The Best Bridgerton Couple Has Gotten the Least Screentime

This article contains Bridgerton spoilers through season 3 part 1.

A love match may be rare in the world of Bridgerton, but that hasn’t stopped the young members of the ton from hoping that they will be lucky enough to be one of the few to marry a person who stirs their heart so deeply that nothing else matters. The Bridgerton family has been extremely lucky thus far, with Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor), Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), and now Colin (Luke Newton) finding such partners. But with so much love in the air, that begs the question – which couple has the most chemistry?

In my humble opinion, this honor lies with Kate (Simone Ashley) and Anthony, Kanthony if you will. The chemistry that Bailey and Ashley have on screen, even when their characters seem to hate each other, is electric. Nobody toes the line between loathing and yearning quite like they do. They convey so much emotion to each other, and the audience, within a single look.

The pair is perfect together – from their friendly horse race to the moment she calms him in the garden after a panic attack to every single time their hands touch or even graze each other. Few things encompass the wonderful tension of an enemies-to-lovers romance more than when Anthony tells her “You are the bane of my existence, and the object of all my desires.” 

Kanthony has surprisingly had the least amount of screen time as a couple thus far – a user on Reddit puts them at about 87 minutes total compared to Daphne and Simon’s (Regé-Jean Page) 113 minutes. Even though this chart doesn’t factor in the second half of season 3, we can confirm that in addition to the 54 minutes that Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin spend together from season 1 to the end of season 3 part 1, their time together in the second half of the season surpasses Kate and Anthony’s. But despite being the couple with the least amount of screen time, Kate and Anthony’s chemistry is hard to beat.

This isn’t to say that the other couples lack any chemistry. Simon shook both Daphne and the internet in season 1 with the words “I burn for you,” a simple, yet passionate phrase that ignited the tension that had been building between them all season. Their love affair kicked off this story and made the show the sensation that it is. Page and Dynevor don’t lack any passion, nor is it unbelievable that Simon and Daphne are in love, but compared to Kate and Anthony their ember just doesn’t seem to burn quite as bright.

It doesn’t help either that Simon has been absent from subsequent seasons of the show due to Page’s exit from the show, which we don’t begrudge him for at all. Even though Kate and Anthony didn’t get together until the end of their season, we’ve gotten a few nuggets of their married life sprinkled throughout season 3, which already seems to be off to a better start than Daphne’s.

Colin and Penelope have been a lot more of a slowburn, as friends-to-lovers can often be. We watched their lifelong friendship ebb and flow for two seasons before they finally confessed their feelings for each other. Sure, the carriage scene is incredibly hot, and their love for each other is very evident, but there’s still the whole “Lady Whistledown” of it all hanging over their heads that could throw a wrench into their happy bliss. Coughlan and Newton could absolutely give Bailey and Ashley a run for their money in later seasons though.

All of these actors have plenty of chemistry to make their romances believable and fun to watch, but Bailey and Ashley somehow make it look effortless. Their romantic tension is palpable in every scene they’re in together, almost so much so that it’s hard to believe it took everyone else so long to notice the feelings brewing between their characters. Kate and Anthony are the hottest couple of the ton, and I hope they stay a part of the show for as long as possible.

All eight episodes of Bridgerton season 3 are available to stream on Netflix now.