The Perfect Couple’s Dakota Fanning Explains Ending, Merritt’s Death

The Perfect Couple killer answered some burning questions about the mysterious murder, changes from the book and more.

Netflix’s limited series, which started streaming on Thursday, September 5, stood to the source material by making Abby (Dakota Fanning) the one who killed Merritt (Meghann Fahy) on Amelia (Eve Hewson) and Benji’s (Billy Howle) wedding weekend.

Fans had to wait six episodes to find out who caused Merritt’s demise — but Fanning, 30, knew as soon as she joined the project.

“I worked with [director] Susanne Bier before, and we had become super close and I would do anything for her, and she called me one day before this started and was explaining, ‘I want you to play this character. She’s pregnant. She’s the killer,’” Fanning told Entertainment Weekly on Monday, September 9. “I was like, ‘I’m totally in.’”

The actress didn’t read a single script before signing on to play Thomas’ (Jack Reynor) wife.

“I didn’t even know what it was called to even look up the book at that time,” Fanning said about the show, which is based on author Elin Hilderbrand‘s novel of the same name. “Then the cast started coming together.”

She continued: “I’d always wanted to work with Nicole [Kidman], Eve and I are super close friends, Jack and I have almost worked together before but it hasn’t happened. It felt like it just came together in this fantasy way that you never get a group like this together. It was really special.”

In the show, Abby killed Merritt by spiking her drink and then drowning her once she found out the maid of honor was pregnant with Tag’s (Liev Schreiber) child. The book, however, showed Merritt accidentally drowning.

“It would’ve had to be a different Abby to be an accident,” Fanning noted. “She meant it, which is so much crazier. It’s so much more fun to play.”

Fanning also wanted to add more context behind Abby’s motivations, sharing, “I see it as even more than just the money. I see it as saving the facade, being the person that saved this f—ked up family and kept it all together. And of course, there’s going to be a win for her in it, whether it’s for herself or whether it’s for her child.”

According to Fanning, Abby’s anger at her own choices influenced her decision.

“If she doesn’t get her money, she probably has to leave Thomas and find someone else. I think that the decision making is from feeling not seen, not valued, cast to the side,” she continued. “And also feeling like, ‘I’m married to this f—king dumbass and I am mad at myself that I’m in this situation, and now have to fix it.’ In our heightened world, that means the drugging and drowning of human beings.”

Playing Abby in the six-episode series was just the beginning for Fanning. She joked that she already has an idea of how to return to The Perfect Couple with a spinoff series.

“I think Tom and Abby did meet in a bar last year of college or whatever and probably had a great time for that first year. And so those were little things, but I think what was most important was to think about what she’s up against now, the circle that she’s living in now, the pressure of that keeping up with the Joneses,” she concluded. “We had a joke Jack and I were in our own story a lot of the time, the two of us just having so much fun with each other and we’re the worst couple. We need a spinoff: The Worst Couple.”

The Perfect Couple is now streaming on Netflix.