Editor’s note: This post contains spoilers for “The Perfect Couple,” including the ending.
Netflix‘s six-part adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s 2018 book “The Perfect Couple” is a loyal adaptation of the beloved, bestselling murder mystery that stars Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Meghann Fahy, Dakota Fanning, and more.
The story follows a wedding weekend in Nantucket where fancy author Greer (Kidman) has planned an elaborate wedding for her son Benji (Billy Howle) and his bride-to-be Amelia (Eve Hewson). The morning of the wedding, however, Amelia’s maid of honor Merritt (Fahy) washes up dead on the beach and the story becomes a whodunnit, with nearly everyone harboring secrets and motives, including affairs, greed, lust, and envy.
The book switches up timelines as well as perspectives, with several characters all getting their narrator moment. In IndieWire’s review of the Netflix series, Ben Travers wrote that it “invites you to guess the killer, without ever providing enough information to make any such guess an educated one. Instead, it doles out plenty of red herrings and petty disputes to keep the melodrama nice and sudsy. The main location (Winbury Mansion) provides the requisite house (and beach) porn. The actors add their own flourishes of entertainment … and all that is entertaining, to an extent. But nothing lasts, in the short- or long-term. Intriguing side plots get cut off. Curious character arcs stop short. Any kind of class commentary is negated by the show’s obvious devotion to making sure you like this family.”
Beyond small differences that don’t really matter (Tag and Greer have two sons in the novel, three on the show; Shooter’s name and backstory are changed; the detective characters are changed up a bit), there are also a few major switches between the book and TV show — particularly when it comes to the murderer.
Below, some of the biggest changes in “The Perfect Couple” between the book and the TV adaptation.
Greer’s Backstory
One of the soapiest twists in the TV series is that Greer (Kidman) used to be a sex worker, and that’s how she ultimately met her husband, Tag (Schreiber). This out-of-left-field twist is nowhere to be found in the book. In an interview on Netflix’s Tudum platform, the creative team noted they wanted this reveal to be “comedic” not “melodramatic.” Mission accomplished!
Because that whole background is new, Greer’s brother is also just a TV invention and most likely designed as another red herring.
The Main Character
In the book, the bride-to-be de facto main character is Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson), a woman marrying into one of Nantucket’s wealthiest families. In the book, this character is named Celeste. The creator said the name changed because they didn’t want to confuse audiences, given that Nicole Kidman has famously previously played a woman named Celeste (in “Big Little Lies”).
In the book, Amelia and the best man, Benji’s friend Shooter (Ishaan Khattar), plan to elope on the day of her planned wedding to Benji (brutal!). On the show, they just kiss, likely because it is pretty hard to root for someone who would do something like that, no matter how terrible his family may be.
In the book, there is also a major plot point where Amelia has a stutter, one that disappears when she’s with Shooter. She’s stutter-free on the show.
The Ending
The biggest change in the adaptation is the ending.
In the book, Abby (Fanning) is still the one who kills Merritt, but all the circumstances are different. Abby is furious about her husband Thomas constantly cheating on her with Featherleigh, so she takes one of Celeste/Amelia’s mom’s euthanasia pills to knock Featherleigh out. Only the drink was consumed by Meritt, not Featherleigh. She likely doesn’t even realize she’s responsible — and she gets away with it. The police rule the drowning an accident, and Greer, the excellent mystery writer, only puts it together when she overhears Abby and Thomas arguing over him cheating on her.
Greer vows to take this secret to the grave (gotta protect the family!), and the final pages of the novel show readers Merritt, woozy from the pill-filled drink, cutting her foot on the beach. She then goes into the water because she thinks she sees the ring Tag gave her earlier and knows it’ll be the only thing he ever provides for her and the baby, so she wants it to give to her daughter one day. She then becomes sleepy, so she lies down to float. “Where is the ring?” Merritt on the final page of the book wonders. “There it is. She sees it. Like love, she thinks, it is just beyond her reach.“
The TV show ending is a lot less ambiguous. Abby did it, and she gets a big showy arrest at the house in front of her whole family. (Tag is hitting golf balls, but he eventually notices the police.) Abby’s motivation is that her family needs the money from the trust and with Merritt’s baby about to be the new youngest sibling, they now won’t get the trust money for 18 years. So baby (and Merritt) gotta go. (The trust situation isn’t a plot point in the book.)
Abby goes out to the beach, gives her the drink with the mashed-up pills, and then invites her, pregnant lady to pregnant lady, to go for a quick nighttime swim. Once in the water, Abby holds Merritt under until she drowns, then goes back to the house, confident that she’ll get away with it.
The show’s epilogue (six months later) of Greer visiting Amelia at the zoo with a new manuscript? That’s one final TV show invention.
“The Perfect Couple” is streaming now on Netflix.