“I will never give up on you”

The perfect couple

I will never give up on you

Season 1

Episode 5

Editor’s Rating

5 stars

*****

Photo: LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX

I can’t stop thinking about how perfectly this show is cast. Can you imagine anyone other than Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber doing what they do in this episode? “Never Gonna Give You Up” pushes Greer and Tag to their limits and then pits them against each other to see what happens. What happens is an absolute disaster. What happens is perhaps the best book launch event in the history of book launch events (low bar, but still). Kidman and Schreiber know exactly how to bypass any potential cheesiness and deliver pure, juicy melodrama. Consider it an end-of-summer parting gift.

Could someone deliver the line, “He thought you were walking on water and now you’re tethered to solid ground like the rest of us,” as an icy dagger straight to Amelia’s heart, as Kidman does in the opening scene? My notes here were simply: Is this a horror show? Friends, Kidman is terrifying as Greer when she coldly confronts Amelia in the kitchen after her future daughter-in-law spends the night in her parents’ bedroom. The whole family knows that Benji has caught her kissing Shooter, and Greer genuinely relishes the woman’s downfall. Greer is menacing without ever raising her voice, and she knows exactly how to exert control over anyone she wants to—here she makes it clear that no matter what she decides to do, Amelia will attend Greer’s book launch and that she’s at least going to pretend to be happy to be there. And yet the woman seems tired. It must be exhausting, trying to control everyone and everything in your life so much that it looks perfect on the outside—I mean, personally delivering evidence that could get your husband arrested for murder alone! We can see the cracks this exhaustion is creating in Greer; sometimes all you can do is throw a basket of silverware on the kitchen floor.

Yes, it’s true; thanks to the jewelry evidence Greer gave to Chief Carter, Tag is the prime suspect in Merritt’s murder and has spent the night in the police station interrogation room. While Tag isn’t exactly forthcoming with Carter and Detective Henry—he initially insists that he last saw Merritt under the tent with Isabel before he went to bed at 1:30 a.m. and that Merritt was still very much alive—we do learn a lot more about Merritt’s final hours thanks to Tag’s flashbacks.

When Merritt tells Tag she’s pregnant, he seems happy about it. He tells her she’s beautiful and that he loves her, and then he wanders off singing “All By Myself,” because that’s Tag’s way. Merritt may be temporarily relieved—you have to imagine her hoping to start a real family with the man she loves—but a few chords of an Eric Carmen jam don’t exactly set a plan for what’s next.

We know that Merritt has multiple conversations with people in which they tell her that Tag is a liar, that Tag will never leave Greer, and that this is a terrible idea, so it makes sense that she wants to force him to give her more details about what he is thinking. This happens after the “late-night crew” has split up. Tag has given Merritt that suit jacket that the police found on the shore and he is getting his boat ready for a paddle. When a confused Merritt hopefully asks Tag if they are “really doing this,” his response is, “What’s going on inside you right now is one of the most beautiful things that can happen between a man and a woman.” Honestly, if Merritt drowned herself trying to avoid hearing that sentence, I wouldn’t be surprised. But she doesn’t. Instead, she stands there and takes more of Tag like the ultimate dick. This guy goes from you are beautiful And that you are pregnant is beautiful to “It’s a Matter of Timing” so fast it must be a world record. When she realizes that Tag doesn’t want this baby and doesn’t want anything real with her, she’s distraught. She wades into the water. The two wrestle a bit — but she comes out alive. Tag didn’t kill Merritt.

Tag’s problem is that no one believes a word he says. As Detective Henry notes, “Even when he’s telling the truth, it looks like he’s lying.” But guess what isn’t lying (as long as you update it): his smartwatch. He has an app that tracks his sleep. He’s honest about the fight on the beach and the fact that he went to bed around 2:30 a.m., not 1:30 a.m. But the toxicology report confirms that the drugs weren’t in Merritt’s system long before she drowned, and her estimated time of death is well after the time Tag can now prove he went to bed. It couldn’t have been him.

So Tag is released while they check his smartwatch data, and after getting suitably drunk, he wanders into Greer’s book launch party. Oh, my friends, what a time this is – and I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Benji sucker-punches Shooter and then has sex with Amelia against an industrial refrigerator.

Greer steps onto the stage, thanks her adoring fans, and then announces that this will be her final performance. Dash and Dolly novel — she’s working on something new. She quickly realizes she has two big problems in the crowd. First, who should show up but Mr. Broderick Graham. He approaches the stage as Greer tries to read on, undisturbed, but she does call for security. He screams that she can’t ignore him, but goes along with the police without too much of a fight. Disturbing, but not completely disruptive. No, that job falls to Tag. At first, people are excited about Tag’s appearance — he is the real Dash, after all — but once Tag joins Greer onstage and steals the microphone from her, the man puts on a show. Schreiber and Kidman are so good here, with Tag completely destroying his wife’s career and Greer alternately trying to stop her husband and pretending to be okay with it. That moment where she tries to get everyone to dance along to Tag singing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”? Greer is a character who is nearly impossible to empathize with, and yet I felt so incredibly bad for this woman and her little stepmotherly actions.

So what are some of the things a disheveled Tag reveals on the mic? Well, he starts it all off with a one-two punch of “I would kill for (my wife). I haven’t done it, by the way, honey, but I would. I could,” and “Our marriage is deeply, profoundly, terminally fucked.” From there, he screams at the audience to “stop sucking the giant cock of the paperback industry” and then pivots to informing them that he and Greer enjoy threesomes. Not, like, all the time, but for special occasions, you get the idea. He announces that Greer tried to frame him for murder, and yet the man just can’t leave her. He’ll never, ever give her up, you see. It’s an epic public meltdown that can only end one way: with Tag attempting to lead the group in a Rick Astley sing-along until he falls off the stage as a bunch of balloons fall from the ceiling and a marching band enters from behind. I think this is art.

What’s a woman to do when she’s been publicly humiliated by her husband and everything she’s built is crumbling around her? She heads to the local bar for some Dark ‘n’ Stormies with the police chief. They get to talking about different people’s motives for killing Merritt. When he asks about her motive, she notes that it would be too obvious. But what if that’s her cover, “hiding in plain sight”? She admits that if that’s the case, it would take an incredibly skilled liar to pull it off and “even the best liars get tired of juggling too much.” There will always come a point when that person becomes so overwhelmed that they snap. Has Greer reached that point? She does look terribly exhausted sitting at that bar.

Just as we’re getting to the heart of that conversation, Carter gets a call from Detective Henry and Deputy Carl. Tag was telling the truth about being asleep at Merritt’s estimated time of death, but his watch leads them to another suspect. The app is also tracking the person in the bed next to him the night of the murder, who was Greer — and according to the app, she’s not in bed from 3 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. But there’s more: They’ve also discovered that a phone call was placed from the Winbury home to the Sand Dollar Motel just after 3 a.m. — the call was placed to Broderick Graham’s room. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: Ever since Broderick Graham showed up at the book launch, they’ve been investigating the guy, and it turns out he’s been arrested before and has ties to the Turkish mob; he’s a bad guy. And, the kicker: They also found evidence of a $300,000 wire transfer to Broderick Graham from … Shooter Dival. Did Greer hire Broderick to kill Merritt and Shooter help pay him off? I mean, we just discussed why it might work to her advantage to be the “too obvious” suspect.

The other piece of information that brings us closer to Greer’s direction for the murder is the rest of the flashback to Merritt’s final hours. After her fight with Tag, she ends up having a nightcap with Isabel on those Adirondack chairs. From one mistress to the other, Isabel reminds Merritt that they never leave their wives and then proposes a toast “to the other woman.” As they clink glasses, Isabel’s glass breaks. She picks up a few pieces before heading to bed, leaving Merritt alone on the chair. As soon as she gets up, she steps into a glass and staggers away. But you know who’s watching Merritt’s every move? Greer, alone in the kitchen. The next thing we know, Greer is walking away and Merritt is turning to greet what must be a familiar face. Whoever comes looking for Merritt at that moment is definitely our killer. I doubt it. The perfect couple would reveal the real killer before the finale, but stranger things have happened. We all just saw Liev Schreiber kill Nicole Kidman, so anything is possible.

• Apparently Shooter Dival is even richer than the Winburys. Amelia tells him he’s just a liar in a house full of them and informs him of her sex affair with Benji — indicating that nothing more will happen between her and Shooter.

• You’re telling me Abby took it upon herself to pack Merritt’s clothes out of the goodness of her heart? This bitch ain’t got no heart! What’s she up to?

• Abby delivers another bombshell when Amelia catches her cleaning out Merritt’s stuff and says, “They can arrest me if they want, but they won’t because I’m a white woman. So gross.” Dakota Fanning Emmy Campaign When?

• And also from Abby (of course): “Jesus, it looks like Lily Pulitzer threw up a projectile in here.”

• On one hand, it would be nice for Will to get a normal girlfriend for once and have a happy ending to this whole thing; on the other hand, I don’t want Chloe Carter anywhere near the Winburys. Can someone please tell her father that his daughter has terrible decision-making skills?

• Please, someone, find out who on set got to take home that life-size cutout of Liev Schreiber, and where they keep it? I need a complete oral history.