‘The Perfect Couple’ Ending Explained: Who Is The Killer?

With the shocking reveal that Merritt is pregnant with the unborn child of Tag (Liev Schreiber), a number of suspects are on the table, but Episode 6 revealed whodunit.

Keep on reading to get the full breakdown on who killed Merritt in “The Perfect Couple,” and if the Netflix series ended in the same way as the book.

How did Merritt die?

In the finale, Greer revealed to Amelia that Merritt had a high level of barbiturates in her system, which Amelia shares with her parents. Amelia’s mom then begins looking through her pill case, andreveals to the police that she brought three pills, which when taken together would cause euthanasia, but one of them was missing. The one pill wouldn’t have killed anyone, though it would have knocked someone out. It’s revealed that Thomas (Jack Reynor) took one of the pills as part of his game of prescription roulette.

The show flashes back to the evening before the wedding — after Thomas and Isabel (Isabelle Adjani) had already gone off together — and shows as Abby (Dakota Fanning) watched Merritt alone at the beach and stepping on glass. Abby took the pill from Thomas’ drawer and went to the kitchen to crush it up and mix it with juice in a glass. She then took the juice over to Merritt on the beach, and encourages Merritt to join her for a swim in the ocean.

As Merritt begun to lose consciousness once they go into the water, Abby held down Merritt’s head in the ocean, forcing her to drown and leaving her dead.

Who killed Merritt?

While Thomas might’ve had a hand in obtaining the pill that knocked her out, it’s undeniable that Abby was responsible for Merritt’s death.

Why did Abby kill Merritt?

In short, money. The terms of Tag’s trust fund for the Winbury sons stipulates that the money can’t be released until the last Winbury child turns 18, which would’ve been months away with Will (Sam Nivola) about to reach the milestone birthday. But if Merritt had given birth to the child she was expecting, the clock would have reset another 18 years.

What happens to the killer?

Abby got arrested and booked in the finale, leaving the assumption that she faced legal consequences for the murder.

Is the killer the same as the book?

Yes and no. Abby is still the killer in Elin Hilderbrand’s book of the same name, but the death is an accident rather than an intentional scheme.

In the book, Abby crushed up the same pill and put it in a drink, but this time the drink was meant for the character named Isabel in the show (the character’s name is Featherleigh in the book). The pill is meant to knock out Featherleigh to avoid her sleeping with her husband, Thomas, but Merritt mistakenly ends up consuming it and drowns in the water after passing out.