Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Perfect Couple” finale.
After “The Perfect Couple” introduced the Winbury family under the thinly veiled facade of perfection, the finale of the Netflix series popped just about every bubble the family had been striving to keep secret.
If you need a refresher, Greer (Nicole Kidman) had prepared an extravagant wedding for her son Benji (Billy Howle) and his bride Amelia (Eve Hewson), which came shattering down when Amelia’s best friend Merritt (Meghann Fahy) was found dead. With Merritt carrying the unborn baby of Tag (Liev Schreiber), Greer’s husband, several family members could’ve had motive to kill her. But, in the finale, the killer was revealed as Abby (Dakota Fanning), Thomas’ wife.
The finale also revealed the secret that Greer had been holding onto for decades: that she previously worked as an escort and Tag was one of her clients. The truth comes out in a purposefully “soapy, frothy and fun” scene, showrunner Jenna Lamia told TheWrap.
“I hope it teaches viewers how to watch it as you go along — it’s really meant to be a fun run,” Lamia said. “Elin Hilderbrand books — I always tell her — are cheaper than a plane ticket, but just as effective …. there is a frothy and unserious element to the show that is by design.”
Below, Lamia unpacks the finale’s killer reveal, the changes from Hilderbrand’s book and how “Legally Blonde” inspired Greer’s “salacious” confession.
In the book, Merritt’s murder is accidentaly, as Abby was trying to drug Isabel’s character to stop the affair with her husband. Why did you want to make the death intentional for the TV adaptation?
I loved the ending of the book, but through the development process, the producers and I all realized that it may feel more satisfying in a television show to have the murder be intentional and targeted. In the book, Abby did put drugs in a drink, but she intended it for the character that became known as Isabel, and it was accidental that Merritt drank it, and then further accidental that Merritt ended up swimming after having drank that. I wanted to honor those pieces of the book, but also give the audience the satisfaction of having had an intentional murder by someone who really intended to murder the victim.
Did you ever consider having a different killer from the book?
I did not consider any other killer. And when we cast Dakota, I sure was glad, because she’s so incredible in that role. She’s so funny and subtle, and I think the Easter eggs that we plant with her are planted early enough in the show … that I don’t think you’re thinking of her by the end.
What was Abby’s motive for killing Merritt?
Her motive is money — Abby is pregnant and she is looking to get into The Beresford, a high-end building in New York, and she’s concerned with having nice things. She’s not past having married Thomas partially because of his wealth. If Merritt were to carry this baby to term and give birth, that would be another Winbury, and the three sons only have access to their shared trust when the youngest Winbury turns 18.
If Merritt stays alive and has this baby, she has to wait another 18 years to get that money, and she’s not willing to do that. I hope it’s clear in the show, she and Thomas have talked about it, and she’s urged him to take care of it, and then when she realizes he pussied out, she has to take matters into her own hands.
In the books, Greer figures out what happens but the family goes on as normal. Why did you want justice to be served via the police to Abby?
I really want the viewers to be satisfied. I’m always putting myself in the place of someone watching the show, and if justice weren’t served, I would certainly be expecting maybe a second season all about justice being served. You can’t do that to the audience unless there’s satisfaction served in some other way, which could have been Abby has a comeuppance that isn’t legal, but I didn’t really want to run over Dakota Fanning with a truck.
I also wanted to give the police a win, because those characters are so smart and so fun to see play off with one another, and their relationship builds over the course of the series to a really strong alliance. It was important to give them the win, especially since they’re the everyman of the show, in addition to Amelia. We also needed Amelia to have that closure.
The finale features this great reveal from Greer that she was actually an escort and met Tag as a client. Where did this idea come from?
That backstory wasn’t in the book and it wasn’t always in the scripts, but I knew I wanted her to have a secret that was preventing her from providing the police with an alibi. Believe it or not, it actually was inspired by a turn in one of my favorite movies, which is “Legally Blonde,” which is totally not the same, but there’s a character who doesn’t want to give her alibi … ad it’s because she was getting liposuction when she was meant to have been teaching an exercise class.
So I thought, borrow from the best. It actually started out as Greer having had this secret that she had plagiarized her first novel, and then through conversations with cast and multiple drafts of the script, it just became clear that what was driving her and keeping her with Tag, in a way where Tag felt like he had this secret power over her, could be a bit more salacious. Those two actors have this great chemistry too … I realized, wouldn’t it be fun if there was a sort of charged sexual backstory to the two of them? These people that are so buttoned up and members of the country club.
Why did you want it to be more of a lighter moment than a dramatic one?
I was pretty nervous about this big reveal, because there aren’t that many actors and directors combined who could pull off this tone, because it’s incredibly precarious. You don’t want to be judgmental about her past — I certainly am not. So I didn’t want it to come off like “I have this dark secret that, should it come out, I would be rightfully judged for” — I wanted it to be a moment of Greer taking her power, which I think was achieved by Nicole and Susanne together.
The scene … has a ton of comedy in it which is, I think, why it works, because we’re not asking the audience to gasp and clutch their pearls, we’re asking them to gasp and laugh and turn to their friends and say, “I knew she was hiding something! I knew something was driving this need to appear perfect all the time, and this seemingly paralyzing fear of being judged.” But at the same time, she’s not even judging herself when she admits it. She’s like, “Come at me.”
We see Amelia and Benji make amends and Amelia breaks off the affair with Shooter. Is there a future for Amelia with either of them?
There could be. It was important to me to write that triangle as both of those men have great qualities — I didn’t want it to be too easy, like one’s the bad boy, one’s the good guy. They both are good people, and it’s not an easy choice, and we understand where her affection is coming from, vis a vis each one of them in a very different way.
I think it’s possible that she could end up with one or the other of them. But I think right now too, her best relationship needs to be with herself. She’s really lost the love of her life, and that was Merritt. So she’s going to grow and heal and probably have a better chooser, a better sense of who her perfect match would be, in due time. She’s young, and so are both of them.
Will Tag and Greer go on as per normal?
I don’t think they’ll go on as per normal. They go through a lot, and of the two of them, Greer has had a noticeable change. She’s really seen some truths about herself that were uncomfortable to face because of her relationship with Amelia, and watching Amelia move through the grief of losing her best friend in such an authentic way.
I think Greer kind of looks up to Amelia in a lot of ways and regrets having spent a lot of her life so worried about what others would think if they knew her authentic self. I don’t know if that new version of Greer still matches well with Tag. I’d be surprised if she does.
Why did Greer write her book about Amelia?
She probably sat down to write a book about the summer and Merritt’s death and how it threw a wrench in her plans, and how the ripples of that pebble went through her family and through the island. In writing about that, I think she started to realize that a lot of her anger and frustration and just general emotion was due to her feelings of jealousy vis a vis Amelia, and what did that say about her and how she had been living her life.
You even know before the show ends that she’s ready to break free of that. I think the process of writing the book led her to a new subject matter, which was really about the pursuit of authentic self and leaving behind the need to appear perfect at all times. I think she was really inspired by Amelia and Merritt’s friendship, and I don’t think she has had a female friendship like that in her life, so I’m hopeful for her that she’ll find one.
Have you had any conversations about continuing the story in another season?
We had a blast making the first season, and you never know what the future will hold. There’s a lot of factors that would have to line up, but you never know.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“The Perfect Couple” is now streaming on Netflix.
