The Perfect Couple fizzles with red herrings, plot holes, and an unsatisfying ending

Hoping to end summer with a bang, Netflix released the new limited series The Perfect Couple on Sept. 5, but the surfire hit mystery thriller arrived with a resounding thud instead.

Based on the best-selling novel of the same by Elin Hilderbrand, the star-studded spectacle centers on the wealthy Winbury family as they prepare for a wedding on their oceanside estate in Nantucket. Unfortunately, the wedding festivities are cut short by a death that points fingers in everyone's direction as a potential culprit and unearths all the secrets the family's kept hidden.

On the surface, The Perfect Couple has all the necessary ingredients to be an delectable end-of-summer treat: A beach read as its source material, beautiful well-know stars in the cast, and — perhaps most importantly of all — Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman leading the charge. However, dig a little deeper and the series feels as hollow as the Winburys themselves.

The series aims to capture the captivation of many limited series before it, including even Kidman's own HBO success Big Little Lies, but retreading well-worn formulas that have worked in the past quickly makes this entry in the "rich white people facing murder charges on the beach" genre feel disappointing and not entirely worth the nearly six-hour watch.

Unfortunately, The Perfect Couple can be skipped

For starters, The Perfect Couple employs the cliched throughline of police interrogations while working through the case in real time and with splashes of flashbacks sprinkled in for good measure. Being so, the series makes everyone look guilty of the crime, which isn't a bad storytelling device per se, but the constant red herrings in each episode rapidly grow tiresome.

Because the series treads so much territory in such a short amount of time (the six-episode series is based on a nearly 500-page book), there are character quirks and stories set up that aren't explained in a way that leaves the viewer feeling satisfied. By the ending (which seems to set up a second season that doesn't need to happen), you will be wondering what happened between those two characters, why that odd thing happened, how that twist was resolved, etc.

Plot holes can be excused if a show has enough oomph to sustain its narrative, but The Perfect Couple relied solely on the glitzy sheen of a page-to-screen limited series, and to be fair, these aren't gaping plot holes. Like, we find out the killer and their motive (though it's a bit cloudy). Still, it's an overstuffed affair that doesn't fully allow its all-star cast to properly cook.

Eve Hewson shines as the bride-to-be Amelia Sacks (known as Celeste Otis in Hilderbrand's book), and Dakota Fanning's convincingly shrewd and Stepford-esque as Abby, the pregnant wife of Jack Reynor's oddly charming but obnoxious loose cannon trust fund brat Thomas. Meghann Fahy's first post-The White Lotus role is juicy and she devours, but she leaves you wanting more (complimentary).

Speaking of wanting more, somehow, in a series that she leads and executive produced, Nicole Kidman was underused. How does that happen? There's no debate that Greer Garrison Winbury is a compelling and complex character and Kidman couldn't be better in the role. But we just needed more than gazing wistfully out windows and being mean to Amelia for no real reason than being constantly on guard of your house of cards.

Maybe The Perfect Couple simply fell victim to my own high expectations. The advertising was incredibly effective and could hook any devoted consumer of the sand-and-scandal mystery drama branch of television. But this isn't the caliber of TV that would have had the world glued to our screens and reacting live on social media every Sunday night on HBO. Close but no cigar.

The Perfect Couple is available to stream only on Netflix.