{"id":3005,"date":"2026-04-04T20:26:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=3005"},"modified":"2026-05-14T17:51:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:51:22","slug":"review-your-friends-and-neighbors-season-two-begins-with-a-bad-back-and-a-huge-splash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/04\/review-your-friends-and-neighbors-season-two-begins-with-a-bad-back-and-a-huge-splash\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of “Your Friends and Neighbors”: Season 2 Begins With a Bad Back and a Huge Splash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So Season One of Your Friends and Neighbors<\/em> was quite a debut, with Jon Hamm starring as a Wall Street bigwig who gets fired right after getting a divorce, so naturally he decides to become a \u201ccat burglar,\u201d sneaking into his rich-bastard neighbors\u2019 houses to steal high-end watches and other easily fencible items. The inimitable writer John Cheever explored this fantasy plot back in the 1950s with his short story \u201cThe Housebreaker of Shady Hill,\u201d but Your Friends and Neighbors <\/em>is definitely a worthy reboot of sorts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Season One began with the iconic scene of Jon Hamm (as Andrew Cooper or \u201cCoop\u201d) waking up in a pool of someone else\u2019s blood, on the floor of a mansion, as the mystery to be solved. Coop was charged with murder and at one point seemed headed for a conviction, before some very unlikely evidence was discovered and Olivia Munn (as the sexy widow Samantha Levitt, or \u201cSam\u201d) confessed to a screwball plot to frame him for murder after her husband\u2019s suicide, all to get $20 million in life insurance money. If that quick-fix of a plot device wasn\u2019t enough, when Coop gets miraculously off the hook for Sam\u2019s ex-husband\u2019s death\/murder, an even more unlikely plot twist followed: Coop is amazingly offered his old job back, with a big bonus and perks, only to turn it down in favor of . . . more cat burgling?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Season Two does not begin with Coop in a puddle of blood, and by the end of Ep 1, does not have a convenient murder mystery to turn it into a Whodunit. But I sense something is looming on the horizon. A new character is introduced: James Marsden plays Owen Ashe, a mysterious \u201cbillionaire,\u201d who seems rather chipper, eager, slippery, and suspicious. He and Coop hit it off quickly. By the episode\u2019s end, there\u2019s a party at Ashe\u2019s unlikely Tudor mega-mansion, in which all the party-goers end up jumping into the swimming pool, just for the fun of it, a la the gymnasium-floor scene in Frank Capra\u2019s It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em>. I\u2019d put money on some major mystery being revealed in Episode 2. Ep 1 seemed like a warmup for trouble ahead. All the main characters have returned, including Coop\u2019s son and daughter and ex-wife, Mel, played by Amanda Peet. The actor Hoon Lee plays Barney Choi and I sense he\u2019ll be even more important that in Season One. For one thing, he finds out about Coop\u2019s cat-burgling and \u201cwants in.\u201d It\u2019s all a bit far-fetched but much fun, a satire on the lives of the rich but not necessarily famous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The inimitable writer John Cheever explored this fantasy plot back in the 1950s with his short story \u201cThe Housebreaker of Shady Hill,\u201d but\u00a0Your Friends and Neighbors\u00a0is definitely a worthy reboot of sorts. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[393,18,258],"tags":[396,394,395,397],"class_list":["post-3005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-tvs-your-friends-and-neighbors","category-good-tv","category-prestige-tv","tag-amanda-peet","tag-apple-tvs-your-friends-and-neighbors","tag-jon-hamm","tag-the-stories-of-john-cheever"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t