Warning: Spoilers for the Perfect Couple ending ahead!
The Perfect Couple, Netflix’s six-episode adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s novel of the same name, has the perfect ending: a motive, a murder weapon, and an unexpected killer.
The streamer’s latest must-watch series premiered on September 5, and I imagine it will be difficult for viewers to look away from the screen once it starts. That’s not just due to the eye-candy cast, including Liev Schreiber and Nicole Kidman, who star as the “perfect” heads of the wealthy Winbury clan.
If you’ve arrived at the end of the series and are looking to confirm a few loose ends, continue scrolling. If you haven’t yet watched and are simply impatient, turn back! Finish the show! We’ll be here waiting.
Read on for the Perfect Couple ending, explained.
First, a little recap of what we’ve learned up to this point.
In episode one, the body of Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy), the influencer BFF of bride-to-be Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson), is found in the bay outside of the Winburys’ beachside mansion in Nantucket.
Over the course of the series, we learn that Merritt had been having an affair with Tag Winbury (Schreiber) and that she was pregnant with his child at the time of her death. She revealed the news of her pregnancy to Tag on the eve of Amelia’s wedding, and he reacted well enough, though not with the enthusiasm or the “I'll leave my wife for you” exclamation Merritt was probably hoping for. This ordeal was overheard by the youngest Winbury son, Will, who was mysteriously in possession of the bracelet that Tag had bought for Merritt, which she had been wearing on the evening before her death. However, both Tag and Will were eventually cleared by detectives thanks to sufficient alibis.
Greer Winbury, Tag’s uptight, novelist wife, figured out Merritt’s pregnancy on her own, leading police to believe that she had hired a hit man—the gruff and mysterious Broderick Graham, who would not stop calling her—to off her husband’s lover. Detectives also suspected that she had paid said hit man with a loan from Shooter Dival, her son’s friend, who happened to be an heir worth millions.
Amelia also briefly suspected her fiancé Benji (Billy Howle), a painter, after she found photos of Merritt tucked inside a drawer in his room. He later confessed that Merritt had requested a portrait from him in exchange for exposure on her Instagram page. This conflict played out in the midst of Amelia’s own relationship woes, as she worried that she and Benji had rushed a wedding in order to accommodate Amelia’s mother, who was dying of cancer. Amelia also wrestled with feelings for Shooter, Benji’s best friend, with whom she had connected years prior on a B train in Manhattan.
So I got all my burning questions answered.
And the murderer is…
Dakota Fanning! Well, Abby Winbury—played to perfection by Fanning—the WASP-y wife of eldest Winbury boy, Thomas (Jack Reynor).
In a final flashback we see Abby, who is expecting her first child with her buffoon of a husband, “finish” the job that Thomas couldn’t, drowning Merritt on the beach after drugging her with a glassful of crushed up pills—including a heavy-duty barbiturate belonging to Amelia’s cancer-addled mother, which Thomas had stolen for a game of “prescription roulette”—that she had mixed with fresh-pressed orange juice.
Detectives finally put all the pieces together after taking Thomas in for questioning. The air-headed eldest Winbury describes to police how he had gone so far as to take a few of his grandfather’s guns out to the beach, where Merritt had been sitting by the water, in the hours before her death. He tells the detectives that he “changed his mind,” and decided not to fire the weapons; however, in a flashback we see that Isabel—the French woman with whom Thomas was having an affair—was the one who stopped him from pulling the trigger.
Thomas then declares that it must have been Isabel, who had been chatting with Merritt earlier in the evening, who killed Merritt. He explained that he owed Isabel roughly $2 million and had planned to pay her back with the money from his trust fund, which he would have access to when the youngest Winbury child, Will, turned 18 in a few months’ time. However, if Merritt’s baby were born, it would be another 18 years until he could access the trust, which would then be split four ways instead of three. He declares that money must’ve been Isabel’s motive.
But it doesn’t take long for police to find Isabel’s alibi—she and Thomas were hooking up in the back of a car on their way to a motel on the evening of the murder, and that car happened to have a security camera—and for them to put together that Isabel’s motive could also be Abby’s motive. One of the detectives recalls their interview with Gosia, the Winbury family’s housekeeper, who had complained of Abby’s demanding nature and commented that Abby had asked her to wash her clothes, her bedding, and a cup on the morning Merritt’s body was discovered. Abby being the murderer also solves the issue of the beef tallow found on Merritt’s hair, as Abby had famously used a special hand cream containing the ingredient.
Later that day police arrest Abby at the Winbury house.
So, what happened to the rest of the family?
Let’s start with Greer, who, though innocent, did not escape the ordeal unscathed. Under the intense pressure of the investigation as well as a press tour for her latest novel, Greer eventually cracks when she is forced to reveal to detectives that Broderick, her shady caller, is actually her brother, and that she had asked Shooter for a $300,000 loan so that she could pay off Broderick’s gambling debt.
After she is released by the police, she returns home with Broderick and decides to come clean to her family for the first time. Not only does she reveal to her sons that they have an uncle, and that this uncle is a bit of a criminal, but she also tells them the true story of how she met Tag, with whom she was none too pleased, given his drunken outburst at her book event a few days prior. Greer explains that she was a high-end escort, that her brother Broderick was her john, and that she had met Tag while on the job.
The state of Greer and Tag’s relationship post-revelation is unclear, though Greer does say that she would be returning to the city to finish her next book, which would be loosely based on her real-life experience.
After Abby is arrested, the camera pans to the other family members: Tag smokes a blunt with Gosia; Will banters with the caterer he’s crushing on; Isabel berates Thomas for telling the police that she was the killer; Greer stares pensively at the ocean.
By the end of the show Amelia appears to have moved on from both Benji and Shooter, telling the latter that she needs to get back to the woman she was before she became involved with the Winbury family and before she lost her best friend. In a time jump we find Amelia working at a zoo in London, where she is tracked down by Greer.
Greer gives Amelia her latest manuscript and requests Amelia’s approval before she publishes, given that the book is about Amelia’s story. The pair part on good terms, and Greer even hints at a potential future friendship. The end!
