The Best TV Couples Of 2021

Whether we're watching an over-the-top comedy or a serious drama, romantic pairings are often the most interesting part of the experience. 2021 proved difficult for off-screen love given the pandemic, which kept us all in our homes for much of the year, either alone or trapped alongside our lover with nowhere to go. But on the small screen? Love was thriving. 

While our favorite television couples flourished in 2021, many of them also faced hardships: infidelity, work stressors, family issues, and even a death. We appreciated the way that they persevered against adversity and reveled in the ways that they handled conflict. Whether a budding new romance or an established TV love affair, these couplings truly dazzled us this year, both in their quieter relationship moments as well as their flashier ones. In celebration of love and commitment and all things syrupy, here's our list of the best television couples of 2021.

"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" has been on the air for what feels like 35 years — in reality, 23 seasons. During that time, the focus has mostly been on the crimes at hand and the professional dynamics between the cops on the show. Elliot Stabler (Chris Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) aside — because we all know they are the end game — we haven't seen a ton of romantic pairings. This changed in 2021, when Detective Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) and Assistant District Attorney Sonny Carisi (Peter Scanavino) finally got together.

Eagle-eyed viewers have long sensed the sexual tension between Rollins and Carisi, who were partners before Carisi left policing for law. While Carisi had a bumpy start at SVU, he quickly won people over and developed a particularly close friendship with Rollins. In the season premiere of Season 23, which aired in September 2021, we learn that the two have officially become a couple. Rollins has had a difficult arc involving terrible family members, a gambling addiction, and a Season 14 shooting, so it's especially nice to see her happy. Carisi also has a tender, loving connection to Rollin's two children, and we would love to see them tie the knot and become a family before the show ends for good (if it ever ends).

Of all of the couples of "You," only Cary (Travis Van Winkle) and Sherry Conrad (Shalita Grant) seem to actually be a good fit for one another. Every other coupling has at least one partner who is miserable or crazy or both. That's not to say that Cary and Sherry are not ridiculous in their own right, but their version of ridiculous is not murderous, so that's always a plus. Sherry is a mom influencer ("momfluencer") who runs her upscale neighborhood with a combination of performative niceness and deep-rooted manipulation. Her husband, Cary, runs a supplement company and looks like a modern version of Tarzan.

As the season progresses, we learn that they are swingers, in what is a rare positive portrayal of an open marriage, as it suggests that Cary and Sherry's lives have been greatly improved by their inclusion of outside partners. The couple is used mainly as comedic fodder for the majority of their time on "You," but we see their truest colors when they are locked up and caged by murderers Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti). Even though Sherry ends up shooting Conrad in the leg, the experience very much brings them closer together in that they confess how much they love each other. At the end of the show, we see the "You" couple that Bustle called "the most annoying" but also "the healthiest" capitalizing on their experience after escaping the cage.

The hilarious sitcom "Superstore" ended in 2021, but we could not leave our favorite Cloud 9 couple, Jonah Simms (Ben Feldman) and Amy Sosa (America Ferrera), off this list. It took seasons for Jonah and Amy to get together, so we were devastated when they called things off when Amy turned down Jonah's proposal amid Amy's promotion and move to California. It seemed like that was where things would end since America Ferrera left the show before the final season, but Amy made a big return for the two-episode finale of "Superstore."

In the penultimate episode, Amy comes back to St. Louis to try to help the others save their store. They ultimately fail, but it's an opportunity to get Amy and Jonah face to face. Amy told Jonah she made a mistake when she turned down his proposal, and this time it was Jonah who was reluctant to move forward. In the ending montage of the "Superstore" series finale, we saw that the two ended up getting married and had a baby of their own (in addition to the two kids Amy already had, who are also featured).

FX's "Pose" was an important show in so many ways, as it prominently featured transgender women of color and dealt with issues that are so commonly left out of the television landscape. One of the best parts of the show was the iconic love affair between Angel Vasquez-Evangelista (Indya Moore) and Esteban Martinez-Evangelista (Angel Bismark Curiel), better known as Lil Papi. Angel and Lil Papi were both taken in by Blanca Rodriguez-Evangelista (MJ Rodriguez), and what started as a sibling-like bond blossomed into romance.

The show's third and final season saw a time jump to 1994, where Papi is thriving as a talent agent and Angel is struggling as a model. As always, Papi proved himself to be an incredibly supportive partner, not just in terms of Angel's career, but also by helping her to overcome a crack addiction. Angel was less supportive of Papi when he found out he had a child (whose mother had died), but she eventually realized how much she loved and needed him. Rather than the small wedding they had originally wanted, they agreed to an over-the-top ceremony, funded by Elektra Abundance-Evangelista (Dominique Jackson). In the sixth episode of the season, as a room full of trans women in wedding dresses looked on, Papi serenaded Angel with a rendition of All-4-One's "I Swear" in one of the most heartfelt and touching TV moments of 2021.

While Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) Pearson are couple goals for sure, we opted to highlight the "This Is Us" couple that wows us the most: Randall (Sterling K. Brown) and Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson). Twelve episodes of "This Is Us" aired earlier this year, during which time Randall and Beth each experienced a number of issues for which they needed to be each others' pillars of support. Since one of the great parts of "This Is Us" is the multiple time periods that are featured, this season we also got to see Randall and Beth at the time of Annie's birth.

In Season 5, Randall became aware that his birth mother had actually been alive up until 2015. He also found out that he had inherited a farmhouse. Beth had to support Randall through his search for information about his mother and his attempts to come to terms with his family's inability to discuss race (Randall joined an interracial-adoption support group, as well). On the flip side, Randall offered Beth support when she had to close down her dance studio due to COVID-19 and stuck by her as she struggled in her relationships with both her mother and eldest daughter.

"Home Economics" is a very funny show that largely flies under the radar, but Season 2 is more than worthy of your time. The show focuses on three siblings who fall on very different points on the spectrum of socioeconomic status. Much of the focus is on the conflict between the three Hayworth siblings. But another great element of the show is the strong marriages that two of the siblings — Tom (Topher Grace) and Sarah (Caitlin McGee) — have and the way that their partners integrate into the family.

While Tom's marriage to Marina (Karla Souza) could easily have made our list, we chose to highlight Sarah and her wife Denise (Sasheer Zamata) instead. After all, the women have managed to remain solid partners while living, with their two kids, in the smallest apartment on television. They also connect so well on their moral and ethical beliefs, despite being tested when Sarah was gifted an expensive purse from her swanky new job at a private school. Whether struggling with their daughter wanting to become a cheerleader or trying to keep up with younger new friends, Sarah and Denise are always a partnership and seem to always balance one another in a way that feels organic and true to life.

The original "Saved by the Bell" is an iconic show that had two amazing couples. While no high school pairing on the reboot compares to Zack and Kelly or Slater and Jessie, there is one couple that truly warms the heart: Jamie Spano (Belmont Cameli) and Lexi Haddad-DeFabrizio (Josie Totah). To have a transgender character be the popular girl who lands the hot football player is revolutionary and a welcomed advancement in the way that trans women are shown on TV. It's not just that this is a barrier-breaking pairing for teen television that has us wild about Jamie and Lexi — it's also the fact that they work so well together.

After some evil scheming, Lexi eventually sacrificed her own happiness so that Jamie could be happy with Aisha (Alycia Pascual-Peña) in Season 1. When that didn't work out, and the pair got together, we finally saw a softer side of the school's resident ice queen. Then, in Season 2, because their entire courtship coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, Jamie and Lexi had to learn how to be a couple out in the world for the first time. This was an especially realistic storyline for a show that is filled with absurdist humor. The pressure that Lexi put on their second kiss was understandably adorable. Bonus points for the talent show storyline where the two dressed like Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion in the "WAP" video.