Best TV shows to watch if you loved The Perfect Couple
Gorgeous locations and grisly murders await.
The Perfect Couple has been the surprise late-summer smash on Netflix, delivering a twisty murder mystery at the Nantucket estate of an uber-wealthy (and uber-dysfunctional) family.
But with only six episodes to its name, the beach-read-as-TV-show is over all too soon. So if you, like us, have been left wanting more of the same, we’ve put together a list of similar series you can binge right now.
There are shows aplenty here that again star Nicole Kidman, who appears to have been quietly propping up "eat the rich" TV for years. There’s also a mix of vibe-driven murder mysteries, often in a sumptuous setting with a dose of the schadenfreude that comes from watching the miserable, terrible, fabulous lives of the rich unfold.
So dive in for an array of quiet luxury slasher shows with enough harebrained plot twists thrown in to keep you guessing to the end.
The White Lotus
If you weren’t one of the people who saw Meritt in The Perfect Couple and said, "That’s Daphne from the second season of The White Lotus!" then a real treat awaits.
Aside from Meghann Fahy, The Perfect Couple’s similarities to The White Lotus are fairly evident. Both are set at lavish coastal locations. Both kick off with a murder. Both feature horrible rich people. Both have three words in their title, one of which is ‘the’.
The dark prestige drama's second outing sees a group of holidaymakers descend on the Italian coast for a luxurious stay – among them is Daphne and her wandering-eyed husband Cameron (Theo James). We can neither confirm nor deny if Fahy’s character meets a similar fate here, since the dead bodies (multiple murders!) are kept under wraps until the dramatic final episode.
The zeitgeist-y drama comedy is one of the best shows on the air at the moment, with a third season promising more soapy murder mystery and sharp satire set against the cobalt-blue sea of Thailand.
Big Little Lies
Big Little Lies is another sure thing for The Perfect Couple fans, with both a thawing, inscrutable Nicole Kidman and an even better murder mystery at the heart of things.
This ensemble cast is stacked: Kidman is joined by Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Zoe Kravitz and Shailene Woodley, who make up the so-called Monterey Five.
The miniseries hops back and forth between present-day police interrogations and the pre-murder past. Tensions rise between the (once again) wealthy characters before the local school’s fateful Audrey Hepburn and Elvis Presley-themed fundraiser. There, murder ensues.
The second season has nothing on the first, but now there’s a third on the way – with Kidman on board, of course – so we may be in for a Big Little Lies-aissance.
The Undoing
Adding The Undoing into the mix, we could make a convincing argument that Kidman is shaping an entire TV career as the actor-in-chief of depicting the woes of privilege. Here she’s another teetering matriarch, whose family becomes embroiled in a high-profile murder case in New York.
If The Perfect Couple pedigree wasn’t evident already, this is also from the same director in Susanne Bier. Come for Nicole Kidman’s outstanding array of astronomically expensive coats, stay for Hugh Grant’s hilariously unpredictable character arc.
Cruel Summer
The ten episodes of Cruel Summer bounce between three summers in the '90s – already, a great decade to set anything – as wallflower Jeanette is eyed for the disappearance of the designated popular girl Kate. Think Pretty Little Liars, but less insane.
With an anthology approach, the second season was a new tale with a brand-new cast. Alas, Cruel Summer was cancelled after two runs, but the addictive trashy show burned particularly bright in its first season and was worth the wait to the finale’s genuinely good twist.
Revenge
Another deliciously daft entry, Revenge sees Emily (Emily VanCamp) take on a new identity to get her eye for an eye from the wealthy Grayson family, who – suspend your disbelief, please – framed her father for money laundering for a terrorist organisation.
The glamorous location this time around is the Hamptons, where there’s always a lavish party. Emily is constantly unveiling some new secret talent to further her vengeful cause. There are plenty of shiny-looking lives we discover are not so sparkling beneath the surface. Plus many bonkers plot twists to boot.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
This modern update of the '90s film I Know What You Did Last Summer again centres on a group of fun-loving teens who are stalked by a mysterious serial killer one year on from a hit-and-run the night of their high school graduation, which they never 'fessed up to. Naturally.
There’s more blood, guts and gore than you might expect, but also an addictive Gossip Girl bend to the 10 episodes, particularly as the teens start to turn on one another.
Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
Chris Hemsworth's Netflix sequel gets exciting update
5 gripping shows on BBC and more this week
What Cillian Murphy has in common with Tommy Shelby
Everything we know about Virgin River season 8
