The Couple Next Door Premiere Recap: Sex, Suburbia and Sam Heughan Blend for Flighty Fun

Kimberly Roots

17 January 2025 at 10:09 pm·6-min read

Remember that Saturday Night Live parent-teacher conference sketch from a few years back? If it were set in England, Sudeikis’ character had a free-spirit wife, and guns were somehow involved, you’d essentially have the premiere of The Couple Next Door.

The psychological thriller’s first season aired in its entirety in the United Kingdom in 2023, but its first episode debuted on Starz Friday, allowing fans of the network’s time-travel romance, Outlander, to watch leading man Sam Heughan — he stars in both series — sport period-drama breeks and motorcycle leathers all within a two-hour span.

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The series is nutty. It sometimes makes no sense. And I dig it. I’m hoping you’re into it, too, because I need someone to talk about it with. Read on for the highlights of the premiere, “Welcome to Suburbia.”

You know something bad is going down when the first visual we get is of a cabin in the woods where people are running, crying and shooting guns. Then we flash back to a young couple moving into a suburban neighborhood: They’re Evie (Eleanor Tomlinson, Poldark) and Pete (Alfred Enoch, How to Get Away With Murder), a married couple expecting their first baby.

Even before they can set foot in their new place, Evie and Pete are greeted by their across-the-street neighbor, Becka (Jessica de Gouw, Arrow), a yoga instructor with zero boundaries. She immediately hugs and kisses the newbies, calling over her hunky traffic cop husband Danny (Heughan) when Pete has some trouble moving the dishwasher off the truck.

Danny and Becka decide to help these absolute strangers move in, and Pete and Evie let them — even though Becka and Danny are far too smoochy and PDA-y and generally red-flaggy. “She was nice enough. He was a bit much,” Pete, feeling emasculated by the fact that Danny can lift entire appliances all on his own.

Back at Danny and Becka’s, he is very aware of how much Pete didn’t like him. But Becka maintains that the new couple can be their friends. They start kissing and undressing, unaware that one of their older, male neighbors is using a telescope to look into their bedroom window. Eew.

Evie and Pete get settled in. She’s an elementary school teacher who just started a new job. He’s a reporter at a failing newspaper. He really wants to do an investigative piece on a man named Robbie Spencer, who’s apparently up to no good, but his editor shuts him down. (This will prove important later.)

Alan is the name of the neighborhood creeper, who seems to be fixated on Becka. He takes her yoga class and asks for private lessons, but she is cold to him and asks him not to come back. That’ll be important later, too.

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You might be thinking, “We’re almost halfway through an episode of this erotic thriller, and nothing seems particularly ‘erotic’ or ‘thrilling.’” Just wait — we have to get through a miscarriage and financial woes first. Evie goes in for a checkup and the ultrasound tech can’t find her baby’s heartbeat; Evie can’t get a hold of Pete and winds up having to drive herself home. She sobs in the car in the driveway, and that’s where Becka finds her and immediately consoles her. Meanwhile, we learn that Danny is having some financial problems that have caused him to secretly dip into his and Becka’s savings. When a colleague offers him some side work in a protective detail for a “businessman” who is TOTALLY NOT A CRIMINAL, Danny is intrigued.

Pete and Evie, you’ve had your dreams dashed in a horrible and painful fashion: Why on Earth are you spilling your hearts to two people you met a few days ago? As Pete and Danny share beers in the backyard, Pete tells him that his “puny sperm” meant that he and Evie had to use a sperm donor. He clearly has FEELINGS about this.

We learn that Pete and Evie have been together since they were in college, and he was her first and only boyfriend. (Later, when we meet Evie’s family and see that they’re preachy Christians, all of this makes a lot more sense.) At the other end of the spectrum, we find out that Danny and Becka are swingers; when they invite “that couple we met in Marbella” over for some fun, lest you think that they’re going to draft a Fantasy Football team or something, Becka literally comes to the door in lingerie and thigh-highs.

Two months later, Evie is having a hard time, emotionally, but she rallies to go to a barbecue at Danny and Becka’s. She pounds wine. Danny smokes a joint. And when they all go out to the garage to look at Danny’s motorcycle (oh come ON who would do this?), Evie notes that she’s never ridden one. So of course, a slightly high Danny thinks it’s a great idea to take her for a spin. (If you watched, convince me that Enoch isn’t channeling Kyle Mooney in the SNL bit when he mentions how tipsy and high everyone is.)

Evie and Danny go for a ride. She’s super into it. But the evening is cut short when Danny gets a call and tells everyone he has to go to work… though he actually has to go escort that businessman, who’s getting off a private jet and carrying a briefcase full of cash. And it turns out that the boss of the whole operation is the man Pete wanted to investigate! When Danny is done, he lies to Becka and says he had to transport a donor heart; her face says she doesn’t quite believe him. Then he surreptitiously texts someone, “I’ve got your money.”

Back at home, Evie is suddenly very interested in climbing on top of her husband, though she showed less than zero interest that morning. As it thunders and pours outside, they attempt to have sex on the incredibly flimsy Ikea table they have set up in the kitchen; when it almost breaks, they move to the counter and knock over a jar, breaking it.

For reasons I truly cannot understand, Pete thinks the best post-coital activity is to sweep up the broken jar pieces IMMEDIATELY. And then Evie decides that she must take out the garbage RIGHT THAT VERY SECOND. Danny is doing the same thing, so when she pulls the cans out to the curb, they stare at each other and breathe heavily. Because who doesn’t get hot over a little separated recyclables?

Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Grade it via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!

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