The Perfect Couple

Entertainingly absorbing and beautiful to look at, the show (created by Jenna Lamia and directed by Susanne Bier) has “general audience” written all over it and is a great example of what the genre can be when it’s handled with skill and wit. .... Amassive improvement from the source material.

There are times when “The Perfect Couple” exercises poetic license — one potential suspect after another eschews the presence of a lawyer so we can get some juicy and revealing interrogation scenes — but we’re in pure escapist territory here, so we don’t mind. Even the opening titles, with the full cast performing a loosely choreographed dance number to the sounds of Meghan Trainor’s “Criminals,” is something to see. This is one of the best limited series of 2024.

As the summer comes to an end and the sun sets again on holiday season, there’s lots to like about this well-crafted escapist escapade as we attempt to untangle the mystery while dreaming of how we would be happier if we were so rich.

The Perfect Couple is operating so well on its own bizarro wavelength, with over-the-top performances, melodramatic dialogue, and sharply satirical characterizations of the ultrawealthy that make it feel tonally distinct — especially as it lacks the sympathy and sermonizing so many other series of this type labor under. Instead, The Perfect Couple has a tongue-in-cheek singularity that helps its episodes slide by.

As clues are unearthed, long-held secrets about the Winburys come to light in the most absurd ways, making way for a pulpy, overdramatized and entirely entertaining show.

“The Perfect Couple” is best described as a beach-read come to life.

Lamia has kept exactly what makes such books great and presented us with a glorious, ridiculous treat. Nothing to do but sit back and enjoy.

Easy breezy summer thrillers and self-aware melodrama work best when everyone understands the assignment at hand and from the jump — from the very first note of that Meghan Trainor song — The Perfect Couple reveals it knows exactly what it's doing.

This arch and at times outlandish miniseries delivers the cheap and tasty thrills of a beach read on a lavish, prestige-streamer budget.

Despite its rushed ending and inconsistency in tone, The Perfect Couple excels in its character development thanks to standout performances and complex, winding tension.

Still, the ending is juicy and genuinely surprising, part of a finale episode that is rollicking good time. If only its melodramatic, borderline ridiculous tone could have been replicated in each of the installments.