SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for all episodes of ‘The Perfect Couple’.
On a quiet summer morning, a body washes up on a Nantucket beach. A scream splits the air –– and a prominent family is immediately thrown into chaos.
This is how the first episode of Netflix’s soapy drama series ‘The Perfect Couple’ ends, based on the novel of the same name by bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand. Developed for the big screen by showrunner Jenna Lamia (“Good Girls”), the show follows Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson), whose upcoming wedding to Benji Winbury (Billy Howle) is derailed on the day of her wedding when she discovers the corpse of her maid of honor, Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy). As the police investigate Amelia and her fiancé’s family, they discover that every person in the wedding party – from Benji’s imposing mother Greer (Nicole Kidman) to his charismatic best friend Shooter (Ishaan Khattar) – is harboring secrets that threaten Amelia’s family and her can destroy fiancée. the facades that they have all worked hard to maintain.
The show’s release on Netflix on September 5 marks the culmination of five years of development, and many changes have been made to Hilderbrand’s original novel along the way. Variety has compiled a list of the biggest differences between the book and screen version of “The Perfect Couple” – including that killer ending.
Featherleigh Dale, meet Isabelle Adjani
In the series, renowned French actor and two-time Oscar nominee Isabelle Adjani plays the cunning, seductive Isabel Nallet, a family friend of the Winburys and, perhaps more importantly, lover of Thomas (Jack Reynor), the eldest son.
However, Isabel does not appear in the book – although the model for her personality, however marginal, can be found in the character of one Featherleigh Dale. In Hilderbrand’s novel, Featherleigh is a British invader whose financial troubles and profligate selfishness put a significant damper on the weekend’s festivities. Like Isabel, Featherleigh has an affair with Thomas; Unlike Isabel, Featherleigh is a bit of a basket case, though she plays a crucial role in how the book reveals who killed Merritt (more on that later).
Greer’s knowledge runs deep
Matriarch Greer Winbury –– impeccably played by Nicole Kidman in yet another role as a wealthy white woman struggling to keep it together –– bears many similarities to Greer from the book. Both versions of the character are murder mystery novelists, although Kidman’s Greer is a successful writer who has somehow convinced her publisher to throw an expensive-looking party in honor of her new book (although she may have done it herself). paid?), and Greer in the book struggles to revive her dying series. Both characters find their strength in calmness and prefer to remain distant and reserved in their interactions with other people. But the final episode of “The Perfect Couple” portrays a Greer not revealed in the book. In a climactic scene midway through the finale, Greer unleashes perhaps years of pent-up anger and frustration, revealing to her adult children that she actually met her husband Tag (Liev Schreiber) while she was an escort. On top of that shocking announcement, the man who has been calling her constantly throughout the series – the one the police say has ties to the Turkish mafia (???) – is in fact her brother, Broderick Graham (Tommy Flanagan). Greer’s entire backstory as revealed in the series, as well as Broderick’s existence, are not included in the book at all.
Amelia’s parents play a much smaller role in the series
Although we get glimpses of the bride’s relationship with her parents in the series, Celeste’s parents, Karen (Dendrie Taylor) and Bruce (Michael McGrady), are given much more space in the novel. Bruce, a salesman who has worked in a department store all his life, drunkenly confides in Tag that although he never cheated on Karen, he briefly had intense feelings for a former colleague, Robin. Karen overhears and is stunned: although Bruce characterizes Robin as a woman to Tag, she knows that Robin is in fact a man. The scene has no real bearing on the murder mystery itself, as it mainly serves to deepen the relationship dynamic between Karen and Bruce, so perhaps that’s why it was cut for the screen.
Tag is a stoner
In the series, Tag continues to light up. It is unclear in the book whether he knows what weed is.
The ending, explained
In the series finale of “The Perfect Couple,” it is revealed that Thomas’ pregnant wife Abigail (Dakota Fanning) deliberately puts one of Karen’s barbiturate pills in a glass of orange juice and delivers it to a heartbroken Merritt, who is sitting on the couch. beach. After Merritt drinks the juice, Abigail suggests that the two go into the water, where she holds the bridesmaid’s head under water until she drowns. Abigail’s motive is money: she and Thomas are in debt, and he would have had access to his trust once the youngest son, Will (Sam Nivola), turned 18. Merritt’s affair with Tag and her subsequent pregnancy threw a wrench in that. plan: If she gave birth, Thomas’ trust fund clock would start again when the baby was born, and they would have to wait until that child was 18 before they could access the money. Too long, Abigail decided. Hence: murder.
In the book, the drowning is officially labeled an accident by the police, and there is no direct cause of death. Greer is the only one who solves the mystery, and she keeps it to herself. Abigail discovers Thomas’s infidelity and drops a pill in Featherleigh’s drink, hoping to put her to sleep so she doesn’t get involved with Abigail’s husband. However, Featherleigh brings the drink to Merritt. Merritt drinks it and feels sorry for the family friend, who then leaves her to go inside. The bridesmaid wanders the beach, reminiscing about her affair with Tag, and then accidentally cuts her foot on a glass. She wanders into the water to wash it off, sees something shiny at the bottom and realizes it’s the ring Tag gave her, so she dives in, gets sleepy and drowns.
Flash forward
At the very end of the final episode, “The Perfect Couple” flashes forward six months, revealing that Amelia is now working at a zoo in London. As she shows some penguins to some children, Greer approaches her sideways.
‘I wrote something. Something new,” she says, handing over a manuscript of a new book she says is about Amelia. The two have a heartfelt conversation in the middle of the penguin enclosure, during which Greer admits that she used to hate Amelia, but no longer does; in fact, she now hopes they can become friends. The title of the new book? “Your move.”
This scene does not appear in the book – which ends with Merritt’s drowning, told from her perspective – and it is perhaps an attempt to add a metafictional element to the series: the circular serendipity of a murder mystery writer who writes about her own story. real life murder mystery. While we can’t know for sure if Amelia will accept the olive branch, perhaps the jubilant mood of the show’s closing dance scene – in which director Susanne Bier twirls around with the characters – indicates that viewers can go home with a sense of purpose. , if not on the shores of Nantucket, then at least in the glory of another realm.