Apple TV’s Crime Drama Still Has All the Messiness You Could Want

If you’ve been online enough in the past few months, you have probably encountered a meme featuring Jon Hamm dancing in a neon-lit nightclub. For a period of time, it was inescapable on apps like TikTok, Bluesky, Twitter, and Instagram. What you probably didn’t realize is that it was taken from arguably one of the most underrated series of last year, the Apple TV original Your Friends & Neighbors. As much as that meme circulated, it was a bit frustrating that enough people weren’t talking about the show itself, as Season 1 was an outrageously entertaining blend akin to “Big Little Lies meets Breaking Bad,” anchored by a game performance from Hamm.

Created by Banshee‘s Jonathan Tropper, the series sees Hamm playing Andrew Cooper (or Coop, as his titular friends and neighbors call him), a wealthy New York suburbanite who is reeling from the aftermath of his wife, Mel (Amanda Peet), having an affair with his best friend, Nick (Mark Tallman), and losing his own high-paying job as a hedge fund manager. In order to keep his life afloat, Coop turns to a life of crime, stealing and pawning items from the homes of his wealthy neighbors. Of course, there are plenty of shocking twists, turns, and even a murder that await him. Since Apple greenlit a second season before the first even premiered, we’re being treated to the show’s return only a year later, and the good news is that Season 2 is just as wonderfully messy, chaotic, and addictive as the first.

What Is ‘Your Friends & Neighbors’ Season 2 About?

One year after getting his name cleared for a murder he didn’t commit, Coop still hasn’t walked away from his criminal venture. In fact, he and his unlikely partner, Nick’s housemaid Elena (Aimee Carrero), have doubled down on robbing houses. They’ve got a good thing going, and despite very nearly being caught, they see no reason to stop — especially since they both need the money.

Meanwhile, Coop’s family is dealing with issues of their own; Mel is at war with her new next-door neighbor, and their daughter Tori (Isabel Garavitt) has declined her admission to Princeton. Their son Hunter (Donovan Colan) is trying to dump his girlfriend after falling for Delilah (Erin Robinson), the new girl in school. His sister Ali (Lena Hall) is up for a new job as a music teacher. Coop’s friend, Barney (Hoon Lee), learns that his wife, Grace (Eunice Bae), is pregnant, and he now needs new ways to make money as a consequence. His other friend, Nick, is trying to expand his gym and has come across a suspicious new investor. As for Sam Levitt (Olivia Munn), Coop’s ex-lover, she’s recently been released from prison after staging her husband’s suicide as a murder committed by Coop, and has become a social pariah.

Coop’s life is further complicated by the arrival of a new neighbor, Owen Ashe (James Marsden), a widowed, cocaine-using shipping magnate, who has moved into Sam’s old home. While Ashe is busy winning over the neighbors, including Sam, Coop becomes increasingly suspicious of him. After stealing an expensive book from Ashe’s home, Coop is caught, but Ashe doesn’t want to turn him in — at least not yet. Instead, Ashe begins blackmailing Coop, leading to an unstable and unpredictable alliance between the two men that injects different energy into Season 2.

‘Your Friends & Neighbors’ Season 2 Starts Slow, but Quickly Hooks You In

Most of the central conflicts in Your Friends & Neighbors Season 1 were wrapped up in an intentionally messy bow. As such, the Season 2 premiere is a largely slower setup, giving each of the characters new situations to become tangled up in, and it’s not until two major reveals happen that the story really starts to take shape. One sees another character joining Coop and Elena in their life of crime, and the other is the arrival of Marsden’s Ashe.

Marsden’s villainous character fits into Your Friends & Neighbors‘ ensemble perfectly. Ashe is smarmy and slick, yet has a charisma about him that makes it easy to see why everybody around Coop is willing to look past the skeletons in his closet. It’s established right off the bat that he’s going to be butting heads with Coop, and as the season progresses, we see just how far he’s willing to take things. Marsden, who has a knack for playing these kinds of characters on the small screen, is undeniably great in the role. Ashe’s uneasy partnership with Coop and his romance with Sam create greater tension, with Marsden having natural chemistry with both Hamm and Munn.

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Thankfully, Ashe’s unpredictable presence takes up a large chunk of Season 2, as some of the other storylines are either underdeveloped or out of place. One subplot sees Elena racing around town to help her brother, who has been placed behind bars once more, but it doesn’t successfully connect to the season, while Mel’s rivalry with a new neighbor over their dog pooping in her yard is closer to something you’d see on a sitcom. Despite Season 2 taking a minute to get to its best elements, it does contribute to a bigger emotional arc for Mel, with Peet giving one of her best performances in years.

‘Your Friends & Neighbors’ Season 2 Is More Self-Reflective but Dials Up the Antics

Image via Apple TV+

Hamm has always been a natural at playing morally complicated protagonists, so it’s no wonder that his role as Coop has taken a viral life of its own. Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 still sees Coop getting trapped in both outrageous and violent altercations, but the scripts also give him a turn that is grounded in more humanity than we’ve ever seen from the character. Between a beautifully depicted tragedy in Episode 6 and Ashe’s increasingly erratic behavior, Coop begins contemplating scaling down and returning to a more ordinary life. Hamm makes his character even more believable, and despite his constant questionable decision-making, you can’t help but feel for the guy.

While Season 1 ended with Coop turning down an offer for his old job in favor of his new life of crime, Season 2 dives deep into the consequences of his decision rather than piling up one scandal after another — that is, until the last three episodes, which ramp up the action to an extreme. This choice does stretch believability to its limits, but at the same time, it feels like Your Friends & Neighbors is elevating itself to an even more bombastic level than before. Similar to how Season 1 concluded, most of the plots are wrapped up, yet the ending still teases something even bigger and crazier in store for Season 3.

Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 is further proof that Tropper, Hamm, and Apple TV have made one of the most addictive series on streaming. It may juggle a lot, and takes an episode to truly get into the meat of things, but once the scandals start, you can’t look away.

Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 premieres April 3 on Apple TV.