The Perfect Couple Ending, Explained: Who Killed Merritt?

In Netflix’s ‘The Perfect Couple,’ a happy occasion turns into a tragedy when a murder takes place on the eve of a wedding. The location is Summerland, the grand mansion owned by the extremely wealthy Winbury family, to which the groom, Benji, belongs. He is to be married to Amelia, whom he hasn’t known for long but loves a lot, much to the consternation of his mother, Greer, a famous mystery novelist. Amongst themselves, the Winburys have a lot going on, with secrets and lies about money and relationships.

This is why it comes as a surprise when the victim is someone seemingly unrelated to them. Amelia’s best friend, Merritt, who arrived a day before the wedding, is the one killed on the same night. Her sudden death sends ripples through the Winbury family, forcing a lot of secrets to come to light. Even with all those revelations, the murderer is someone entirely unexpected. SPOILERS AHEAD

The Usual Suspects Become the Red Herrings

It is believed that there are only three primary motives when it comes to murder: love, money, or revenge. No matter what the intentions of the murderer, the reason behind their actions can always be boiled down to one of these three things, no matter how twisted form it might all take. At the end of the day, this holds true for Merritt’s murder as well. In the beginning, love and revenge are considered to be the primary factors, but in the end, money turns out to be the thing that results in her tragedy.

Due to Merritt’s affair with Tag and the subsequent pregnancy, he and his wife, Greer Winbury, are on the top of the suspects list. The cops believe that Tag wanted the pregnancy to go away because the meaningless fling had evolved into something more than he had expected. For Greer, it was the simple act of hatred for her husband’s mistress. Still, the motive is not enough to prove someone’s guilt. Both Tag and Greer are proved to be innocent when their alibis are cleared up. Tag uses his watch and the data collected by it to prove that he was in his room when the murder took place. While Greer briefly left the room that night, her innocence is also proven when her real connection to Broderick Graham comes to light.

While other members of the Winbury family are considered, none of them seems to have a good motive to want Merritt dead, basically because none of them had anything to do with her. Her affair with Tag was inconsequential, or so they all thought in the beginning. It wasn’t Merritt but her pregnancy that threatened to throw a wrench in the best-laid plans, and this became the reason for her death at the hands of Abby Winbury. To understand why she was killed, we have to understand the Winbury family’s past.

Why did Abby Kill Merritt?

There is no doubt that the Winburys are very rich. However, the locals know that they used to be much wealthier than they are now. They lost a huge part of their wealth due to the Winbury heirs, who couldn’t put a check on their bad habits. To prevent the future Winburys from completely losing this wealth, a decision was made to hold their share in the wealth in trust funds. Usually, a Winbury would get the money when they turned eighteen. But in this case, a new condition was added: no Winbury sibling would get their trust until all of them had turned eighteen.

While this rule protected the Winbury estate, it became troublesome for the reckless Winburys, like Thomas. Being the eldest, he had to wait for the trust the longest, and with each year, he only got more desperate for it. By the time Benji’s wedding takes place, Thomas has landed himself in a financial pickle that even his father doesn’t want to bail him out of. He has borrowed a lot of money from Isabel, who is now asking for it back. At the same time, his wife, Abby, is pregnant, and she wants to buy a new apartment that Thomas knows they won’t be able to have without the trust fund money.

The great thing is that his youngest brother, Will, is about to turn eighteen in a few weeks, which means that Thomas will finally have all the money he needs. But then, it is revealed that Merritt is pregnant, which would mean that there is a new Winbury in line, which means that until Merritt’s unborn baby turns eighteen, the trust fund will be sealed, and Thomas will have to wait another eighteen years. It took some time for Thomas to realize this, but Abby was smarter. The moment she discovers Merritt is pregnant, she knows what needs to be done. She cannot rely on her useless husband to better his ways. If Merritt gives birth to her child, Abby will lose the only opportunity to have the money she desperately needs.

So, late at night, when everyone retires to their quarters, Abby takes some pills from Thomas’ collection and grounds them up in a drink, which she gives to Merritt. Once Merritt is sedated, Abby takes her into the ocean under the pretense of late-night swimming, where she holds Merritt’s head under the water until the woman is dead. Once the deed is done, Abby goes back to her room, with none the wiser. Or so she thinks.

How is Abby Caught?

When the part about the barbiturates in Merritt’s system comes to light, the suspicion turns towards Thomas, who has the habit of stealing pills from everyone. He also stole one of the pills from Amelia’s mother, which he didn’t know was for her euthanasia. When the cops investigate him, he confesses that he almost shot Merritt because he wanted to save his father from the trouble. But Isabel stopped him, after which he left the scene with her, spending the rest of the night with her at the Sand Dollar Hotel.

While Thomas’ alibi is confirmed, it raises a red flag because he already had an alibi. Abby had told the cops that he was with her the entire night. At first, it seemed that she may have lied to protect her husband, but it becomes clear that this is her way of giving her own alibi because she never imagined Thomas would confess to his affair with Isabel to anyone. Once the question on Abby’s testimony is raised, the detectives start to see things they hadn’t before. For instance, Detective Henry remembers the maid of the Winbury family talking about how Abby ordered her around to wash a glass of juice with hot water. Henry remembers that the morning she showed up at the house, Abby was washing a glass and seemed very nervous.

To confirm her doubts, Henry once again asks Abby if Thomas was with her that night, and she says yes, which the detective knows is a lie. This, along with the rest of the evidence that surfaces against Abby, is enough to prove that she is the one who killed Merritt, and she is arrested. Interestingly, Greer also puts two and two together right before the cops show up and realizes that her pregnant daughter-in-law, who never fell under anyone’s radar, is the one to mastermind the murder.

Do Greer and Tag Get Divorced?

While Merritt’s murder causes a lot of strain on the Winbury family, one can’t ignore the fact that all of their relationships have already been under immense stress, especially for Greer and Tag. While they were ready to spend their 30th wedding anniversary, they both knew that their marriage was basically done for. It only existed for appearance, and Greer, particularly, felt no love for her husband anymore. For almost the entirety of her marriage, she found herself cleaning up after Tag. While he was wealthy, a lot of his money was tied up in the trust fund, and he didn’t have a job, either.

This meant that almost the entire financial burden fell upon Greer, who was able to carry it due to the success of her novels. As if this wasn’t enough, she also had to put up with his string of infidelities. Because she couldn’t leave him, she found herself taking care of his mistresses, getting them out of the picture by having everyone sign one NDA after another. In the end, Greer decides that there is only so much she can take. Whatever string had been tying her to Tag snaps when he ruins her book launch party, and she finds herself in another crisis, clearing up the mess he created.

With the stress of Merritt’s murder investigation, the arrival of Broderick Graham, and the PR crisis the family is in, Greer feels she has done enough for the family and must stop it now, or she will keep doing it for the rest of her life. So, when the murder is solved, the PR crisis subsides, and the wedding is canceled for good, Greer tells Tag that it’s time for them to part ways. She is ready to unfold a new chapter of her life, and she doesn’t need Tag (symbolic of her saying goodbye to the Dash and Dolly novels) anymore. With everything that has happened, he, too, accepts the new order of things and agrees that the sun has set on their marriage permanently.

Why Does Greer Meet Amelia? Why Does She Give Amelia Her Manuscript?

Having freed herself of Tag and all the complications of their marriage, Greer embarks on a new path. Six months later, we find her in London, where she seeks out Amelia, who is surprised to see the woman who almost became her mother-in-law. It is strange for Amelia because she thinks Greer is happy about her and that Benji is breaking up for good. Greer confesses that she was happy, but, in retrospect, she may have been too harsh on Amelia because she was jealous of losing her son to his wife, something Greer claimed she wasn’t guilty of in a previous conversation.

Greer reveals that she has written a novel, and surprisingly, it’s about Amelia. It’s called “Your Move” and is dedicated to “absent friends,” which is a nod to Merritt, and “hopefully new ones,” which refers to Amelia. Greer wants Amelia to read the manuscript and give her blessing before it is taken to the publishers. Amelia is surprised that Greer would want her approval. However, considering that the story is about Amelia, it makes sense that Greer would want her to be okay with it because the rest of the world would read it soon enough. Moreover, with the title and dedication of the manuscript, it is clear that Greer has possibly written about Merritt’s murder with Amelia as the protagonist, which is a stronger reason for her wanting Amelia’s approval. If nothing, it would at least keep Greer from falling into any legal trouble in the future.

The meeting indicates that both Amelia and Greer have moved on with their lives. Amelia is not with Benji, and from the looks of it, she isn’t with Shooter either. She is happily working at the London Zoo, living her life exactly as she wants rather than having it dictated by someone else. Meanwhile, Greer has also cut herself free from the things that had been holding her back for so long. She doesn’t have to worry about cleaning up after her husband and sons anymore, and she can finally focus on the things she wants. She also understands now that she and Amelia are more similar than she cared to accept, which is why perhaps she chose Amelia as the subject of her next novel.

Having sought her, Greer now hopes to mend things between them, but it isn’t just because she has had an epiphany. Considering Greer’s past works, we know that she tends to work with the same characters over the course of several novels. She did it with Tag when she based the character of Dash on him. But now she is done with him and is in search of a new muse, which she has found in Amelia. Having written one novel with a character based on her, Greer now wants to continue the story, but she wants Amelia’s approval for it, especially if she is to write more novels. Thus, the invitation to have a meal together isn’t just to catch up. It holds much more meaning to Greer and her career as a novelist.