Apple TV+ Review: ‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ is an Immersive Character Study about Keeping Up Appearances

It’s never entirely possible to know what someone is going through without truly seeing all aspects of their life. The image a person projects to the outside world doesn’t always reflect what’s going on behind the scenes, and a change in fortune or circumstances can often be a driving force to continue propping up a notion that everything is as it should be. Your Friends and Neighbors, in its focus on one man trying to hang on as he’s on the verge of losing everything, presents an intriguing look at multiple characters living in the same neighborhood all going through their own hidden problems and struggling to stay afloat.

Andrew Cooper (Jon Hamm), better known as Coop, is not having a great year. A regrettable misstep at work results in his firing, news that he isn’t eager to share with his ex-wife Mel (Amanda Peet), who is living in his old home and now married to Nick (Mark Tallman), a successful athlete. Coop is secretly involved with another woman from the neighborhood, Sam (Olivia Munn), who’s about to go through her own bitter divorce, and he’s the only one looking out for his sister Ali (Lena Hall), who’s dealing with her own issues. Out of options and desperate for money to keep up his affluent lifestyle, Coop realizes he knows quite a bit about what his neighbors have that they wouldn’t miss and which could earn him a good chunk of change if he helped those possessions find their way to new owners.

Your Friends and Neighbors comes from creator Jonathan Tropper, best known for Banshee and Warrior. While this show does open with Coop waking up on the floor next to a dead body, that event isn’t revisited until well into the season, and this isn’t a series driven by violence or action. Instead, it’s all about the people who like to present themselves as successful and for whom flashing money around and spending lavishly is a badge of honor. It’s easy to be drawn into that world, but this isn’t a particularly flattering portrayal, showing the high cost of maintaining that prosperity and the threat of it all disappearing, resulting not only in financial ruin but also social ostracization.

After Hamm appeared in a commercial for Apple TV+ several years ago which highlighted the diversity of shows on the streaming service but none which featured him, he’s already made his mark with a season-long arc on The Morning Show. This role is far more fitting and challenging for him, not nearly as menacing as his Emmy-nominated villainous turn in the fifth season of Fargo but just as layered and watchable. Hamm has a certain demeanor that, like with the role that made him famous – Mad Men – blends righteous anger and smooth talking in the best possible way.

This stacked ensemble includes standouts like Aimee Carrero as Elena, who does not belong to the same elite class as the rest of the characters but who is furiously interesting and capable, and Hall in a marvelously chaotic but tempered performance, as well as Banshee star Lee in a radically different role. Sandrine Holt steals her scenes as a detective with plenty of contempt for everyone she’s investigating, Peet and Munn are both equally terrific, bringing personality and passion to two women who are close friends united by more than just their affinity for one man who are also more than capable of standing up for themselves when the need arises.

Your Friends and Neighbors begins with a hook about a rich guy who is no longer rich stealing from his friends to continue to be able to afford the lifestyle he’s chosen for himself, but it becomes much more than that as it continues through its nine-episode first season (a second season was commissioned way back in November). Its investment in its supporting cast and its willingness to indulge in more than just its specific premise elevate it to far more interesting television than so many other high-concept ideas, starting from one place and letting its story take it to many different destinations. It’s a show that only gets better as it goes on, unveiling new surprises about its characters and changing shape to remain extremely compelling and immersive.

Series Rating: 8/10