‘The Perfect Couple’ Episode 5 Recap: “Never Gonna Give You Up”

One weird trick to spice up any marriage? Rickroll your spouse at their very public book launch. Greer Garrison Winbury planned every detail of the event in downtown Nantucket in The Perfect Couple Episode 5, down to which pastels the catering staff would wear to best match the Lilly Pulitzer floral prints favored by her gushy fanbase. She was set to announce a new direction for her books, away from the Dash & Dolly storylines. And that’s when Tag showed up, straight from lockup and police questioning, with a mission to consume every glass of champagne on the premises. He stumbled to the microphone. “We are not the perfect couple” – no shit! – “and yet, I stay. How many women do you know who would try to frame their husbands for murder?” Somehow, even with this statement and his mumbling side references to their enjoyment of threesomes, all of the power of Greer and Tag’s combined charm on stage nearly steadied the ship. But then Tag’s drunken serenading of Greer with Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” led to even more confessions. “She would like you to know that our marriage is deeply, profoundly, and terminally fucked. So you can all stop comparing yourselves to us.” And with that, Tag fell flat on his drunk face.  

In the moment, you could see Greer translating her husband’s outburst as still spinnable, still manageable. But Broderick Graham also made a scene at the event, and that’s gonna be more of a toughy for Greer. “Don’t ignore me!” Graham shouted as he scoffed at Greer’s “bullshit” book jacket, and he got tossed by security. But that also alerted the cops to Broderick Graham’s background. Are you ready for this? It turns out Graham is a low-level criminal who’s recently leveled up, working with the Turkish mafia on their operations moving heroin out of Mumbai, as well as targeted hits. Which is crazy enough – it’s not a backstory that matches the pastels in the room. But the cops have also determined two more interesting facts. Greer called Graham’s room at the Nantucket motel, in the wee hours that surrounded Merritt Monaco’s death. And a wire transfer in the amount of $300k was paid to Broderick Graham by – wait for it – one Shooter Dival. 

Tag wasn’t the only one drunk at the book launch. Benji was there, using whiskey to process the Shooter-Amelia makeout from Perfect Couple Episode 4. He pushed away his buddy’s apologies, and allowed himself to be led into the kitchen by Amelia. And maybe it began as her looking to stabilize her fiancé with water. But it ended with them having sex against the walk-in cooler. “So now you know who I am,” Amelia said later, telling Shooter about the incident. (Really, she was kind of gloating about it.) Everybody in their circle are liars, nothing that happens is actually real and lasting, and instead of rebelling against Greer and the family, Amelia seems to be leaning into it. “So now you know,” Amelia told Shooter with a satisfied gleam in her eye. “I’m just as messed up as everyone else.” 

Abby also agreed with Amelia that Shooter’s really hot. Like, that could be reason enough for her to go after him, just a run-of-the-mill bones jumping. But Abby also let fall another tidbit about Benji’s best bud. While Shooter allowed Amelia to believe he was an outsider to wealth, just like her, Abby lets her know what we already do. Shooter is bodyguards in boarding school rich. “Kidnap rich.” Rich enough to absorb a six figure wire transfer as a favor to Greer, with whom, as we also know, he has a “very close relationship.” 

Tag’s police questioning provided us with more night of the rehearsal dinner flashbacks, this time from his perspective. How Merritt told him about her pregnancy, and how he professed joy while insinuating she should probably get an abortion. What he called inconvenient truths in life that remained unaddressed. Sure, like his marriage and status as a serial cheat? Tag also gave the cops his health app data, which he believes will prove he was asleep at the time of her death. But the flashback was also interesting from Merritt’s perspective. After parting angrily from Tag, she ran into Isabel on the lawn, who applied her very French philosophy to the younger woman’s problem. The affair? It wasn’t an exit ramp. “They never leave,” Isabel told Merritt. “So you have to make the wife leave them. One way or another.”

Detective Henry’s POV on Tag’s interview is that while he’s a rich asshole who looks like he’s lying even when he’s telling the truth, in this case, it seems he’s being honest. The morality police would consider his affair with Merritt a felony offense. But being an irrepressible cad isn’t arrestable. Did Greer really give Chief Carter the bracelet receipt as a means of framing Tag? Could the inspiration for Dolly really do that to her Dash? What would the fans think? But they’re preoccupied. In the aftermath of the book launch chaos, the Greer Garrison Winbury fanclub’s posting viral videos of Tag’s drunken Rick Astley impersonation. 

“I was looking forward to being sisters-in-law, and having an ally around here.” Abby’s kindness toward Amelia in the aftermath of her straying with Shooter extended to them taking the book launch by storm together. “Wear something amazing,” Abby said. “Show them they can’t break you.” But after Amelia and Benji’s impromptu restaurant kitchen sex fest, and her admission to Shooter that she’s warming up to being as equally a terrible person as the Winburys, maybe the wedding is back on? With The Perfect Couple – there’s that lie again – it’s always very hard to say. It seems like everyone around here knows the game, and how to play it. Now it’s just a matter of who will win, and who will lose.

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.