Could There Be A Second Season Of The Perfect Couple?

3 months ago

Take us back to Nantucket!

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In case you missed it, the TV series of the moment is The Perfect Couple – a quintessential combination of wanderlust and soapy drama that Netflix has nailed. But will there be The Perfect Couple season 2? We’ve got all the details…

(L to R) Eve Hewson as Amelia Sacks, Sam Nivola as Will Winbury, Nicole Kidman as Greer Winbury, Billy Howle as Benji Winbury, Liev Schreiber as Tag Winbury, Dakota Fanning as Abby Winbury, Jack Reynor as Thomas Winbury in episode 103 of The Perfect Couple. Seacia Pavao/Netflix © 2024

Will There Be The Perfect Couple Season 2?

Netflix has not confirmed whether there will be a second season of The Perfect Couple, but a showrunner has hinted a reprise is ‘not impossible’. ‘If all the elements came together and everybody was enthusiastic and the idea was inspiring enough to gather the same group of talented people together again, I think it’s something that’s possible,’ Jenna Lamia told Town & Country. ‘I would never say it’s impossible.

‘There are definitely questions left at the end,’ Jenna adds. ‘The best shows – regardless if they’re going to do another season – leave you thinking after you’ve watched the final one.’

And thinking we are: while the season finale wraps up the central drama of The Perfect Couple quite neatly (ie Merritt’s murderer and their motive is revealed), the flash forward in time raises new questions: in London six months after that fateful not-wedding day, Greer (Nicole Kidman) and Amelia (Eve Hewson) are reunited and the novelist seeks the younger woman’s blessing for a book inspired by her and Merritt. The book in question is called Your Move – could this be a hint that there’s more drama to come?

That said, The Perfect Couple is based on a novel by Elin Hildebrand that doesn’t have a sequel, and Netflix has labelled The Perfect Couple a ‘limited series’, typically meaning the first season of episodes is also the last. However, recent limited series that ended up with a sequel season include Big Little Lies (which, like The Perfect Couple, is based on a novel), Bad Sisters, and a certain show The Perfect Couple seems keen to emulate, The White Lotus.

(L to R) Liev Schreiber as Tag Winbury, Nicole Kidman as Greer Winbury in episode 103 of The Perfect Couple.

What Will Happen?

There’s no sequel to Hilderbrand’s novel, so we don’t have a plot to go off. If we were to guess, the most compelling character to return to would be matriarch Greer in her new split from Tag (Liev Schreiber). We see at the end that her career is pushing on, while Amelia is settled across the Atlantic in a new job at London Zoo.

However, with the island of Nantucket somewhat of a character in and of itself, perhaps we will see a return to the Massachusetts isle. Indeed, author Hilderbrand has published four novels set on Nantucket, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her latest novel, Swan Song (2024), centres on Nantucket’s Chief of Police, Ed Kapenash, a character that also stars in The Perfect Couple: after a name change, Michael Beach’s Chief of Police character Dan Carter. Swan Song sees Kapenash/Carter faced with a huge arson case: a $22 million summer home recently purchased by the Richardson family has totally burned down while the family was off partying on their yacht. However, their personal assistant is now missing – who happens to be the best friend of Kapenash/Carter’s daughter, who we also meet in Netflix’s adaptation of The Perfect Couple – Chloe Carter, played by Mia Isaac. Spin off time?

In short, there’s no end of rich, glitzy families in Nantucket – so plenty of opportunity for The Perfect Couple season 2.

(L to R) Ishaan Khattar as Shooter Dival, Meghann Fahy as Merritt Monaco in episode 101 of The Perfect Couple

Who Killed Merritt?

The season finale of The Perfect Couple reveals Merritt’s (Meghann Fahy) killer is Abby Stokes Winbury (Dakota Fanning), the pregnant wife of Thomas (Jack Reynor), the groom Benji’s (Billy Howle) brother. Why? Because Merritt was secretly pregnant with patriarch Tag Winbury’s baby after an illicit affair, which would totally derail the Winbury sons’ trust funds. Throughout The Perfect Couple, the extent of Thomas’ debt becomes clear – as does Tag’s refusal to bail his son out from his gambling problems yet again. With the youngest son, Will (Sam Nivola), set to turn 18 just a few weeks after the wedding, all is about to come up rosy for the heavily pregnant Abby. So when Abby discovers Merritt is pregnant with a new Winbury child, her inheritance is suddenly halted by almost two decades – until the final Winbury child turns 18.

‘She’s this woman who’s like, “Who’s taking care of me?”,’ Fanning says. As well as fumbling their finances, husband Thomas is cheating on Abby with Winbury family friend Isabel Nallet (Isabelle Adjani) all the while. ‘She doesn’t feel like there’s anyone taking care of her and who’s keeping her safe and who’s putting her first,’ Fanning says.

Clutching at straws, the struggling Abby is left with one choice: kill the woman carrying the illicit child – and the unborn baby with her. So Abby crushes up one of Amelia’s mother’s euthanasia pills and mixes it into water, giving it to Merritt. The two sit chatting by the sea, before Abby suggests they go for a swim; in the water, Abby drowns Merritt who is so woozy from the tablet she can’t fight back.

‘I’m going to secure my future and secure my child’s future,’ Fanning says, echoing Abby’s intentions. ‘And she just kind of gets extraordinarily lost on that path. Does that make me sound like a murderer sympathiser or what?’

(L to R) Jack Reynor as Thomas Winbury, Dakota Fanning as Abby Winbury in episode 101 of The Perfect Couple

Fanning says she loved playing the ‘secret villain’. ‘There’s a sick part of me that loves Abby and hates what she did, but also, you can see these moments where she’s cast aside by her husband, ignored by her mother-in-law – she’s desperate for their attention [but] perceived as a bitch,’ Fanning says. ‘You know what I mean?’

However, this is a change from Hildebrand’s novel, which reveals Abby accidentally poisoned Merritt (she was aiming for her husband Thomas’s mistress, Isabel) and dies after searching for her ring in the water. ‘In a book, you can be inside a character’s head in a way you can’t in a television show,’ showrunner Jenna told Netflix, who reportedly insisted the TV adaptation needed to have a murderer to satisfy audiences. ‘We all agreed right then and there [that] there needed to be a murderer, and there needed to be a motive for that murder,’ Jenna says.