‘The Perfect Couple’ Episode 2 Recap: “She Would Never Do That” 

In the immediate aftermath of Merritt Monaco’s death as we begin The Perfect Couple Episode 2, the mood around Summerland is not so much sadness as it is inconvenienced. Tom just has to throw the Winburys’ financial support of Nantucket public works in the local cops’ faces. When it’s suggested they donate Amelia and Benji’s tiered custom wedding cake, this paragon of shittiness says “the last thing poor people need is more sugar.” And because Merritt died under mysterious circumstances inside this cushy boundary of Nantucket Rich Person Land, bride-to-be Amelia Sacks also has to overhear her would-be in-laws huddling for a team meeting about how to mitigate the damage. Damage to them, that is. “We agreed on suicide,” Greer Garrison Winbury announces, as if Merritt’s undetermined cause of death is the famous novelist’s challenge to sculpt. “She would never do that,” Amelia tells the Winburys. Merritt had something to live for…

Like a murder mystery dinner party, The Perfect Couple is already showing plenty of reasons to suspect – or in Tom’s case, hate – a whole lot of people in the Winbury circle. But even this early in the limited series, it’s the personal baggage piled high beside each character that makes us fully seated and giddy. Not only did Merritt’s pre-death argument with Amelia on the beach reveal her illicit affair with Tag Winbury, but Greer spied the pricey bracelet on Merritt’s wrist, the one her husband purchased in secret. Even if Roger the wedding planner says their marriage has curdled into one of convenience, watching Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber sit on a well-appointed veranda together as Greer and Tag – the raging silence between them broken only by tinkling Tom Collins glasses – is a rich text of saucy and satisfying drama. 

And that’s just one part of it! “You’re getting married,” Merritt told Amelia through tears on the beach, the night before the wedding. “It can’t just…end…” and then Amelia knew the worst of it. Her bestie was fucking her fiancé’s father. But when she died, Merritt was also pregnant with Tag’s baby. It’s a development right out of a daytime soap, and why the hell not. The Perfect Couple is giving scrumptious, delicious, insidious.

“I don’t mean this in a judgy way” – that’s exactly how she means it – “but Merritt had connections with lots of guys.” As Abby Winbury, Dakota Fanning is sly, cutting, demanding, and kind of awesomely powerful in her own right, existing in Greer’s Venn diagram of power but also operating in her own distinct circle. But does Abby know what her sneering frat boy husband Tom is up to, besides losing loads of money on crypto exchanges? He’s at a motel outside the Nantucket wealth zone continuing his ongoing affair with Isabel Nallet, the elegant French friend of the Winburys who casually mentions while in bed with Tom that she also once slept with Tag. At this point – and it’s crazy we’re only two episodes in – if Gosia the maid lives up to Abby’s stated suspicion that the woman longs to have sex with “DILF” Tag Winbury, we wouldn’t be surprised at all. 

On the cops’ end, they’ve got Tag’s beloved boat at the crime scene, a man’s blazer, and Merritt’s recovered phone, complete with a set of fingerprints belonging to best man Shooter Dival. Shooter, after acting all shifty with Benji, bugs out for Steamboat Wharf and a ferry off Nantucket island, but he’s apprehended by Detective Henry and Chief Carter. And after a drunk, stoned Tag tries to assure Amelia that Merritt was “very special” while also leering at his soon-to-be-daughter-in-law’s figure, Amelia ignores Greer’s orders to close ranks and drives to the police station. “There’s something I think you should know,” she tells Detective Henry and the chief. And they tell her there were signs of a struggle. We don’t yet know exactly what happened to Merritt. But her affair with Tag, the potential involvement of Shooter, the very real possibility of an unrevealed wild card, and Amelia’s own fractured recall from the night in question are building a tension that’s bound to crest quickly in a limited series of only six episodes. To borrow a phrase from the medium it was adapted from, The Perfect Couple is becoming a real page turner.

Ameila has lost Merritt, who despite all the dramatic developments was still her best friend. And Karen (Dendrie Taylor) and Bruce (Michael McGrady), her Pennsylvania nice parents who are so out of place at Summerland – jeez Gosia, why you gotta slag on Karen’s gift of “grocery store bananas,” where else is she gonna get them – are also dealing with Karen’s advanced cancer diagnosis. (In another gloriously cutting moment, Gosia mentioned how the Winburys moved up the wedding to the Fourth of July “to accommodate Mrs. Sacks’ dying schedule.”) But now, on top of it all, Amelia also has Benji, the supposed love of her life, doing Greer’s bidding by bringing his fiancée a non-disclosure agreement to sign. He holds out a pen. “Look, she’s a public figure, she has people sign them all the time.” Seriously, dude? Over and over again, the Winbury boys keep proving that the only woman in their lives they’re truly willing to respect and support is Greer. Amelia ends up signing the NDA. But it feels like she’s not someone joining a family at their level, but as an employee who could be terminated at any time for any reason. Talk about being inconvenienced.       

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.