Based on Patricia Highsmith's fictional shenanigans of The Talented Mr. Ripley, the titular literary con man has always been willing to do anything without remorse, so why doesn't Tom Ripley kill Marge in the Netflix series?
Ripley has had a huge kill list on his plate, so what makes killing Marge any different, anyway?
CONTENT SPOILERS: This article contains spoilers for Netflix's Ripley, so proceed with caution.
Tom Ripley's Kill List Explored
Tom Ripley has had quite a long list of the people he murdered.
He murdered Dickie just because he wanted to steal his identity. He forges his name on Dickie's passport and had access to his good life, thus the beginning of his con man life.
But he also killed Dickie after not reciprocating his confession of love to him.
Tom kills Freddie next. Freddie happens to be the friend of Dickie who realized Tom stole his identity. Tom framed Freddie to make the police think it was suicide.
One of the most prominent kills Tom Ripley committed was Peter Smith-Kingsley, one of Dickie's wealthiest acquaintances who ends up liking Tom.
However, there was a complication. See, Peter had seen Tom kissing Meredith, despite feeling a romantic connection with him.
Once Tom realizes that both of them may end up discovering it was all a ruse, Tom kills Peter to keep his secret.
Now, considering this long list of murders Tom Ripley acted on, what makes Marge different from his line of victims? Why couldn't he kill her?
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Why Tom Ripley Had the Urge to Kill Marge
Tom Ripley (played by Andrew Scott) and Dickie's American girlfriend, Marge Sherwood (Dakota Fanning) were relatively new friends, and yet he was willing to show her around his new estate, whereby claiming that Tom's house was merely an inheritance from his old aunt.
Don't mistake Marge's friendliness as her trusting Mr. Ripley, though. She remains quite suspicious about his whole deal. However, she doesn't waste the opportunity to visit Ripley's home.
Essentially, it was supposed to be an impulsive mistake. Though Ripley had the urge to push her down a canal, he decided not to, for an unknown reason.
In short, it was simply an impulse. He was an unpredictable character to pin down.
There's a possibility that Ripley didn't find her death significant to the case. She appeared to be convinced they were friends, after all.
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Meanwhile, all episodes of the limited series Ripley are available to stream on Netflix.
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