‘The Perfect Couple’ Episode 6 Recap: “That Feels Better”

With the murderer of Merritt Monroe finally revealed – “It’s true if you want something done right, you just have to do it yourself; I bet a woman said that…” – let’s first run down a few of the threads The Perfect Couple had everyone grabbing on for the entirety of this satisfyingly soapy, often very outrageous limited series. Tag Winbury: a perpetually stoned society guy, cut off from his family fortune, who spends his time dreaming up new ways to fall backwards into toxic marital infidelity. (But he’s not a murderer.) Shooter Dival: a rich jetsetter with a wandering eye of his own who also has a weirdly close relationship with his boarding school roommate’s mom. (But, also not a murderer.) Will Winbury: the youngest son and soon-to-be recipient of a trust fund worth millions, who harbored a schoolboy crush on Merritt and hates his father for his philandering ways. (However, a lover of sailing, not murdering.) Isabel Nallet: a Frenchwoman, and an enjoyer of money and other people’s husbands, like the Winburys’ #1 son and chief asshole, Tom. (But murdering does not suit her needs.) And finally, pregnant Abby, who didn’t want an unborn Winbury scion muddying up her access to Tom’s hefty cut of said trust fund.

But wow. Crushing up pills to dose the also pregnant Merritt’s juice, before holding the woman’s head under water until she was dead? On the morning of a family wedding? And after she offered her allyship to Amelia? Damn. That’s a cold-pressed twist we didn’t see coming.

As The Perfect Couple Episode 6 began, the public fallout was still raging from Tag’s drunk and blabby Episode 5 outburst at Greer’s book launch party. The press was pushing against Summerland’s gates, the salacious TMZ headlines were trending, and Greer Garrison Winbury’s handlers were attempting to spin that what they’d sold as the inspiration for the hit Dash & Dolly books – Greer and Tag as a hot cishet monogamous duo – was sometimes more than that, or “The Perfect Throuple.” Greer was even hauled in for police questioning, based on her phone calls to Broderick Graham and authorities’ suspicion she’d put out a hit on Merritt. But while Broderick did demand $300,000, and received it from Greer via Shooter Dival, that whole bit was a feint. In a rather funny interrogation room scene, Broderick is revealed to be Greer’s brother, who needed the cash for a gambling debt. And the Winbury boys never knew they had an uncle. But wait! There’s more! 

“I was an escort. I had sex with men for money. My brother organized the clientele. And your father was one of those men.” The admission is part of Greer’s ripping off of a years-long Band-Aid, her coming clean moment with the fam about the secret they didn’t know they were keeping. But it also sets up her decision to finally separate from Tag. Not only is she done living the lie, she’s also had it with his decades of two-timing bullshit. It’s another scene that despite its seriousness is tinged with real humor, because the Perfect Couple ensemble is just that good. (Their collective breath-holding at whether Greer maybe did murk Merritt like the police originally thought is terrific.) But Nicole Kidman is the best in this scene, because just like Greer, she’s free to crack open her veneer of haughty seriousness and let it all hang out. “Phew!” Kidman as Greer says, her perfect hair suddenly a bit more wild and free. “That feels better.” 

So where does all this leave us? Tag will stay at Summerland while Greer writes her next book at their place in Manhattan. Will, Benji, and Tom will receive their trust fund money upon Will’s 18th birthday, which is right around the corner. (Will is seen laughing with Chloe, the police chief’s daughter, so we can assume they’re officially an item.) With his pregnant wife arrested and booked for the murder of Meritt Monaco, Tom is still chasing around Isabel, who says she’s still owed millions for a house she purchased (for them?) in Aix-en-Provence. And Benji is seen putting Amelia and her parents in a cab. “I don’t know who I am right now,” Amelia told Shooter by way of an apology. But she knows who she was before she met Benji, before their whirlwind engagement, and before the Winbury fortune inspired her almost sister-in-law to selfishly, callously kill her best friend.

When The Perfect Couple hits us with a “Six Months Later,” it’s with Amelia working with animals and children at the London Zoo, where she’s surprised to see Greer roll up out of the blue. “I thought you were happy to get rid of me,” Amelia tells her, and Greer agrees that’s the case. (“I was dreadfully angry at you.”) But Greer also admits that it was mostly her jealousy of Amelia doing the talking, and she hands her a copy of the manuscript to her brand new book. Working title: Your Move. “I’ve written it all down as a good writer should, so give it a read, and if you don’t hate it, give me a call. I think you’re gonna love it. It’s about you.” There is currently no indication of a Perfect Couple Season 2. But maybe it would star Kidman and Eve Hewson in London, free of Winbury money insanity and doing things for themselves? Just a theory. This show proved to be terrific at generating those, and the more outrageous the better.

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.