“The Perfect Couple” show vs. book: See all the changes made in the new Netflix series

Between new characters, name changes, and one particularly shocking reveal, the new show put its own spin on the source material.

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Elin Hilderbrand’s book The Perfect Couple and all six episodes of Netflix’s The Perfect Couple. 

There’s nothing like summer on Nantucket – lobster, beach days, and… murder?

The idyllic setting of queen of the beach read Elin Hilderbrand’s novel The Perfect Couple is shaken up when the maid of honor in Nantucket’s wedding of the year is found dead. The book, released in 2018, is getting the small-screen treatment with a new Netflix series starring Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Meghann Fahy, Dakota Fanning, and more in an ensemble cast. The story in the novel takes place over Fourth of July weekend and includes several flashbacks told from various characters’ perspectives. The six-episode series, streaming on Netflix now, is told over the would-be wedding weekend and is interspersed with investigators’ interviews.

While the broad strokes of the story (and the killer!) remain the same as in Hilderbrand’s original whodunnit, the TV version changes and adds several details, including a dramatic reveal in the finale that is nowhere to be found in the novel. Read on as we break down the biggest changes between The Perfect Couple book and show.

The basics

First things first, there are some very basic facts about the characters that have been altered for the small screen. First up: The main character in the book is named Celeste Otis. The novel’s Celeste is described as blond, shy, and reserved. In the Netflix series, Celeste is turned into Amelia Sacks, who is brunette and much bolder – the Celeste of the book, for example, would never run into the front lawn in just her bra (though she probably would also go to great lengths to rescue a bug from getting smushed). They both work at a zoo, are incredibly close with her parents, and have complicated romantic feelings toward Benji. But we’ll get to that later.

The Windbury family looks quite different in the show. Yes, Greer (Kidman) and Tag (Schreiber) are uber-wealthy with successful sons – but they only have two sons in the book, Benji (Billy Howle) and Thomas (Jack Reynor). The character of Will (Sam Nivola), the Windbury’s youngest, doesn’t exist in the book.

Related: Elin Hilderbrand shares her favorite beach reads to fill your tote this summer

While Fanning, as Thomas’s wife Abby, is just as insufferable as he is on the show, the Abby of the book is a bit more low-key. She’s described as having a Southern accent, red hair, and comes from her own generational wealth. She is also pregnant in the book, and it’s revealed that she’s suffered several miscarriages. She’s also just as suspicious of Thomas’s cheating in the book.

The Merritt-Tag relationship

While Merritt’s death is the impetus of the entire plot, the character isn’t quite as present in the show as she is in the book. In the book, we get tons of backstory on Merritt (Fahy) and her relationship with Tag. Merritt is the head of PR at the zoo where Celeste works, but before that, she was a rising star at a prominent PR firm. One of the founders of that firm preyed on Merritt, forcing her into an inappropriate relationship with him. When his wife (who happened to be the other cofounder) discovered this, Merritt was fired and blacklisted. That’s how Merritt came to work at the zoo, where she met Celeste.

Merritt first meets Tag when she visits Nantucket for Celeste’s bachelorette weekend the spring before the wedding — and Tag becomes obsessed with her. So obsessed that one night he shows up at her front door in the middle of the night because he can’t stop thinking about her. He buys her a trendy thumb ring (which is nowhere as expensive as the bracelet in the show) and plans a romantic getaway for Merritt’s birthday, but when he sees Thomas in the lobby bar of the hotel they were meant to stay at, he calls the whole thing off. The breakup devastates Merritt, who just learned she was pregnant.

The Thomas-Isabel relationship

Isabel (Isabelle Adjani) in the book is Featherleigh Dale, a British (not French) friend of the Windbury family and frankly, a big mooch. She and Thomas indeed have an affair in the book, but she’s way more into him, while in the show, it’s Thomas who seems more into Isabel.

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The Shooter-Amelia-Benji love triangle

Like in the show, Celeste in the book spends a day with Shooter at the house in Nantucket before Benji’s arrival (they just don’t get there by private jet in the book), and the pair fall in love almost immediately. When Benji proposes to Celeste, Shooter helps set it all up – but gives Celeste a note that says, “In case you have any doubts, I’m in love with you.” Celeste struggles internally over whether she should stay with Benji or leave him for Shooter, and her anxiety over the situation leads to her developing a severe stutter. On the morning of the wedding, Celeste and Shooter had planned to run away together – but it was when Celeste was on her way to meet Shooter that she found Merritt.

Shooter’s background

In the book, Benji’s best man is Shooter Uxley, not Shooter Dival, and their backgrounds are extremely different. While the Shooter of the show comes from a prominent Indian family, the Shooter of the book has a tragic backstory, never went to college, and is a self-made man. The book also ends with hope for Shooter and Celeste to end up together, rather than them calling their love affair off completely.

Related: Nicole Kidman is a woman with money (and secrets) in first Perfect Couple trailer

The local police team

Michael Beach’s Chief of Police Dan Carter is Ed Kapenash in the book. The Kapenash character appears in several of Hilderbrand’s novels set in Nantucket. And Detective Nikki Henry doesn't exist in the book. Instead, there is a detective character named Nick, known as "The Greek," who is described as bald, very handsome, and a ladies’ man. Kapenash goes to Nick when he needs to get someone to talk.

Amelia’s parents

Amela’s parents are portrayed similarly in the show and the book in that her mom is battling terminal cancer and carries pills with her to Nantucket with plans to take her own life with dignity after the wedding. What we don’t learn in the show is that Celeste’s dad, Bruce, once had an emotional affair with a man, which is something that Karen learns during the wedding weekend.

Greer’s career

Greer is a successful novelist in the book, but on the page, her career is floundering, not flourishing. (The dramatic book launch scene in episode 5 doesn’t exist in the book.) We learn in the novel that Greer, who started writing mysteries while pregnant with Thomas to stave off boredom, recently submitted her next book to her publisher, who gives her two weeks for a rewrite before it gets shelved. After Merritt’s death, however, she pretty much gives up on finishing it.

Greer’s background

In the sixth and final episode, Greer reveals to her family that she got her start as an escort – which is how she met Tag – and that the mysterious man who crashed her book launch party is in fact her brother, whose gambling problem she’s been secretly funding. The family is completely shocked by this news – much like readers of the book will be. In the book, Greer is from a wealthy English family, the Garrisons, and this part of her backstory doesn’t exist.

Related: Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon give a Big Little Lies season 3 update: 'We're in good shape'

The killer

Abby is indeed the culprit in both the show and the original novel, but the circumstances that lead to Merritt’s death are quite different. While it’s revealed in the show that Abby purposefully drowned Merritt to protect her own baby’s future inheritance, leading to her arrest, the book ends with the police declaring Merritt’s death an accident. And while in the show, Thomas steals pills from Amelia’s mom, it’s Greer’s pills that go missing in the book.

Related: Nicole Kidman gets nasty in Netflix's beach-read thriller The Perfect Couple

Here’s what happens in the book: Over the course of the weekend, Greer notices that her pillbox, containing sleeping pills, is missing. The night of the murder, she had taken it with her downstairs to get a glass of champagne to help her sleep. Eventually, the housekeeper (named Elida in the book) returns it to her, saying she found it in the trash can in Thomas and Abby’s room. Greer then overhears a fight between Thomas and Abby about his affair with Featherleigh, in which Abby tells Thomas that she saw Featherleigh waiting around for him. Greer realizes that Abby had seen her in the kitchen with the pill box, and that her daughter-in-law must have swiped a sleeping pill and “decided to put the old girl to sleep… to keep her from fooling around with Thomas.” The book points out that Merritt’s death was indeed accidental – Abby didn’t mean to kill Featherleigh or anyone else, and she may never even realize it was the sleeping pill meant for Featherleigh that wound up in Merritt’s glass. The night of the rehearsal dinner, Merritt throws the ring Tag gave her into the ocean out of anger when he makes it clear that he won't be getting back together with her. She regrets it, and goes in to retrieve the ring. But by then, the sleeping pills in her system have kicked in, and she doesn’t make it out of the water.

The Perfect Couple is streaming now on Netflix.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.