Original caricature by Jeff York of Jon Hamm in YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS (copyright 2026)
The second season of YOUR FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS on Apple TV Plus has premiered and it is a terrific sophomore effort. The story of how a hedge fund manager maintains his tony lifestyle after losing his job remains one of the darkest and most humorous takes on “eating the rich.” Andrew Cooper (Jon Hamm), known to his friends and neighbors as “Coop,” resorts to stealing to keep up his lifestyle and appearances. Wealth becomes a necessity for him and watching this man who once wore $3,000 suits schlep around like a cat burglar at night was one of the program’s funniest gags. It was all the funnier because Hamm cuts such a strapping figure and looks completely wrong crawling about in his dark baseball cap and hoodie disguise.
Making life even more complicated for Coop, both financially and emotionally, were his needy ex-wife (Amanda Peet); moody, college-bound teen girl (Isabel Gravitt); guileless teen son (Donovan Colan); his rental home; not to mention a fancy car, fancy friends, nights out on the town, and pricey country club membership. Coop took to his new trade and enjoyed the illicit money, let alone sticking it to his arrogant friends and neighbors when he robbed them of expensive trinkets and baubles to pawn downtown.
The show keeps that premise for year two, but the stakes are raised exponentially by the arrival of a new neighbor, millionaire Owen Ashe. Played by James Marsden with a perpetual shit-eating grin, the show-off investor takes over every aspect of his new friends and their community, and it isn’t long before everyone, including Coop, are sucked into his orbit. As if having such a new neighbor/overlord weren’t enough, he blackmails Coop when he finds out his secret and suddenly Coop’s life looks even more dangerous that it did all last season.
But in addition to making such scathing indictments of the ruling class, the show manages to show almost all such players as quite sympathetic too, even Marsden’s control freak who is an insecure and lonely widower as it turns out. In adding such nuance, the series becomes a showcase for its large and accomplished ensemble to strut their stuff, playing both sympathetic and often abhorrent. In this new season, you will find Emmy-worthy turns from the likes of Peet, Marsden, not to mention guest stars Michael O’Keefe as Coop’s dad and Corbin Bernson as Coop’s former boss. Still, the star of the show remains Hamm who continues to give one of the most complex lead role performances in any show on television and it reiterates that he’s one of the best and most accomplished actors working today.
Hamm never overplays a moment, but he can be as hilarious as he is heartbreaking. And while he always made sure that his Emmy-winning portrayal of Don Draper remained cool and villainous, here he makes Coop the most sympathetic of anyone on screen because of his reactions to all around him. Indeed, Coop may be a man of the world and one who’s certainly earned his edge and cynicism, but he’s easily wounded and Hamm ensures that we see is goofiness, not to mention every sling and arrow have its effect on his person. His body language droops, his gait slows, his mouth pouts, and his eyes water, making Coop into a hurt little boy often as readable as the former cock of the walk he was on Wall Street. It’s an amazing accomplishment, keeping us invested in his many problems, and cheering for him, his friends and neighbors, when by all rights we probably should be jeering these privileged jerks.
The show can sometimes spend too much time on its secondary characters, though each side story is creator Jonathan Tropper’s way of showing that no matter what you make, life makes all kinds of problems for you. Even Olivia Munn, ostensibly the villain from last year who tried to frame Coop for murder, earns more sympathy with each minute she’s onscreen. She too is worthy of Emmy consideration.
Hopefully, the show becomes worthy of your consideration too. For me, this is one of the best and brightest streamers, a high-end soap with gravitas and social commentary which couldn’t be timelier. I can’t wait for the third season to see where Tropper, Hamm, et al. take things.
