There’s nothing more suspicious in ‘The Perfect Couple’ than one character’s extremely un-rich-person behavior
If you know rich people, you'll spot this right away!
One of the best things about The Perfect Couple on Netflix is that it doesn’t try to outsmart its audience or stretch its ending into some big shocker that you can’t digest. In fact, if you understand human behavior even a little, you can guess who the killer is!
Spoilers ahead for The Perfect Couple!
Netflix’s Nicole Kidman-led limited series is based on a novel of the same name by author Elin Hilderbrand. However, showrunner Jenna Lamia and director Susanna Bier have made quite a few changes to the novel that actually make the series better, including the ending and the motivations of the killer.
If you’ve read this far despite the spoiler warning above, you’ve probably watched the series entirely and know that the killer is Abby, played by Dakota Fanning. And Abby is easily one of the most interesting characters in the series.
But who is Abby?
Abby Winbury is the wife of Thomas Winbury, the eldest son of Greer and Tag Winbury. At the time of the wedding, she is pregnant. Abby gives off a strong frenemy vibe when it comes to Amelia, who is soon to become her sister-in-law. There’s an air of snobbery in her, but it’s never blatantly mean or insulting. Abby often name-drops important connections and acts a certain way to give you the impression that she belongs to a rich and affluent family like the Winburys.
It’s interesting that we never really know how the Winburys feel about Abby as a person. It’s clear how Greer feels about Amelia, who is not rich and also not madly in love, marrying her son. But we never quite grasp what she thinks about Abby as a wife to Thomas or as a member of her family. Abby is about to bring forth the first grandchild of the family, and yet we never see anyone fussing around her or excited about the baby. No one from her family is part of the Winbury wedding, so we don’t know much about her other than the little nuggets about her connections that she drops.
As for Thomas, her husband, we know that he doesn’t like spending time with Abby, because she has been trying to get him to ask his father for money to buy a new home. It becomes evident through her behavior that Abby married up, and has a taste for the good things in life, which she thought marrying a Winbury would guarantee her. However, Thomas is clearly incapable of delivering those things. In addition, he is cheating on her with their family friend, an older woman, Isabel Nallet. Abby is aware of this affair but tolerates it as long as Thomas gets his trust fund and she gets the life she wants. But all of that changes when Merritt Monaco arrives on the scene.
What was Abby’s motive for killing Merritt Monaco?
One of the oldest motives—money. The Winbury children are all entitled to their respective trust funds which they would gain access to once the youngest Winbury child turned 18. In this case, it was Will Winbury, who was about to come of age soon. However, with Merritt being pregnant with Tag’s child, there’s a new Winbury baby in town, pushing the release date of the trust fund by another 18 years, till the baby grows up and comes of age. And Abby simply isn’t willing to wait that long.
At the wedding rehearsal dinner party, Abby is able to piece together that Merritt Monaco, the maid of honor, is pregnant with her father-in-law’s baby. Now, Abby looks like someone who would collect secrets and use them as leverage at the right time to get what she wants. However, she realizes that if Merritt gives birth, her husband Thomas won’t get his trust fund for another 18 years. He is already in debt to Isabel Nallet, and he is sleeping with her, without a care about how this entire situation is going to be handled.
Abby is on edge because of all this, and on the night before the wedding, when she sees Thomas and Isabel together, and later Merritt on the beach, Abby’s anger over her situation overpowers her and she decides to take matters into her own hands.
How did Abby kill Merritt?
When Abby sees her useless cheating husband and then Merritt, who is about to get everything that Abby desperately wants, her rage boils over and she makes a cold and calculated plan to reclaim what’s hers.
Abby takes a pill from her husband’s stash, which later is revealed to be one of three euthanasia pills that Amelia’s ill mother carries with her as a safety net. She crushes it in a glass of orange juice and takes it to Merritt, knowing fully well that a pregnant Merritt would accept the non-alcoholic drink from Abby, a fellow pregnant woman she can trust. After Merritt drinks it, Abby suggests they go for a cool swim before going to bed, and Merritt joins her.
In the water, the pill takes effect, and Merritt begins to feel dizzy and lose her balance in the water. Abby then keeps her head down into the water, effectively drowning her. There is a possibility that Greer saw this happen from her window and kept Abby’s secret.
When does it become evident that Abby is Merritt’s killer in The Perfect Couple?
The obvious final reveal happens in the final episode of the series when Thomas and Isabel’s testimonies reveal the glaring hole in Abby’s testimony and the motive.
That being said, when you’ve seen enough murder mysteries, there are certain patterns that can make it quite obvious which suspects are red herrings. For example, Tag and Greer looked the most guilty and had the strongest motive, and that’s why they couldn’t have done it. The Perfect Couple takes turns pointing the needle of suspicion at every major character, including Amelia and Benji, except Abby. The fact that Abby is a pregnant woman, and therefore hard to see as a suspect who could’ve killed Merritt or drowned her when Merritt was in her senses is exactly why Abby was the perfect shocking killer reveal. Especially once we knew that Merritt was drugged!
But then, there was a rather Shakespearean giveaway as early as episode 2 that might’ve told us it was Abby all along!
In episode 2, when detective Nikki Henry is questioning the family members, she walks in on Abby washing a glass in the kitchen sink. The detective thinks Abby is nervous, exhibiting that Lady Macbeth tell-tale sign of guilt wherein she is rigorously washing the juice glass as if to get rid of evidence and therefore her guilt.
And an even bigger hint? Abby loves being rich and all the privileges that come with it. In the first episode itself, we see just how spoilt the entire Winbury family is, and they can’t even get their own breakfast without Gosia, their housemaid. So why would Abby be rinsing a used glass of juice that she claims the caterer left behind? She’d ask Gosia to do it, like she asked Gosia to clean up the wedding cake that was destroyed by Thomas and Benji in a later episode. Rich people don’t pick up after themselves or anyone else!
If that isn’t a dead giveaway that Abby was rinsing evidence, I don’t know what is!
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