The Perfect Couple Series-Finale Recap: A Publicity Triage
Talk about ripping the band-aid off, huh? The Perfect Couple uses its final episode to power through multiple reveals — yes, including the identity of Merritt’s killer — and wrap up every loose end dangling over the season. It is very satisfying! It also manages to have several laugh-out-loud moments, which is really something for a murder show, and Nicole Kidman takes the time to demonstrate the only way we can pronounce the word “escort” from now on. You have to give it up to showrunner Jenna Lamia and director Susanne Bier for the absolute perfect pacing of these six episodes. No filler! Even the red herrings wound up important to character development and/or plot points. And they had time to give us a BTS version of the opening credits group dance number on top of everything else. What a feat!
We’ve got two major issues to handle at the top of the finale. First: Tag. Oh, Tag. This man’s little performance has gone viral, obviously, and Greer’s PR team has arrived to help with damage control. The best part is that Tag cannot remember anything he said up on that stage — not even the threesome thing, which, as Hyacinth and Brad (perfect tertiary characters, by the way) point out, really doesn’t mesh with Greer’s brand. Tag won’t have to answer for his meltdown, though, because as Enid informs him, he really does seem like he could use a rest, poor thing.
They’re sending Tag to rehab! The scene in which the PR team and Tag’s three sons sit around and help him rehearse his statement to the press is such a delightful send-up of the insincerity of the rich; oh, it made me giggle. The PR team forcing Tag to go to the more relatable rehab and not the “good one” in Malibu? Love that. Tag looking to Tom to attest to if the “relatable” one is a shithole like everyone says because Tom has been there? Inspired. Benji’s note that maybe his dad should try giving his statement about an alcohol addiction without a drink in his hand? Perfect. Tag then slamming that drink down to go through it one more time and getting a round of applause at the end? I treasure this scene so much.
While this is going on, because of the overwhelming evidence pointing toward Greer, the police have confiscated her computer and brought her in for questioning. Once again, Nicole Kidman is so great here. Her body language, her facial expressions, everything tells us that this is a woman exhausted from keeping secrets. Compare it to how Greer acts in the first few episodes — the change has been subtle but consistent. And by the time Detective Henry and Chief Carter lay out all the evidence they have against her — Broderick Graham, the money wire — she knows whatever ruse she’s pulling is on its last legs.
Henry and Carter’s big move is to bring Broderick Graham in for questioning along with her. All this time, we’ve seen Broderick as this figure to be feared. At first, a man seemingly out to get Greer, then a menacing hired gun. The reveal that Broderick is not just Greer’s brother but her complete idiot of a brother is so fun. With nowhere else to turn, Greer flat out tells the police that Broderick has a gambling addiction and she has had to pay off his debts for years — the $300,000 to the Turkish mafia is just the latest in a long line of trouble she’s helped this doofus get out of. (She asked Shooter for a loan, but he had no idea what it was for.) Henry and Carter are at a loss — they did not see this coming and now they have no real leads left. It’s a great last wrench to throw into the proceedings, and capping it off with an annoyed Greer asking, “Want me to take him with me?” and Henry answering with an emphatic “yes” is a perfect button, no notes.
But a secret dumb brother with a gambling problem is not the only reveal Greer has in store for us. When she and Broderick get home, the fam is all still in the living room going over strategy with the PR team and baby, does mom have an announcement to make. Doesn’t Greer already seem lighter, freer, and less clenched? Tag tries to tell her that everything will go back to normal once he goes to rehab, but she doesn’t want to go back to normal. She is tired of Tag using her truth as a way to keep her with him (she saw his little rant about how “colorful” she secretly is as a threat) and so she, too, decides to rip the band-aid off. When Greer met Tag, she was a high-end escort — excuse me, an ESCORT — Broderick was the one who managed her clientele, and yes, Tag was one of her clients. Tag trying to lie about it to his kids and claim he never actually paid for sex with their mom and both Greer and Broderick being like, you did pay, you paid three times, is hilarious. Also, please do yourself a favor and go back and watch all the kids, including Abby and Amelia, react to Greer’s admission; it will not disappoint.
She tells Tag that she is not living in fear of him exposing her anymore; it is not worth putting up with his ego or his bullshit. She exhales. She feels lighter. She is a woman reborn. And now she’s going to have a fucking cup of tea, okay?
Now, this is all really fun to watch, and I’m sorry to remind you about this, but there was an innocent woman murdered, and we still have not solved her case. But not for long!
After Amelia casually mentions that they found barbiturates in Merritt’s bloodstream at her time of death during a conversation with her parents, Karen is beside herself. She realizes that one of her three pentobarbital pills is missing from her case, and they immediately inform the police. Refreshing, no? As Carter and Henry question Karen and take her pill bag to run prints, it dawns on Benji: prescription roulette. If anyone stole a pill from a woman dying of cancer, it would be Thomas.
How wonderful was it to watch Amelia scream the phrase “you pill-popping boarding school fuck” at Thomas? Tom sucks so hard, and I love him so much. (As a character, I’m not a psychopath.) Regardless, Henry and Carter take him down to the station. Abby acts confused as to what is going on but the camera lingers on her after Tom leaves and that is a knowing face if I’ve ever seen one. Not long after, we find her wiping down Tom’s pill drawer — take that for what you will!!
Tom Winbury’s interrogation is about as ridiculous as you’d expect since he seems to take after his uncle in that he is truly a dumb fuck. He cops to stealing Karen’s pill but says he thought it was an oxy and was saving it for himself — he never gave it to Merritt. And then Thomas (poorly) connects some dots. He tells Carter and Henry that it had to be Isabel. He admits that after learning Merritt was pregnant (word spread quickly, apparently), he decided to grab his grandfather’s gun from the Winbury gun closet and scare her into getting an abortion. Isabel, coming up off the beach after her toast with Merritt in the Adirondack chairs, stops him and tells him not to worry about her; this is all going to end badly for her anyway. We, of course, know she means that this affair with Tag isn’t going to go her way — Tom now thinks this was her hinting at killing her.
At least Tom’s theory as to why Isabel might want to murder Merritt is helpful: The trust fund. Apparently, there is a stipulation that the trust fund remains unavailable to the Winbury children until the day the youngest turns 18. Will turns 18 in a month. If Merritt were to have Tag’s baby, that baby would be the youngest, and they’d not only have to wait another 18 years but then split the trust between four of them.
Isabel is not our killer. We know this because she arrives at the station and laughs in Henry and Carter’s faces — why would she kill for money? She’s the one who gave Tom two million dollars, knowing she’d never see it again; She doesn’t need money. Also, they wind up finding a video recording of Tom and Isabel having sex in the back of a cab on the way to Sand Dollar, where they spent the night before Merritt’s estimated time of death. It couldn’t be either of them.
It’s Detective Henry who realizes there is someone who has been lying to them from the beginning: Miss Shocked and Appalled that Monet is a Fake herself, Abby Winbury. Thanks to that taxi sex tape and some details from Gosia’s interview with the cops, Henry remembers Abby telling her that Tom woke her up getting into bed that night — this is a lie; Tom never went to bed that night. Gosia also mentions Abby harping on her to wash a glass with hot water, and Henry remembers Abby washing that glass the morning of the murder and acting nervous when she questioned her. The glass could’ve been how Abby got the pentobarbital in Merritt’s system. They wouldn’t be able to find traces of it now, but they did find traces of tallow and some other substances in Merritt’s hair. Do you know who loves to brag about the forbidden skincare ingredients she uses? Abby Winbury.
Detective Henry still does her due diligence and before releasing Tom, she has a casual chat with Abby, at the station to pick up her husband. Henry gets her on a rant about Isabel: “I don’t believe in slut-shaming, but there’s no way she’s tight,” she says at one point. She knows her husband is sleeping with Isabel; she knows Isabel had an affair with Tag, too. She’s disgusted by the whole thing, but it leads her to confirm her lie about Thomas sleeping in their bed that night. That’s all the detective really needs.
Not long after, the Winburys are hanging poolside as Tom regales them with a harrowing story about his day at the police station, where they did not feed him even once! Can you believe? He goes on and on about his Isabel theory and the trust fund motive and just as we see Greer putting it together that it must have been Abby — who is relaxing on a chaise, working that baby bump — the police show up. Abby Winbury is under arrest for the murder of Merritt Monaco. “I can’t go to jail; I’m pregnant,” Abby yells. “Yeah, that’s not a thing,” replies Detective Henry. (Again, Donna Lynne Champlin is so freaking good in this role! I miss Henry and Carter already!) It is an arrest for the ages, kids!
As Abby is carted off by the police, we finally see what happened to Merritt. We go back to the moment Tom and Isabel scampered off and as it turns out, Abby catches them from her deck. Could it be? She has some tears in her eyes — it’s the only time she’s really been even remotely vulnerable. She sees Merritt getting up from her chair and she makes the decision right then and there. She is getting that pentobarbital pill, crushing it up into a nice glass of cold-pressed orange juice, and she is going to kill Merritt Monaco. There is no wavering or hand-wringing; she decides to do it, and then she does. For sure, her main motivating factor is that trust fund money, but there is no world in which the fact that Merritt is having an affair and that Merritt is destroying Greer’s marriage the way Isabel is destroying her own doesn’t make the job a little easier. If Isabel is right when she tells the cops that women really only kill for power — well, this is surely a power move on several levels.
Abby sits next to a teary-eyed, mascara stain, absolutely exhausted Merritt on the beach and hands her the juice. She commiserates with her about men being liars and cheaters and disappointments. “You really can’t trust them to just get the job done,” she says. Then, she convinces a noticeably woozy Merritt to join her in a cold night swim. When they wade out into the water, Abby holds Merritt’s head underwater until she’s dead. Then Abby, in her cute matching pj set, simply walks away and back to her room. The most shocking part of all is how calm Abby is throughout the entire thing. It’s like she’s simply performing a chore — there is absolutely no emotion here. Chilling!
Afterward, we learn that with the case closed, things mostly go back to normal around Summerland, but with some slight changes. Tag and Greer are splitting up. Tag definitely still loves Greer. Greer is going to write a fabulous book. Will and Chloe are being cute together and Will seems to be the happiest we’ve seen him. Isabel is absolutely going to shred Tom’s balls for turning her over to the police. And Amelia gets some satisfying closure with both Benji and Shooter, although it’s clear she wants to get as far away from everything that happened. And she does, mostly.
Six months later, she’s working at the London Zoo when Greer approaches her. It’s a real surprise, you know, since Greer hated Amelia with the fiery passion of 1,000 burning suns. But not anymore, apparently! Greer admits that she was really jealous of Amelia. Amelia was free to be herself. Free to save ladybugs in her underwear, etcetera. She’s here because she’s written a new novel and it’s about Amelia. She wants her to read it; she thinks she’ll like it. She tells her to give her a call once she’s read it, and they can get dinner. “I hope you call. I’d love to see you,” Greer says with a smile before she goes. Personally, I’d be like, are you going to read me for filth anytime I stick a carbohydrate in my face, or are we good? before agreeing to anything, but Amelia seems satisfied with her once-future mother-in-law’s new outlook on life. Maybe they should just agree never to take this budding friendship anywhere near Nantucket.