The Good, The Bad, And The Weird In “The Perfect Couple”

I was first drawn to this show for its promise of White Lotus-inspired cinematography, the East Coast coastal wedding vibes, and, of course, Nicole Kidman. I had not read the book by Elin Hildebrand prior, but I understood that this would be an Agatha Christie-type murder drama – the kind in which everyone is having a lovely time in a lovely place until an unexpected death and the potential of murder ruins it. I must admit that the show did deliver on its promise of good vibes, and Kidman was as wonderful as ever. Nonetheless, this series fell into the Hollywood crisis of poor storytelling and sometimes even poorer or contradicting character development. 

Major spoilers ahead.

That Weird Dance Scene

Every episode starts with the whole cast dancing in sync to Meghan Trainor’s bop “Criminals.” To me, this felt so out of place. For a second, it made you think this was a happy family recreating a High School Musical moment, but then you blink, and suddenly we’re transported to a mystery-murder drama in which every member of this apparently happy family is a suspect. 

The showrunner Jenna Lamia defended the dance scene and director Susanne Bier’s choice to use it as the opening credits, saying, “Susanne had this really brilliant thought that if we were to use a dance like that as the opening credits, it would tell people right away that, yes, this is a murder mystery, and yes, it’s a thriller, but you’re also going to have so much fun, so sit back and enjoy the ride.”  

Personally, I don’t think it succeeded in its mission of conveying the tone. Are we not supposed to be horrified by the murder? Or are we supposed to still feel happy because while we watch this family fall apart, at least they’re still dancing together? This just never sat well with me, and by the third episode, I found myself skipping over the dance scene entirely. 

It’s possible the dance scene was more an attempt to create virality and buzz around the show than accurately set the tone. Tudum reports that the idea to include a dance originated with executive producer Gail Berman, who was also a producer on the show Wednesday, which had its own viral dance scene that generated hype for the show.

Amelia Makes No Sense

At the beginning of the show, I was smitten with Amelia. Oh, the joy of being a bride marrying a beautiful man, surrounded by his beautiful family in his beautiful home, and with my family and best friend by my side! It was well established from the beginning that Amelia was not too esteemed by her in-laws, and the audience is meant to empathize with her in her struggle to find peace in all these new relationships. She was meant to be the kind of character who is relatable yet aspirational (she does carefully carry a ladybug outside to save it, after all), but as the story developed, I only grew annoyed with her. 

She quickly lost a lot of her charm when it became apparent that she was making many poor decisions and playing the victim on more than one occasion over things that were largely her fault and responsibility. The worst example is when she cheats on her fiancé Benji with his best friend Shooter, just days after their wedding was postponed due to the murder. There is an odd push in Hollywood to try to justify and romanticize these kinds of betrayals, and in this case, they made a point to justify it through flashbacks showing how Amelia and Shooter were drawn to each other from the first time they met. They both don’t care about money, and they are both seemingly generous people.

But I don’t buy this justification. For all we know, Benji has been an incredible man to Amelia and was delighted to marry her even though his decision created some tension in his family. By the way, despite these tensions, his family had welcomed her and opened their home to her. They even paid for and hosted the entire extravagant wedding. So, I’m not sure we can blame them for being upset with Amelia for hurting Benji. By the end of the show, I was happy to see her find her way away from this mess, but I was also left to hope that she had learned her lesson. 

Greer Is Portrayed As the Villain, but She’s Actually the Hero

Greer is first introduced as a cold and powerful woman sitting at the top of this old-money wealthy family. An unrelatable and unapproachable matriarch who cares more about status and appearance than anything. All we know about her initially is that she doesn’t approve of Amelia, which at times is explained as a case of being a good-old snob, but she later explains she doesn’t think Amelia is doing her part to integrate into the family. And Amelia’s infidelity to Benji only confirms Greer was correct in her reservations.

And while Greer does try to frame her own chronically unfaithful husband Tag for murder, she ends the show as the moral hero (well, kind of). In the final episode, Greer reveals the truth of her own life to her children. She is not a simple girl who got lucky to marry into wealth after meeting her husband at an art gallery. Rather, Greer was an escort and met her husband when he was a client. Since her marriage, it has been her work – now her writing – that has been funding the family’s extravagant lifestyle for years. As it turns out, the trust fund that classifies this family as wealthy is not available to them yet, so in the meantime, Greer has pumped out two books a year to pay for their lavish lifestyle and keep up appearances. In addition to this, Greer reveals a brother her family never knew about, whose gambling debts she has been paying off.

When this revelation comes out, it becomes clear that Greer did not marry into power and wealth, she is power and wealth, and without her, this family would’ve already either faced ruin or reality. She is the one keeping them all together while facing incredible dysfunctionality.

I thought the ending was somewhat heartwarming, as we come to find out that the perfect couple wasn’t Greer and Tag nor Amelia and Benji, but Greer and Amelia. Although it felt somewhat cheesy and unrealistic for Greer to seek out Amelia months later at her job in an entirely different city to thank her even though she didn't like her while they were together in the same house and Amelia cheated on her son, ending their engagement and leaving him heartbroken, the producers tried to tie the show into a nice little bow at the end. The final episode wraps with Greer crediting Amelia’s authenticity as being what gave her the courage and motivation to stop living a lie.