“Nantucket!” exclaims Ishmael, the narrator of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851). “Look at it – a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background.”
In Ishmael’s description, this island off the coast of Massachusetts in the north east of the US is a depleted, weathered place, scarcely distinguishable from the sea. It’s a location for hard and dangerous work, too, as the inhabitants venture into the “watery world” offshore to catch everything from mackerel to whales.
The version of Nantucket we see in The Perfect Couple, Netflix’s new six-part drama, is very different. Here it’s super-rich socialites, not salt-encrusted mariners, who occupy narrative space. They engage in conspicuous leisure, lounging poolside or circulating from party to party. Even Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman), a highly successful writer of popular romances, is most often seen using her fingers to hold a wine glass rather than to hammer at a computer.
