SPOILER ALERT: This text accommodates spoilers for all episodes of “The Good Couple.”
On a quiet summer time morning, a physique washes up on a Nantucket seaside. A scream splits the air –– and a outstanding household is instantly plunged into chaos.
So ends the primary episode of Netflix’s soapy drama collection “The Good Couple,” primarily based on the novel of the identical identify by bestselling creator Elin Hilderbrand. Developed for the display screen by showrunner Jenna Lamia (“Good Women”), the present follows Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson), whose upcoming nuptials to Benji Winbury (Billy Howle) are derailed on the day of her marriage ceremony when she discovers the lifeless physique of her maid of honor, Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy). Because the police examine Amelia and her fiancé’s household, they uncover that every individual within the marriage ceremony get together –– from Benji’s imposing mom Greer (Nicole Kidman) to his charismatic finest buddy, Shooter (Ishaan Khattar) –– has been harboring secrets and techniques that would destroy the façades they’ve all been working arduous to take care of.
The present’s launch on Netflix on Sep. 5 marks the fruits of 5 years of improvement, and lots of adjustments had been made to Hilderbrand’s authentic novel alongside the best way. Selection has compiled a listing of the largest variations between the guide and the on-screen model of “The Good Couple” — together with that killer ending.
Featherleigh Dale, meet Isabelle Adjani
Within the collection, famend French actor and two-time Oscar nominee Isabelle Adjani performs the wily, seductive Isabel Nallet, a household buddy of the Winburys and, maybe extra considerably, paramour of Thomas (Jack Reynor), the eldest son.
Isabel, nevertheless, doesn’t exist within the guide –– although maybe the mannequin for her persona, nevertheless marginally, could be discovered within the character of 1 Featherleigh Dale. In Hilderbrand’s novel, Featherleigh is a British interloper whose monetary troubles and profligate selfishness forged a big damper on the weekend’s festivities. Like Isabel, Featherleigh is carrying on an affair with Thomas; not like Isabel, Featherleigh is considerably of a basket case, although she performs a vital function in the best way the guide reveals who killed Merritt (extra on that later).
Greer’s lore runs deep
Matriarch Greer Winbury –– performed impeccably by Nicole Kidman in one more function as a wealthy white girl struggling to maintain it collectively –– shares many similarities with the guide’s Greer. Each variations of the character are homicide thriller novelists, although Kidman’s Greer is a profitable author who has someway satisfied her writer to throw an expensive-looking bash in celebration of her new guide (although possibly she paid for it herself?), and Greer within the guide is struggling to revitalize her dying collection. Each characters discover their energy in composure, preferring to stay indifferent and reserved of their dealings with different folks. However the final episode of “The Good Couple” portrays a Greer not revealed within the guide. In a climactic scene midway by the finale, Greer unleashes what is probably years’ price of pent-up anger and frustration, revealing to her grownup youngsters that she truly met her husband Tag (Liev Schreiber) when she was an escort. On prime of that surprising announcement, the person who has been persistently calling her all through the collection –– the one which the police say has ties to the Turkish mafia (???) –– is, the truth is her brother, Broderick Graham (Tommy Flanagan). Greer’s whole backstory as revealed within the collection, in addition to the existence of Broderick, usually are not included within the guide in any respect.
Amelia’s dad and mom have a a lot smaller function within the collection
Although we get a glimpse of the bride’s relationship along with her dad and mom within the collection, Celeste’s dad and mom, Karen (Dendrie Taylor) and Bruce (Michael McGrady), are given rather more area within the novel. A salesman who’s labored in a division retailer his entire life, Bruce drunkenly confides in Tag that whereas he’s by no means cheated on Karen, he briefly had intense emotions for a former colleague, Robin. Karen overhears and is shocked: although Bruce characterizes Robin as a lady to Tag, she is aware of that Robin, the truth is, is a person. The scene has no actual bearing on the homicide thriller itself, because it serves largely to deepen the relational dynamic between Karen and Bruce, so maybe that’s why it was minimize for the display screen.
Tag is a stoner
Within the collection, Tag retains lighting up. Within the guide, it’s unclear whether or not he is aware of what weed is.
The ending, defined
Within the remaining episode of “The Good Couple,” it’s revealed that Thomas’ pregnant spouse Abigail (Dakota Fanning) deliberately slips one in all Karen’s barbiturate capsules right into a glass of orange juice, and delivers it to a heartbroken Merritt, who’s sitting on the seaside. After Merritt drinks the juice, Abigail means that the 2 go into the water, the place she holds the maid of honor’s head underwater till she drowns. Abigail’s motive is cash: She and Thomas are in debt, and he would have had entry to his belief as soon as the youngest son, Will (Sam Nivola), turned 18. Merritt’s affair with Tag, and her subsequent being pregnant, threw a wrench in that plan: if she’d given start, the clock on Thomas’ belief fund would begin over when the child was born, they usually’d have to attend till that child was 18 till they gained entry to the cash. Too lengthy, Abigail determined. Therefore: homicide.
Within the guide, the drowning is formally dominated an accident by the police, and there’s no direct killer. Greer is the one one who solves the thriller, and she or he retains it to herself. Abigail discovers Thomas’ infidelity and drops a capsule in Featherleigh’s drink, hoping to place her to sleep so she doesn’t idiot round with Abigail’s husband. Featherleigh, nevertheless, carries the drink to Merritt as a substitute. Merritt drinks it, and commiserates with the household buddy, who then leaves her to go inside. The maid of honor wanders the seaside, reminiscing about her affair with Tag, then by accident cuts her foot on some glass. She wanders into the water to scrub it off, spots one thing shiny on the backside and realizes it’s the ring that Tag gave her, so she dives in, grows sleepy and drowns.
Flash ahead
On the very finish of the ultimate episode, “The Good Couple” flashes ahead six months, revealing that Amelia now works at a zoo in London. As she exhibits some penguins to a few youngsters, Greer sidles as much as her.
“I’ve written one thing. One thing new,” she says, handing over a manuscript to a brand new guide that she says is about Amelia. The 2 have a heartfelt dialog in the midst of the penguin enclosure, throughout which Greer admits that she used to hate Amelia however now doesn’t; the truth is, she now hopes that the 2 of them could be pals. The title of the brand new guide? “Your Transfer.”
This scene isn’t within the guide –– which ends with Merritt’s drowning, instructed from her perspective –– and it’s maybe an try at including a metafictional component to the collection: the full-circle serendipity of a homicide thriller author writing about her personal real-life homicide thriller. Although we’re not sure whether or not Amelia accepts the olive department, maybe the jubilance of the present’s concluding dance sequence –– which options the director, Susanne Bier, spinning with the characters –– signifies that viewers can come away with a way of decision that exists, if not on the shores of Nantucket, not less than within the glory of one other realm.