‘The Perfect Couple’ Is the Perfect Unintentional (?) Comedy

Photo: SEACIA PAVAO/NETFLIX

Spoilers follow for all six episodes of The Perfect Couple. 

You might think you know what to expect with The Perfect Couple, and you’d be mostly right. Queen of Beach Reads Elin Hilderbrand writes books that follow a certain formula, with taken-advantage-of wives, useless husbands, and spoiled children putzing around gorgeous Nantucket homes, and those elements are all in Netflix’s adaptation. Nicole Kidman is here as a beleaguered matriarch, making The Perfect Couple a motherthriller with all the murder-sex-intrigue that entails. A disjointed narrative full of flashbacks, an ensemble cast that reflects the series’ baked-in generational divide, a little bit of social commentary from judgmental cops aghast at how their wealthy suspects live? Yes, yes, and yes.

But allow me to surprise you, as The Perfect Couple surprised me — because this show is wonderfully, preposterously hilarious. It is the most I’ve laughed while watching a TV series all year, and that’s before Kidman’s author character gets up onstage at a launch party for her latest mystery novel, Death in Dubai, and does horrendously awkward jazz hands while her caddish husband, played by Liev Schreiber, drunkenly belts out “Never Gonna Give You Up.” What a time for television! And I say that with no shade toward, say, defending Best Comedy Emmy winner The Bear, but more with relief that a show within the very fraught women’s entertainment genre is finally daring to shake itself free of solemnity and poke a little fun at the tropes to which we’ve become accustomed.

This series isn’t totally absurd, unlike my beloved, gonzo Behind Her Eyes (although Eve Hewson co-stars in this one, too). And, admittedly, not all of its humor is intentional; a certain skinny-dipping scene that made me crack up was probably meant to be more romantic than amusing. But The Perfect Couple is operating so well on its own bizarro wavelength, with over-the-top performances, melodramatic dialogue, and sharply satirical characterizations of the ultrawealthy that make it feel tonally distinct — especially as it lacks the sympathy and sermonizing so many other series of this type labor under. Instead, The Perfect Couple has a tongue-in-cheek singularity that helps its episodes slide by, and if you find yourself snorting, chortling, or straight-up laughing out loud at the following moments, know that you’re not alone.

• Nantucket’s police chief, Dan Carter (Michael Beach), tells his daughter, Chloe (Mia Isaac), that there’s been a murder on the Winbury estate and leaves her alone in her bedroom to process what he presumes to be her shock. Instead, she reaches for a caterer’s jacket that’s sitting in clear sight on her bed, and pulls it to her to reveal … a huge amount of blood staining the crisp white. Suspicious! And her father, with all his investigative skills, somehow did not notice this!

• When Roger Pelton (Tim Bagley), who works for hit novelist Greer Garrison Winbury (Kidman), is pulled in for questioning about the as-yet-unrevealed death, he describes her outstanding literary success and her husband Tag’s old money as making them “child-sex-ring-on-a-private-island rich … kill-someone-and-get-away-with-it rich.” The former descriptor is a little too flippant about Jeffrey Epstein’s particular monstrosities, but the latter has an on-the-nose quality that made me chuckle and do the Leo screen point.

• The opening credits: A coordinated dance sequence in which the entire cast shimmies and shakes along to poop pioneer Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals” and points accusatory finger guns at each other. Appreciably self-aware, entertainingly ludicrous.

• Everything about the sequence where Amelia Sacks (Hewson) wakes up at the Winbury estate, named Summerland. She sleeps in a lace push-up bra, which she wears outside in her quest to save a ladybug that was on her pillow, when any of the clearly functional windows in this mansion could have been opened to let the ladybug free. It’s such goofy decision-making that, unfortunately, I completely agree with Greer’s contemptuous “Didn’t I give you a family robe to wear?” It’s a ladybug, you have time to put a shirt on!

• Much-awarded French actress Isabelle Adjani of Possession is inexplicably in this project as Winbury family friend Isabel Nallet, and I never before knew how much I needed to hear her drawl out snarky comments in that lusciously accented voice. When she says Greer has “a stick in her ass … hole”? That pause, it deserves an award.

• Same goes for Dakota Fanning, who between her performance here and in Ripley is really exalting in a year of living bitchily. As Amelia’s future sister-in-law, Abby, her little wave when she’s caught eavesdropping on the poolside conversation between Amelia and her best friend and maid of honor, Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy), is a nicely arch bit of physicality. Also hilarious: The way Fahy smirks back at Abby and says under her breath, “I see you, bitch.”

• The best man (Ishaan Khattar), who will eventually be accused of murder and who happens to be a brown man with ties to Middle Eastern drug rings, is named Shooter. This is character building via incredibly on-the-nose character naming, and I laughed (despondently) at what I initially thought to be another example of the “nefarious Middle Eastern man” trope. But as I kept watching, I eventually had to admit that The Perfect Couple actually seems to have given this soft-boi character a violent name for contrast rather than complement. My expectations, they were upended!

• Amelia’s fiancé, Benji (Billy Howle), gifts her a gigantic portrait he’s painted of her before their wedding, and if there’s a better way to signal “he’s obsessed with her, and he’s also kind of a putz,” I don’t know what it is. This man’s cluelessness in the face of Amelia’s discomfort with this overly fawning gift is giggle-worthy. Buddy, you gotta pick up on some social cues!

• After Merritt’s body is found on the beach and Amelia and Benji very understandably cancel their wedding, Abby steals items from their stack of wedding gifts after shaking and opening a number of boxes. She’s awful and the best.

• Isabel casually shares that she once dated Prince Andrew … and then, when in bed with Abby’s husband, Tom (Jack Reynor), compares his sexual style with that of his father, Tag, because she’s slept with him, too. Inappropriate and iconic, even more so when Isabel mocks Tom’s job to his face with her sneering pronunciation of the word crypto. Drag him, Isabel!

• The utterly bland, affectless way that Abby describes the now-revealed-to-be-dead Merritt as “such a cool girl” to the police who are questioning her … and then tells them about how Tom’s college girlfriend was nicknamed “Broken Doggy, because that’s how she lost her virginity.” What does that even mean?! Why would you tell the police this?! Abby, you dead-eyed maniac!

• The Winburys aren’t exactly sympathetic to Amelia after Merritt’s death; they’re more focused on damage control, with Greer instructing the family to put out a public statement suggesting that Merritt killed herself. The untruth of that rankles Amelia, but it’s an upsetting, not amusing, story detail — until Benji approaches Amelia on behalf of his mother and tells her that Greer is ordering her to sign an NDA. That’s so overtly villainous that it makes it funny when Benji says, with a straight face, that Greer “obviously … has your best interests at heart.” With NDAs, has that ever been the case?

• After Amelia begins to suspect Tag in Merritt’s murder, because the two were having an affair and Merritt was pregnant, she sneaks into Tag’s office in the middle of the night to poke around. As she’s leaving, she’s found out by Greer, who Kidman plays with cool aloofness and a barely contained dislike of Amelia, whom she considers lesser-than. All of that culminates in Kidman’s totally unimpressed delivery of the line “Thirsty? Don’t you have a carafe by your bed?” when Amelia tries to say she was looking for water in Tag’s office. She’s so dismissive that I guffawed.

• Abby’s description of her brother-in-law Will (Sam Nivola) as “a little weirdo” who is “13, 17, or whatever” and “jerks off” constantly — the degree to which this woman hates every single member of the family she married into is delightful.

• Tag describes Greer as a “thoroughbred” horse to a People magazine reporter who arrives at Summerland to write a story about the pair as “the perfect couple.” Schreiber’s faux-besotted affect is what really sells it as uncomfortably funny, because in what world is comparing your wife with a forcibly bred animal a good thing?

• When the Winburys ask Isabel how she likes the motel where she’s staying, because for some reason their gigantic beach house couldn’t accommodate her, the way Adjani says, “All the magazines are about Nantucket, and I’m on Nantucket” is a master class in elitist disgust.

• The Perfect Couple is awash in product placement: The Winburys specifically drink Tanqueray gin in episode two; in a flashback, Amelia and Shooter bond while chowing down on a bag of M&M’s. But the series’ most blissfully nonsensical example of retail-as-narrative occurs in this episode at the Winburys’ dinner table. During incredibly awkward small talk between Benji’s family and Amelia’s parents, everyone starts talking about … Frito-Lay chips? There’s an extended bit in which Greer, Amelia’s parents, and Tom talk about Fritos and Doritos as superior snacks to defuse an otherwise tense conversation about Greer’s NDAs and Tag’s affairs, and I can only imagine it’s here to subliminally suggest to us that even during fraught times, Frito-Lay is there for you. That’s a nice sentiment, but when the scene ends with Amelia’s mother sharing that her favorite Doritos flavor is Cool Ranch, one simply has to laugh.

• The Perfect Couple makes clear that Greer would never consider anyone good enough for her sons, and her attitude toward Amelia isn’t really that different from how she barely tolerates Tom’s wife, Abby, or insults Will’s ex-girlfriend. That doesn’t stop Abby from trying to suck up to her mother-in-law as much as possible, like taking her side on what’s the best kind of wine during a contentious family dinner. But when Greer raises her hand, palm extended, to stop Amelia from speaking, and tells her “it really doesn’t matter” what her preferences are? That’s bossy and bitchy and beautiful.

• Greer, a person who lives on Nantucket, an island surrounded by sailboats, spends some time in her yard wearing a cozy oversize knit cardigan with … sailboats on it. This little costume decision feels like another sardonic indication of Greer’s control-freak tendencies: If you were unaware of where you are, her corny theme dressing will make sure you do!

• A mysterious man named Broderick Graham (Thomas Flanagan) keeps calling Greer’s cell phone and she keeps diverting his call, until all of a sudden Summerland’s landline rings and it’s like a moment out of Scream. Greer loses her shit, and Kidman’s peeved delivery of “no one should be calling the home phone” is exaggerated and wonderful.

• Shooter reveals that he and Amelia crossed paths once years before, when the two were the only people on a train to help a woman with her spilled bags. He remembers her as “this girl in a black band T-shirt,” and I have lost a lot of time wondering why Shooter remembers every other detail about Amelia but can’t recall which band she was supporting. Could the series not get a band name cleared? Could no one agree on exactly which type of music Amelia would listen to? I am chuckling at the possibilities for why such a little character detail could not be clarified!

• Greer and Tag are fighting in their gigantic mansion, and she asks him to keep his voice down, because “everybody can hear us.” This house is, conservative estimate, 5,000 square feet. They absolutely, truly cannot hear whatever Greer and Tag are getting up to.

• In “that’s not how reality works” content: Tom carrying Amelia and Benji’s five-tier wedding cake around like it weighs absolutely nothing. Multitiered cakes are heavy and dense and require delicate handling, and yet Tom is literally running around the kitchen and causing no damage to the cake as he does so. The Perfect Couple is committed to slapstick!

• The rapid, dramatic zoom in on Amelia’s face when she walks in on Shooter showering — intentionally amusing. Their make-out in front of a door with glass panes, so of course Benji walks by and sees what his fiancée and his best friend are up to — unintentionally amusing. Benji punching a wall after he sees them together, in a classic display of macho anger that Howle does not entirely sell — both!

• Chief Dan, irritated that Tag is treating custody like a joke, snaps at Deputy Carl (Nick Searcy) that Tag absolutely cannot have a doughnut with his coffee. The intensity of his “no doughnut!” dictate is very Soup Nazi and very good.

• Abby calling Shooter, whose ethnic background is Indian, “Middle Eastern in some way” … sometimes the only thing you can do in the face of blithely uninformed racism is laugh!

• Schreiber’s horrified expression when Tag comes across a cardboard-cutout version of himself, hidden under a sheet and propped up in a corner of Greer’s book-launch event — the way he throws the sheet back on himself is some straight-out-of-Scooby-Doo nonsense.

• One of the only snippets we discern from Greer’s latest book, Death in Dubai, starring her married characters Dash and Dolly, is that wherever they are in the UAE “smells of saffron and cinnamon.” This little bit of Orientalism made me laugh at its insipidness — of course a Middle Eastern location would smell of “exotic” spices! — and also made me wonder: Are we supposed to think Greer is actually a good author? She’s phenomenally successful, has rabid fans, and supports the entire Winbury family on her book sales. But this extremely generic description makes me think … no?

• Tag really tells an auditorium full of his wife’s fans, the readers who have supported the family’s decadent lifestyle and his constant parade of alcohol and drugs, that they need to “stop sucking the giant cock of the paperback industry.” (This is before he admits onstage that sometimes, “the perfect couple” has “a third,” which might cause more shock than his disgust for his wife’s books.) Tag is terrible, and I love him.

• This miniseries’ biggest assholes get some of its best material, and Reynor’s Tom perhaps does the most with that opportunity; his line delivery of “I’m not gonna hook up with some crazy French lady my dad knows … I love you” to Abby after she correctly intuits that he’s having an affair with Isabel is so facetious that it feels like an outtake from his performance as one of the worst boyfriends you’ve ever seen in Midsommar.

• Tag holding a glass of brown liquor while boringly practicing his statement announcing that he’s going to rehab: predictably scummy, but in an amusing way.

• The contrasting body language in the police station’s interrogation room between Greer and Broderick after she admits their relationship (“This fucking idiot is my brother”), with her arms crossed, pulling away from him, and him, shit-eating grin on his face, leaning into her. Kidman and Flanagan really should have had more scenes together, because they vibe fantastically later in the episode when Greer admits to her sons, in-laws, and publicity team that she was “a very high-end escort” who was hired by Tag and whose appointments used to be managed by Broderick before she married the Winbury heir and moved with him to Nantucket. Kidman and Flanagan’s chummy comfort with Greer and Broderick’s past lives is a great contrast to Tag’s uptight self-defense (“I didn’t pay … the first time, technically”); can we get him on Big Little Lies season three?

• Related: Flanagan’s roguish grin when he asks housekeeper Gosia about refreshments: “Did you say something about snacks?” There’s still a ton of food left over from Benji and Amelia’s canceled wedding; I appreciate a man who senses an opportunity.

• It’s not funny to me that The Perfect Couple basically ends with Tag, who spent portions of each preceding episode hitting golf balls off the edge of his property into the ocean, finally nailing a floating seagull. It is funny to me that Tag is so high, drunk, and consumed by his hatred for these birds that he totally misses the police arresting Abby for murdering Merritt (because her being pregnant with Tag’s baby would have delayed Tom, and all the Winbury boys, from getting their trust-fund payouts), and only turns around to see it happening because he’s so excited to tell his family about his successful bird attack. What a revealing way for The Perfect Couple to end: with an act of violence, a bit of blunder, and a one-liner that serves as a winking acknowledgment of the miniseries’ — seemingly? purposeful? — tonal disconnect. “What the fuck?” indeed.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated Amelia’s mom’s preferred Dorito’s flavor. We regret the error.