Drama
House of Guinness
Lawlessness brews in House of Guinness as the children of the late Sir Benjamin Guinness vie for political power and personal pleasure.
They say secrets don’t make friends. But secrets also don’t make families.
Too bad Amelia didn’t learn that before she got tied up with the Winburys.
On the morning of Amelia’s wedding to Benji, the middle Winbury son, a body washed up on the shore outside the Winbury’s Nantucket manor. But not just any body. Oh no. It’s the body of one Merritt Monaco: party girl, social media influencer and maid of honor.
Needless to say, the nuptials did not proceed as planned.
Amelia might have been able to move on from the death of her best friend. She might have been able to accept that Merritt’s passing had been a tragic accident. But Amelia knows better.
At her rehearsal dinner the night before, Amelia had learned a life-changing secret from Merritt—one that implicated several members of Amelia’s family-to-be. The next day, as police investigated the manor for clues about what (or who) caused Merritt’s death, Benji’s mother, bestselling mystery author Greer Garrison Winbury, asks Amelia to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
It all reeks of deception. And as Amelia soon learns, nearly every member of the Winbury brood—not to mention several of their close friends—has a secret they’d like to keep, including Amelia herself.
The question that Det. Henry and Chief Carter (the police investigating Merritt’s case) have to ask themselves is this: Who among the very wealthy and very powerful Winburys would be willing to kill to keep their secrets secret?
Based on the novel of the same title by Elin Hilderbrand, Netflix’s The Perfect Couple explores what happens when dozens of family secrets come to light. Hearts are broken. Marriages are ruined. Lives are destroyed. All quite literally.
Tallying up the secrets alone, the Winburys have multiple extramarital affairs, premarital sex, an unplanned pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, a son who gambled away the family fortune, a covered-up suicide attempt and, of course, the murder of Merritt Monaco.
It’s unfortunate enough that viewers watch much of this play out on screen. But add in foul language, poor attitudes and vulgar behaviors. The result? Yet another show about a family that isn’t suitable for most other families.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
The Winbury wedding comes to a screeching halt when a body is found on the beach the morning of the planned nuptials.
Flashbacks show someone drowning, followed by a woman screaming for help. We later see a corpse lying face down in the water. Coroners take the body away in a black bag. Police place evidence markers next to spots of blood on the beach. A girl hides a shirt covered in blood. A woman’s foot bleeds from a deep cut.
We see male and female characters in swimsuits. Female characters frequently wear highly revealing outfits. Amelia walks out of her room in her underwear and is later criticized by Greer for the inappropriateness. Later, she and Benji make out in their underwear and start to get intimate. A married man flirts with a woman who isn’t his wife, touching her affectionately. Couples kiss. There’s a crass comment about male anatomy. People gossip about other people’s sex lives. A male wedding planner says he’s never had sex with Greer but wouldn’t mind having sex with Greer’s husband. Benji’s brother makes cruel comments about Amelia and Merritt’s relationship, implying that they might be lesbians.
Characters drink continuously, often to excess. (A teenager is prevented from drinking since he’s too young to legally partake.) Tag Winbury, the family patriarch, smokes marijuana frequently. He shares it with his son and says he used to give it to his own dad as a painkiller. When he offers to give some to Amelia’s mom (who suffers from cancer), Amelia declines. But we later see her mom taking pills in secret, likely because she’s ashamed, they’re illegal, or both. Tom Winbury, the eldest son, plays “prescription roulette,” trying to convince everyone to mix their medications together to get high.
We hear about a man who gambled away his family’s property. Someone makes crude jokes about the Winbury family’s wealth, stating they’re “child-sex-ring-on-a-private-island rich.”
Amelia goes into a state of shock after learning of Merritt’s death. Several people give cruel descriptions of Greer to the police, including her own daughter-in-law. Greer and Abby (Tom’s wife) are both rude to Amelia on several occasions. Tom is a bully to his younger brothers and is generally crass to everyone, including his pregnant wife. Several characters are condescending to those they consider beneath them.
Greer tells Benji that she doesn’t have a problem with Amelia, but that she worries Amelia doesn’t love Benji. Her fears are well-founded: Amelia later tells Merritt about her hesitancy to marry Benji, since she’s not as in love with him as he is with her.
There are nearly 20 uses of the f-word and two of the s-word. We also hear uses of “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n” and “d–k.” God’s name is abused 10 times, once paired with “d–mit.” Christ’s name is abused once.
Secrets begin to unravel in the wake of Merritt’s death. And Amelia questions whether she still wants to marry into the Winbury family after being asked to sign an NDA.
Cops begin to suspect that Merritt’s death was not accidental after finding a gash on her foot and bruising on both her wrists. We see more flashbacks of Merritt’s drowning.
We hear a couple engaged in sexual activity and later see them in bed together, revealing to audiences that they are having an affair. The man tells the woman he wants to tell his wife, but she insists she doesn’t want a serious relationship. It’s revealed that another extramarital affair led to an unplanned pregnancy, and several characters get into arguments over this revelation. There’s some crass talk about sex.
People drink throughout the episode. Several characters take prescription pills to get high. Tag and Greer smoke marijuana.
Amelia is overcome with grief, especially since she and Merritt had fought the night before. Characters gossip about Merritt. Abby spreads rumors about her husband’s ex-girlfriend. Greer’s public relations team tells the family to release a statement that Merritt’s death was a suicide (though evidence strongly suggests otherwise). Tom continues to be a bully. The entire Winbury family acts condescending toward poor people. People lie to the police. A man tries to flee Nantucket, but he’s caught by police.
Det. Henry accuses Chief Carter of nepotism. But he explains that it’s a manipulation tactic so that the Winburys won’t bring in powerful lawyers to shut down the investigation before they find the guilty party.
There are 16 uses of the f-word and one use each of the s-word and “h—.” God’s name is abused three times, once paired with “d–mit.”
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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