Your Friends & Neighbors begins with a tight shot of Jon Hamm slowly returning to consciousness in the middle of a million-dollar foyer, where he mysteriously lies in a large puddle of a dead man’s blood. Terrified and confused – and after a failed attempt to clean up the mess, likely out of panic – he tries to flee the scene only to trip and fall into the pool, where he ponders just how things took such a dire turn. If your instinct is to process this image as a metaphor, don’t worry – the former Mad Men star himself validates that assumption directly in a voiceover promising an unlikely story of a charmed life gone awry. It’s a sequence of events clearly designed to shock and seduce us. Instead, it plays like a scene you hazily remember seeing a few dozen times before, but can’t pinpoint exactly where.
By the end of the series opener, it’s clear that Apple TV+’s newest high-end drama wants to offer a tale that both titillates and shirks convention. After all, it’s not every day that you see a well-off man really question the affluence he’s spent his whole life chasing, nor do we plebeians often get a less-than-glossy glimpse into the lives of the One Percent. But beyond a handful of solid performances and some lo-fi larceny sprinkled throughout the seven episodes made available for review, Your Friends & Neighbors reads more like a concept that took all the wrong lessons from Robin Hood and Breaking Bad and leans perhaps too heavily on the assumption that the predictably messy lives of the rich are inherently must-watch.
Hamm stars as Andrew “Coop” Cooper, a once-successful hedge fund manager who is unceremoniously fired after a tryst with a lower-level employee. Between his abrupt ouster and a contract that prevents him from immediately accepting a role at a competing firm, he’s left with a few undesirable options. Rather than accept a too-junior position elsewhere or simply downsize from his multiple luxury homes, he decides to steal from his similarly affluent neighbors. It is a brash idea that Coop adopts with startling ease.
If there’s a reason behind that, creator Jonathan Tropper doesn’t really explore it in these first episodes. It’s partly why Your Friends & Neighbors’ pacing feels tricky. Things move slowly here, which would be totally fine if more of the journey was dedicated towards really digging into the stickier parts of Coop or building a somewhat cohesive case to support his bold pivot. But we’re not offered much beyond a rich man supporting the sometimes frivolous whims of his family and his desperation to keep up appearances. Not enough to totally tank a premise, but definitely not enough to build any real empathy towards our leading man.
Between robberies, Coop occasionally hints at a desire to engage in some much-needed introspection. But for every slight indictment of his sort-of former lifestyle, there’s even more evidence of his desperation to maintain it. Rather than interrogate the tension between judging the lives of his neighbors and literally risking freedom just to keep up, Tropper quickly ushers us towards the next scandal before we ask too many questions or even begin to grasp the motivation behind any of Coop’s choices.
These scandals, by the way, are fairly standard fare for the The Rich Are Messier Than You Think subgenre: adultery and occasional drug use, mainly. They maintain the show’s watchability, but are hardly worth any watercooler chat. Even the robberies themselves – you know, the show’s main attraction – are few and forgettable. As Coop lifts a stack of bills here and a too-expensive watch there, he provides us with insight on his peers’conspicuous consumption: owning pieces of jewelry worth enough to feed an entire midsized village or the perplexing, uber-exclusive process of procuring a $50,000 Hermès bag. It’s an excuse to employ some interesting, magazine-spread-worthy background on the things he’s stealing, which are coupled with some glossy-magazine-sleek visuals. But the details aren’t surprising if you’ve ever encountered a rich person in real life or in fiction. Perhaps that’s the occupational hazard of a baby criminal in his first season. But if you’re going to tease some heists, for the love of all things spicy, give us some real heists – or, at the very least, juicer secrets.
The speed at which the story progresses could be due to the buffet of side plots courtesy of Coop’s family and friends/victims. When he’s not an amateur thief, Coop is a bitter divorcé still reeling from the infidelity of his ex-wife, Mel (Amanda Peet), and a father to two vaguely contemptuous teens (Isabel Gravitt and Donovan Colan). Again, we’re only offered bits and pieces of the lore behind the family dynamic, which largely revolves around Mel’s choice to cheat with one of Cooper’s close friends, ex-NBA player Nick Brandes (Mark Tallman). We’re largely left in the dark as to why things fell apart, aside from a few fairly useless idioms from Coop: who admits to taking his “eyes off the ball” at some point during their union. We’re also not clear on what made him such a terrible father or why Mel, a therapist by trade, appears oddly apathetic about her betrayal. Still, there’s an undeniable allure to Peet, who leans into Mel’s complexities and finds moments to inject some humanity, all the while standing absolutely toe-to-toe with Hamm in both moments of peace and chaos.
This is where the show picks up in strength and potential: with its cast, who deliver despite their middling material rather than because of it. Hamm, as expected, is charming and knows how to deliver a line with darkly comedic flair. Olivia Munn, who shines as Coop’s soon-to-be-divorced neighbor and occasional fling, Samantha Levitt, avoids coming off as a cliched vixen thanks to her sharp wit and emotional depth. Her chemistry with Hamm is bested only by her chemistry with Peet as friends and unknowing (at least for Mel) love triangle rivals. In fact, the women of Your Friends & Neighbors, though largely underwritten as little more than sexy, sexy messes, are still far more compelling when given more to do than worry about Coop. This includes Lena Hall, who plays the younger sister who’s forced to move in with him, and Aimee Carrerro as Elena Benavides, a savvy, observant maid who inserts herself into his double life. While the heft of the its premise is seemingly placed on Hamm’s shoulders, much of the ensemble are still afforded private battles that, if the writers decide to dig a little deeper in future episodes and seasons (which are already partially guaranteed, given the show’s early renewal prior to debut) can provide some distraction from Coop’s undercooked insights.
To be clear, Your Friends & Neighbors is perfectly watchable if you still harbor some curiosity over the opulent lives of the rich. It’s stylish, occasionally humorous (sometimes unintentionally so, like in its almost cartoonish portrayal of coke usage), and yes, teeming with sexy moments thanks to its sexy, capable cast. But this isn’t quite the sneaky fish-out-of-water romp it purports itself to be, nor is its main character nearly as complex as his long stretches of self-indulgent banter suggest. If you’re looking for more, much like Coop’s decision to dabble in crime in the first place, there are better choices.
