo on 'Riverdale'
FP and Alice work because they tick off so many classic trope boxes, but that's not the only reason they are such an endearing couple — they also seem like polar opposites at first before simultaneously chipping away at each other’s walls. Both characters are tough to read at times — Alice can be cold and closed off, whereas FP is broodish and angry. But there’s a vulnerability between them that is unmatched and is only able to fully show through when they’re together.
Both have grown so much since their first scene, and while some of that is surely due to the amount of trauma everyone in the town of Riverdale has gone through with the show's rapid descent into madness, so much of it also comes from the comfort they have in one another. They’re cut from the same cloth, whether they want to acknowledge it or not, and are the only people willing to challenge the other and help bring out the parts they’ve long since buried.
FP and Alice have the unfortunate fate of being an adult ship in a teen-driven show though, meaning their relationship development is often set on the back burner in favor of the teen-centric ships. But when they get their time to shine, they soak up every minute and do so with pizazz. It all comes down to the actors themselves and the sheer amount of red-hot chemistry they just seem to ooze whenever they share a scene — Amick and Ulrich work brilliantly off one another. So much so that all it took was one scene for fans to jump aboard the Falice train — and it was their very first scene to boot!
Ulrich may not be on the show any longer, and Amick’s Alice has gone to hell and back, but their time together was monumental and a highlight of Riverdale as a whole. They’re a match made in drama TV heaven and deserve just as much love as the rest of the show’s ships.
The first episode of the seventh and final season of Riverdale will premiere on The CW on March 29 at 9 p.m. Read up on everything we know about the final season here, including the returning cast and creative team.