[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Couple Next Door, Season 1 Episode 1, “Welcome to Suburbia.”]
The Couple Next Door has finally arrived on Starz and it feels as though a ticking time bomb is about to go off in suburbia as couple Danny (Sam Heughan) and Becka (Jessica De Gouw) meet newest neighbors, Evie (Eleanor Tomlinson) and Pete (Alfred Enoch).
Danny is a traffic cop and Becka’s a yoga instructor, but they’ve got quite a progressive view when it comes to marriage, agreeing to have an open relationship as long as their extracurricular activities are a group endeavor. That’s quite a leap from the new couple on the block, who have been together since university and are expecting a baby.
Things take a startling turn though as Evie, a teacher, is told by one of her students that she can’t feel the baby. This prompts Evie to get a checkup and it’s revealed she’s had a late-term miscarriage. Is that the catalyst for the journey she’ll take this season? Tomlinson teases, “I think that’s definitely the thing that sets it off. I think that Evie wants to get as far away from her life and her existence as possible. She’s in so much pain.”
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It’s clear she sees something special in Danny and Becka’s dynamic as she observes their free-loving behavior from across the street. But what she sees as a distraction from a horribly tragic event could also spell the demise of her relationship as Pete was immediately suspicious of Danny, despite him not showing any outward initial romantic interest in Evie.
“It’s definitely all about Pete’s insecurity,” Enoch tells TV Insider. “He sees this muscley and attractive [guy who] rides a motorbike, and he goes ‘That’s just too much.’ So he kind of hides behind the humor.”
For now, Evie’s fascination with Danny and Becka may be more than anyone has bargained for, especially considering some of the shady activities Danny finds himself wrapped up in. A colleague of Danny’s asks if he wants to make some extra cash, but that involves some criminal activity that may or may not come back to haunt him.
“I think the audience will certainly make some assumptions about his motives behind why he’s doing these things,” Heughan admits of his character. “The reasons behind [the extra job] may not be as black and white as you may think. He does make some pretty bad choices and he does have quite a big secret in life outside of his more traditional one with Becka, which is also not traditional,” he says with a laugh.
While Danny finds himself embroiled in some shady work engagements and unknowingly in the crosshairs of Evie, whose attraction to him is hinted at during a neighborhood motorcycle ride and longing stare through the rain in the episode’s final moments, there’s even more potential trouble brewing in the form of Alan (Hugh Dennis).
He’s another member of the neighborhood, and it’s clear quite early on that this man has an obsession with Danny’s wife, Becka. Along with taking her yoga classes, Alan has managed to make quite a setup for himself in the upstairs of his home, using a telescope to spy on Becka when she’s out and about, and lurking on social media.
“I think Alan across the road is sort of malevolent presence — she encounters him and really misreads him,” De Gouw says of Becka’s stalker. “There’s a huge consequence to that in terms of the way that he feels it as a rejection. She’s visible online, and that’s her business. And then there’s this person who feels like he’s been wronged and therefore is going to very strategically punish her for it.”
How will it all play out? You’ll have to keep tuning in to see it unfold as The Couple Next Door airs on Starz.
The Couple Next Door, Fridays, 9/8c, Starz