9 Burning Questions We Still Need Answered After ‘The Perfect Couple’ Finale
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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Perfect Couple.]
Forget the fireworks. Netflix’s The Perfect Couple closed out its Fourth of July weekend murder mystery with a few of its own bombshells.
First things first: Who killed Merritt (Meghann Fahy), the maid of honor and best friend of Amelia (Eve Hewson)? To everyone’s surprise (but no one’s chagrin), it was Abby (Dakota Fanning), who learned that Merritt was pregnant from her affair with Abby’s father-in-law, Tag (Liev Schreiber). Keeping that a secret gave plenty of people motive.
But for Abby, a new Winbury heir would reset the trust fund disbursement timeline for her husband, Thomas (Jack Reynor), and his younger brothers. In other words, she married into money, and she wants it now, not in 18 years when this new kid becomes an adult.
So she drugs Merritt, coaxes her into the Pregnant Lady Nighttime Swim Club, and then holds the distraught and disoriented woman underwater until Abby sees her husband’s trust fund back within reach. The only reason she gets caught is because she drugged Merritt with one of the euthanasia pills brought by Amelia’s cancer-stricken mother, Karen (Dendrie Taylor) — and stolen by Thomas because he thought it was Oxycodone.
If all that wasn’t enough to dampen the holiday weekend, Amelia and Benji (Billy Howle) break up. Amelia also ends things with Benji’s best friend and the other point in their love triangle, Shooter (Ishaan Khattar), and a fed-up Greer (Nicole Kidman) reveals to her family, publisher, and anyone within earshot that she was a high-end escort in her younger years who was rented out to clients by her brother, Broderick (Thomas Flanagan). One of those clients was Tag, who paid for her three times before sweeping her off her feet, Pretty Woman–style, a stark contrast to the meet-cute-at-a-gala story they told their kids.
With all those revelations packed into the finale, there were still some loose ends that didn’t get tied up so neatly. Here are our burning questions after watching The Perfect Couple.
The Perfect Couple, Streaming Now, Netflix
1. Did Greer leave Tag?
It certainly seems like the famed author finally struck some fear in her philandering husband after his drunken outburst at her book launch and her big confession to her family. He even says, “It never occurred to me, not even once, that you might actually leave me.” While they don’t explicitly sign divorce papers in the finale, Greer says she is going back to the city to write her next book, and Tag is to stay at the Nantucket house. Living in separate houses doesn’t sound like “the perfect couple” to us. Speaking of her next book…
2. Did Greer ever write about her history as an escort?
After Greer comes clean about her past as an escort, she promises her publisher (Adina Porter) that she’s already working on a book about her experiences and promises it will be “fantastic.” But does she ever write it? We only ask because in the show’s epilogue, she meets with Amelia to hand her a draft of her new book, which she somewhat terrifyingly says is about her former future daughter-in-law. Unless Amelia also has a past as a sex worker, it seems Greer’s autobiography might have been put on hold. But if it ever does get published, we would like a copy ASAP.
3. Did Greer and Amelia become friends?
Greer is definitely trying to make it happen in their final confrontation at the zoo. She dedicates the aforementioned new book to “Almost Friends and Hopefully New Ones.” She has also cheekily titled it Your Move. Showrunner Jenna Lamia previously told TV Insider that writing the contentious relationship between Greer and Ameila was what surprised her most in developing the show. She went as far as to say, “I think their story is just beginning by the end of this series.” So friendship is on the table, as long as Amelia likes the book.
4. Was Broderick really just a red herring all along?
It certainly seems so. Greer’s sad-sack older brother Broderick (Tommy Flanagan) has been calling her all season and eventually showed up at her book launch, one of several people who caused a stir in front of her adoring fans. But ultimately, his threatening presence was just another attempt to squeeze money and attention out of the younger sister he used to pimp out as an escort. As she puts it, she provided for her family then and she’s still doing it now.
5. Did Isabel ever get her money back from Thomas?
This remains to be seen, but Isabel (Isabelle Adjani) did get in a few good punches after his wife was arrested for murder and before the credits rolled. Thomas had plenty of motive to clip any new branches on the family tree that would hinder him getting his trust fund, which he needed to pay back his mistress, Isabel. But as was probably the case for much of their marriage, Abby was a bit more subtle and motivated to get the job done. Will Tom remain as enticing to Isabel now that he’s a bachelor again?
6. What happened to Amelia's mom?
Forgive us for this doom-and-gloom question, but Karen’s prognosis was pretty grim even before she arrived in Nantucket for her daughter’s wedding. Now, without her full set of three euthanasia pills (thanks, Tom!), she no longer has an escape hatch if her cancer takes a turn. Did she end her life on her terms? Or is she still alive in the flash forward? We will never know.
7. Did Detective Henry and Deputy Carl ever date?
Initially hardened to the ways of the Nantucket ecosystem of vacation-home residents and blue-collar locals, Detective Henry (Donna Lynne Champlin) manages to strike up a chummy and seemingly flirtatious relationship with sweet Deputy Carl (Nick Searcy). Once she got her killer in Abby, do we think she stuck around long enough to let Carl take her out for a lobster roll? They serve those in Nantucket, right?
8. How did Abby do in prison?
Fanning was, by far, the comedy MVP of the season, a title she cemented with Abby’s utter shock that pregnant women can, in fact, go to prison for murder. But unfortunately for everyone watching, we don’t get to see the sheer comedy of the social climber behind bars. How does she fare when the affluence she so clearly hungered for is stripped away? How long can her air of superiority really last? We already saw her devastation to learn the Claude Monet painting in the Winbury house was a fake. Imagine what it’s going to be like when she learns the state penitentiary doesn’t offer a spa package?
9. When did the wedding party actually have time to do the opening credits dance?
OK, we obviously know that the absolutely incredible opening titles dance number to Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals” is a fun fever dream meant solely for the audience’s amusement. But don’t pretend you haven’t been wondering every time you watch it when exactly during the already-eventful rehearsal dinner they all had time to learn a choreographed dance and execute it as a group? Logistically impossible, thematically irresistible.
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