'The Perfect Couple' is 6 episodes of simple, soapy fun

The first question raised by the new Netflix series The Perfect Couple is this: Why does Nicole Kidman continue to play a string of chilly, wealthy mothers with secrets? Big Little Lies, The Undoing, Expats and now this. Maybe she just likes beautiful settings and great clothes?

Here, in a series based on the Elin Hilderbrand novel, Kidman plays Greer Garrison Winbury (a great name for a rich jerk), a successful novelist whose big family is gathering at their Nantucket estate for the wedding of their son Benji (Billy Howle) to his fiancée Amelia (Eve Hewson).

The rehearsal dinner goes well, but the morning after goes less well, in that a body washes up on the beach. This is the part where you can easily be forgiven for saying “DUN-DUN-DUUUUUN!” out loud. What follows is a whodunit in which family secrets are revealed, dirty laundry is not only aired but run all the way up the flagpole, and yes, you eventually learn how that body got there.

Also in attendance for the wedding weekend are Greer’s fratty, bratty son Thomas (Jack Reynor) and his wife, Abby (Dakota Fanning); her somewhat hapless younger son Will (Sam Nivola); Amelia’s bestie, Merritt (Meghann Fahy); the best man, Shooter (Ishaan Khatter); and extremely French family friend Isabel (Isabelle Adjani).

Donna Lynne Champlin, left, as Nikki Henry, and Michael Beach as Dan Carter.

Liam Daniel/Netflix

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Liam Daniel/Netflix

One of the smartest decisions about this show is the casting of law enforcement: local police chief Dan Carter (Michael Beach) and detective Nikki Henry (Donna Lynne Champlin). Beach is a reliably appealing, relatable, flexible actor who can be very serious or very funny; Champlin was brilliant as Paula on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and brings the perfect touch of disbelief as Nikki, who is not a local, uncovers more and more about how these people actually live. Without humor, this show would be no fun at all; it could not stand up as a super-serious drama, or it would just be … Big Little Lies again. Instead, it’s a cocked-eyebrow mystery that hangs on to its emotional throughlines (it really is sad about that body!) while character reactions underscore the fact that it doesn’t intend to be taken too seriously.

It’s also enormously helpful that it’s only six episodes long. If this were eight episodes, or (heaven forfend) 10, it would drag, and the numerous red herrings would become exhausting. But it moves along at a solid clip, and it continues to reveal information (some of which I genuinely did not see coming), and then it solves the mystery — fairly, by telling you who, in fact, is the perpetrator. (Spoiler: It departs, for the record, from Hilderbrand’s ending, which I did not discover until after I’d watched it and which honestly would have been an entirely different show — and probably would have enraged me.)

It’s a juicy, nifty little end-of-summer mystery, where all the people are beautiful and all the arguments are public and sloppy, where the house is gorgeous and the drinks are bottomless. It’s not much more than that, but it’s not less than that, either. And Beach and Champlin, in particular, can team up in a mystery story every summer, as far as I’m concerned.

This piece also appeared in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.

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