The Perfect Couple Ending Explained - Who Killed Merritt?

Netflix kicked off its killer September lineup when it released the limited series "The Perfect Couple" near the beginning of the month. Based on the novel of the same name by Elin Hilderbrand — dubbed the queen of beach reads by New York magazine — it begins with the wealthy Winbury family preparing for a wedding, only to have those plans interrupted when a corpse washes up on the beach. The deceased is soon revealed to be Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy), who was bride-to-be Amelia Sacks's (Eve Hewson) best friend and set to be the maid of honor in the wedding. 

At first, it seems like Amelia is the only real connection that Merritt had with the Winbury family. But as "The Perfect Couple" unfolds, that proves not to be the case — and not only did multiple people have a history with Merritt, but pretty much everyone stood to benefit from her being taken out of the picture for one reason or another. So who actually killed Merritt, why did they kill her, and how did all of that tie together with the events before and after her death? Let's take a deep dive into all of that, including insight from some of the stars of "The Perfect Couple" as well as several of the creatives that brought it to life. 

Most of the action in "The Perfect Couple" takes place at the Nantucket beachfront mansion of the Winbury family. The matriarch is Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman), a prolific and extremely successful mystery novelist, who primarily shares the home with husband Tag (Liev Schreiber) and youngest child Will (Sam Nivola). Their adult children Benji (Billy Howle) and Thomas (Jack Reynor) — along with Thomas' wife, Abby (Dakota Fanning) — have come for Benji's wedding to Amelia. Also in town are Amelia's best friend Merritt, and Benji's best friend Shooter Dival (Ishaan Khatter).

However, the only event that is successfully pulled off is the rehearsal dinner. When Merritt's body is discovered on the beach, the wedding is of course put on hold. The police show up to investigate, and soon find a surprising number of potential killers among those in and around the Winbury clan. Tensions were already high between Amelia and the Winburys, with most of them not feeling as though she's good enough for Benji. But Merritt's death really complicates the dynamic of pretty much every relationship in the group — friendly, familial, romantic, or otherwise. Fingers are pointed, accusations fly, and everyone is soon at each other's throats as the shocking revelations begin to pile up.

It's eventually revealed that Merritt was pregnant with Tag's baby when she died, putting both Tag and Greer near the top of the suspect list — Tag for obvious reasons, and Greer because a love child with another woman would destroy the perception that Greer and Tag are the ideal couple. And that perception is what her entire brand as a writer hinges upon.

But Merritt having Tag's child also means major issues for the Winbury children, as the boys need to all be 18 years old in order for them to access the family trust. They're on the home stretch to financial freedom with Will's pending 18th birthday, but Merritt's baby would also be Tag's child — which means that the trust would be inaccessible until that baby turns 18. Benji and Amelia aren't shown to be particularly money hungry, but Thomas and Abby very much are, and they both seem like the type who would do something drastic in order to get that trust money sooner rather than later. 

Not to mention Thomas's mistress, Winbury family friend Isabel Nallet (Isabelle Adjani), has lent Thomas $2 million and is counting on getting repaid once Thomas gets his trust money. So that's at least five people with a pretty compelling motive for wanting to make Merritt disappear because she was pregnant with Tag's child.

Throughout "The Perfect Couple," we are given glimpses of what happened the night Merritt died from the perspectives of various people — some with varying degrees of involvement, and some, as it turns out, with none at all. But in the sixth and final episode, we are finally shown the full sequence of events that leads to Merritt's drowning. Merritt has an argument with Tag over their affair, but he doesn't kill her. Meanwhile, Thomas — who had considered both trying to talk Merritt into terminating her pregnancy and trying to shoot her — ultimately doesn't go through with either of those plans.

Instead, it's actually Abby who murders Merritt. She watches from a balcony as Thomas and Isabel leave together after Isabel talks Thomas out of threatening Merritt. So Abby decides to take matters into her own hands. She goes down to the beach and pretends to comfort a very upset Merritt, first by having a drink with her — a drink that Abby has spiked with drugs. Abby then suggests that she and Merritt go for a swim. Once Merritt is in the water, she begins to feel dizzy from her drink, making her weak and vulnerable enough for Abby to hold Merritt's head under the water until she drowns. 

While "The Perfect Couple" isn't one of those TV shows that ignored the book it was based on, there were some changes made in the move from page to screen — including the nature of Merritt's death.

In the original book, Merritt does drown as a result of the drugs that Abby puts in her drink. However, Abby actually tries to poison the drink of Featherleigh Dale (the book's version of Isabel Nallet) out of revenge for Featherleigh and Thomas's affair. Only it's Merritt, not Featherleigh, who ends up picking up the glass with the poisoned cocktail. Merritt then accidentally drowns while swimming after having taken the drugs. 

As for why the change was made, the show's main writer, Jenna Lamia, told IndieWire that the novel's ending relied heavily on being able to hear Merritt's inner monologue. "Unless we were heavily, heavily using voiceover that wasn't going to work or be as effective as the tone of this show needs it to be," Lamia explained. "So I realized that it may be more satisfying for the audience to find out that there was a murderer who fully intended to murder the person they murdered." Lamia went on to explain that Abby's motives also needed to be about more than just jealousy, so the pregnancy and trust fund wrinkles were added to give Abby the reasons she required to want to murder Merritt.

Tag and Will both interact with Merritt the night she's murdered. Merritt and Tag discuss Merritt's pregnancy, and while he takes the news pretty well considering, he makes it clear that he has no intention of leaving Greer for her. That is what makes Merritt upset and puts her in a position of vulnerability for Abby to take advantage of her. Will, who overhears the conversation between Merritt and his dad, tells Merritt — whom he has a crush on — that he'll help her out any way that he can. He also finds her bracelet on the beach, which he takes and hides for safekeeping.

While they don't do themselves any favors by not telling the police that they saw and spoke to Merritt just before she died, neither Tag nor Will actually have anything directly to do with Merritt's death. Isabel, briefly considered a suspect due to her wanting Thomas to get the trust money so he can pay her back, also doesn't do anything to harm Merritt that night. In fact, she might have stopped Thomas from doing so. 

The only person besides Abby to actually contribute directly to Merritt's death is Thomas, as he is the one who has the pills that Abby uses to drug her. But he's also cleared of any wrongdoing when it's revealed that he had them for recreational use, and had no intention of using them to harm Merritt or anyone else. 

Of course, the stars of "The Perfect Couple" have their own thoughts about the way the series ended and the fact that Abby was the perpetrator. Liev Schreiber reinforced the decision to change the ending from the way it played out in the book, telling USA Today, "We had to change (the ending) because we didn't want the audience to know what was going on. We had to have that element of surprise. It's so important, not just to the book, but especially for the show." 

Schreiber also had high praise for Dakota Fanning in her portrayal of aspiring heiress-turned-murderer Abby Winbury, saying that actor and character couldn't be more different. Schreiber said Abby is the "the queen of vapid" on screen, but that Fanning is "actually deeply intelligent. But she does vapid like you would not believe, and it's hilarious. It's so good." Nicole Kidman chimed in, not only offering her own praise of Fanning but saying that "The Perfect Couple" — like the best mystery shows of all time — is the type of show that rewards a rewatch after you know how it ends. "When you watch it again [...] you see all the layers," Kidman said. 

At the beginning of "The Perfect Couple," there are four main couples in the ensemble: Tag and Greer, Benji and Amelia, Thomas and Abby, and Amelia's parents, Bruce and Karen Sacks (Michael McGrady and Dendrie Taylor, respectively). There is also the seemingly budding romance between Will and Chloe (Mia Isaac), who happens to be the daughter of the local police chief. Then there are the various side pairings, as it were, including Thomas and Isabel, Tag and Merritt, and — as it's later revealed — Amelia and Shooter, some of whom could definitely be contenders for the most toxic couples in TV history. 

So which couples make it, at least as far as we are aware? Well, Amelia decides that Benji isn't husband material for her after all. She also doesn't follow up on her tryst with Shooter, opting to spend some time figuring herself out. Tag and Greer's marriage blows up in spectacular fashion, and Greer divorces him. We don't know for sure if Thomas pledges to wait for Abby, but Abby is clearly going to be in prison for a very long time. Whether Thomas seeks comfort in the arms of Isabel while Abby is locked up is neither confirmed nor denied. 

Meanwhile, Amelia's parents walk away from the whole thing unscathed — although, considered the wedding was moved ahead specifically to ensure that cancer-stricken Karen would live long enough to see her daughter get married, it's clear she doesn't have long. 

According to Liev Schreiber, Dakota Fanning enjoyed getting to play the murderer in "The Perfect Couple" and playfully lorded it over everyone. But what has Fanning herself said about playing conniving killer Abby Winbury? The actor told Vanity Fair, "Before I had read any script, I knew that I was being tasked with the murder, and I was thrilled by that, to be honest." Fanning was the second person cast in "The Perfect Couple" after Nicole Kidman, and had previously worked with show director and executive producer Susanne Bier on the 2022 Showtime series "The First Lady."

"I loved getting to dive into this heightened world to get to play a character who is outrageous, and ultimately responsible for the crux of the show. It was really exciting to just relish in the devilish behavior," Fanning further elaborated. She said that she and co-star Jack Reynor, who played Thomas, had a lot of fun coming up with little side stories for Abby and Thomas on the set and revealed that they became close friends by the end of production. 

Beyond figuring out who killed Merritt, the primary source of conflict in "The Perfect Couple" is arguably the one between Amelia and Greer. Greer doesn't think Amelia is good enough for her Benji — and worse, questions whether Amelia even actually loves him. For her part, Amelia doesn't feel like she fits in with the Winburys as a whole, but more specifically, thinks that Greer is constantly judging her and picking at her.

As proof that Amelia and Greer's battle is the one that drives the entire show, the last episode of "The Perfect Couple" ends on a flash forward devoted entirely to the two women meeting up again six months later. Greer seeks out Amelia — who, as Greer notes, had made it a point to be difficult to find — who is now working at a zoo. 

Greer is still a writer, only her new book is based on Amelia. She asks Amelia to read the book and says she won't go forward with it unless she has Amelia's blessing. Greer admits that she had issues with Amelia in the past, but that after everything went down — and in the course of writing the book — she realized that the two had more in common than she realized. Things end with Greer suggesting they meet up some time and that she'd like them to become friends, a sentiment that Amelia reciprocates. 

Though it's not enough to qualify as the kind of trailer that contains big-time spoilers, a line spoken by Abby in the trailer for "The Perfect Couple" does end up feeling like a huge clue to her guilt once you know how things play out. In trying to advise Amelia on how to navigate being an outsider who is marrying their way into the Winbury family, Abby tells her, "Just stay on the periphery. That's what I do." It initially seems like innocent advice, but it's Abby's place on that periphery that allows her — at least for a little while — to not only get away with murder, but land basically at the very bottom of the list of potential suspects.

Once Abby is revealed to be the killer, the audience is shown flashes of Abby throughout the show saying and doing things that hint at her guilt, but go mostly ignored as hardly anyone seems to be paying much attention to her. This is entirely by her own design, of course. But the dichotomy of Abby is that she doesn't like to be ignored for too long, and needs to have at least the occasional moment where she is the center of attention — typically by way of her making some snide remark that turns everyone's head, before she fades into the background again. She likes to be on the periphery to a point, but can't resist making a scene from time to time, either. 

Even though it's billed as a miniseries, that shouldn't suggest that "The Perfect Couple" is automatically destined to join the ranks of best TV shows that lasted one season. In fact, to hear both the actors who appeared on the show and some of the creative forces behind the scenes tell it, there is room to extend the show beyond its six episodes and become an ongoing franchise. Plus, it was a ratings winner for Netflix, so it's easy to assume the streamer would be on board for more if that was in the cards.

Showrunner Jenna Lamia recently noted that fans shouldn't bank on more from these characters, doubling down on it being a standalone miniseries. But she softened her stance a bit when talking to Town & Country, saying of a potential Season 2, "I would never say it's impossible. There are definitely questions left at the end." 

Elin Hilderbrand, who wrote the original book — and who is clearly a fan of how the adaptation was handled — said she wants to see more from these characters than was shown in those six episodes, suggesting that another season would have her stamp of approval. Actor Eve Hewson recently said that Nicole Kidman is interested in doing another season — which Kidman herself also teased — though Hewson added that she'd likely decline as she feels Amelia's story within that universe has been told.