Warning: This post contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 10 of "« Your friends and neighbors"» .
«"Once you decide to become a criminal, you're in a very difficult situation," says Jonathan Tropper, the series' creator. «Your friends and neighbors» on Apple TV. The series follows hedge fund manager-turned-criminal Coop (Jon Hamm), whose title character experiences significant upheaval in season two. "One of the core beliefs we as writers had in creating Coop's character was that he comes from a world where he was an expert, and he thinks he can transfer that experience to our world. But he can't.".
This is especially clear in the season two finale, which aired on June 5th. We spoke with Tropper (who also wrote the finale) and director Stephanie Laing about the episode, what it means for these friends and neighbors, and what to expect from season three.
The hard work of cleaning
James Marsden in Episode IX - Courtesy of Apple.
In the finale of the second season of the series "« Your friends and neighbors"» Coop, Nick (Mark Tallman), and Barney (Hoon Li) deal with the aftermath of the penultimate episode, which ended with the shocking death of Owen Ash (James Marsden). Ash lost control under the influence of drugs and began shooting at his friends. He slipped on a marble floor while pursuing them, cracked his head, and apparently died from the resulting trauma.
Suddenly, the trio is forced to clean up the mess. Their first instinct is to call 911, but Coop convinces them to reconsider: in the first season, he nearly went to prison after being framed for murder, and he wasn't even in the room. But the evidence seems to point against him, even though none of them killed Ash. They decide to dispose of the body in the lake and clean the house, erasing all evidence. As they're carrying Ash out, Sam (Olivia Munn) walks in the door—she was planning to break up with Ash. Coop almost manages to talk her out of calling the police, and she leaves Ash's house.
As Cooper, Nick, and Barney drive Ash's body to the lake, they get a surprise: Ash isn't dead. He wakes up and panics, initiating a brutal fight with everyone in the car. "One of my favorite scenes is the car fight," says Laing. "I watched a lot of car-jitsu videos on YouTube, and that really influenced how we filmed it." (For those unfamiliar, car-jitsu is a combat sport where people fight using jiu-jitsu in the confines of a car.) In the chaos of the fight, the car veers sharply into the lake, and the four men fall into the water. While Cooper, Barney, and Nick scramble out of the car, Ash doesn't and drowns, this time truly dead. On dry land, the trio realize Ash is in the backseat, so they submerge again to move him to the front seat so that if he is found, it will look like he was alone. Now they are rightfully responsible for Ash's death.
«"One of the challenges Coop faces after his father's death [in Episode 5] is realizing how lost he's become as a father and family man. His father was a simpler man; he never lost sight of his priorities," Tropper says. "Everything that happens after his father's death is Coop trying to make amends and become the father he needs to be for his children and his family. He's deluded himself that everything he does is about providing for them, but everything he does is self-centered and self-serving—it may have started out as an instinctual desire to survive, but it's not that way anymore.".
In the finale, dealing with the mystery of Ash's death, Coop tries to make amends. He transfers the $600 million he had been holding as part of an investment scheme back to Ash's account and returns the painting stolen in the season one finale to Jack (Corbin Bernsen), his former boss (as shown in a montage at the end of the episode). But the weight of the secret destroys his relationships with his friends Nick and Barney.
Hope for reconciliation
Hamm and Pete in Episode 9 - Courtesy of Apple.
As rumors of Ash's disappearance become the talk of Westchester, Coop and his family attend a Father's Day party at a country club, where everyone is talking about Ash, who remains missing. Tired of attending a Father's Day event so soon after his own father's death, Coop and his family leave early and head to the bowling alley—a place his father loved. Amid the frantic, devastating finale, this scene of Coop bowling with his family offers an opportunity to find genuine peace and joy. "We wanted it to feel really warm and cozy," says Lang. "I'd also like to add that Jon Hamm is an incredible bowler. The script said he'd bowl an eight, and he bowled an eight." Lang's directing technique allowed for a striking calm and humanity to emerge amid the chaos. "I let the cameras roll and let them really get into their roles. We kept the cameras at a distance, and eventually they forget the cameras are moving.".
This leads to a frank conversation between Coop and his ex-girlfriend Mel (Amanda Peet) about their needs. Coop suggests they slow down a bit and leave the rat race behind, which Mel immediately perceives as a cry for help. No one sees Coop the way Mel does, and she urges him to tell her what's really going on. She knows he's hiding something from her.
«"Sitting there with Mel," Tropper says, "we came to the conclusion that they could reconnect. He could confess his feelings to her, and they could reexamine their value system together, which ultimately would probably bring them closer. But without that, we wouldn't have a show," he jokes.
Who kidnapped Kup?
Oded Fehr and James Marsden in Episode 7 - Courtesy of Apple.
Before any breakthrough can occur, Coop's phone vibrates. Ash's lawyer, DeMille (Oded Fehr), is waiting outside. He returns the videotape of Coop stealing from Ash (the very incident that led to their forced partnership) and tells Coop he's about to wire him $600 million. He tells him that's not all of Ash's money, and Coop should hold onto it for now—something he's reluctant to do.
DeMille is surprised to learn of Coop's kidnapping, implying that Ash wasn't actually guilty of kidnapping Coop in order to threaten him for money. Instead, DeMille suggests Coop "consider another option," which Coop perceives as Cricket Birch (Bojana Novakovic), a major investor deeply involved in Coop and Ash's complex financial dealings. Coop is shocked by this, given his sexual relationship with Cricket.
However, Tropper suggests the true answer to the question of who kidnapped Cooper may be much more complicated. "It would be more logical for him to assume Ash did it, but we wanted to show that when you start playing with such huge amounts of money with people like Ash, you have no idea what you're dealing with. It could have been Cricket or Ash, but as we'll see in season three, that might not be the case.".
An Easter egg hidden in a reference to a classic film.
The ending of season two was hinted at in plain sight. At the beginning of the season, Coop goes to the cinema to see the 1955 masterpiece. «The Night of the Hunter» . In the scene he witnesses, a fisherman finds a woman drowned in a car at the bottom of a lake. Observant film buffs would immediately recognize the film he was watching, and seeing that the final episode is called "The Night of the Hunter," they would likely put two and two together and guess how the season ends.
Just like the scene Coop watched many episodes ago, the second season ends with a fisherman discovering a car at the bottom of a lake. Troper says the season was always supposed to end this way, even before the movie came out. «The Night of the Hunter» . "We had already planned the season, and then we made lists of movies that Coop would watch," he explains. Tropper credits executive producer and writer Jamie Rosengard for the idea of including «Night of the Hunter» in the second season, which arose because a fisherman found Ash in the lake.
Tropper says the events of the next season pick up "very soon" after the events of the second season. "Cooper is dealing with Ash's money, the consequences for his family, and the fact that Mel now suspects him. He also has a much bigger secret than all of that, so there's serious tension between him, Nick, and Barney," Tropper says. We feel this tension acutely in the finale, when at a Father's Day party at a country club, Barney and Nick get into a heated argument that results in Barney smashing a table full of food. His wife, Grace (Eunice Bay), is fed up with his accumulating lies and erratic behavior and tells him he needs to find another place to live.
What to expect in season 3?
Eunice Bae, Hoon Lee, Grace, and Barney - courtesy of Apple.
Looking ahead to season three, Tropper says he's most excited about the development of Barney and Grace's story. "Until the end of season two, Barney and Grace, in my opinion, had the best marriage on the show. But as a result of Cooper's actions and Barney's poor judgment, their marriage is now in jeopardy. In season three, we'll explore their marital issues, and how that ties into Cooper will be a really interesting storyline." Laing also hints at "a really big action scene." While she won't reveal any details, she says, "It's going to be something viewers love about the show.".
Plus, Coop faces a fair amount of chaos. As he says in the season's final narration, "No matter how comfortable we feel with them, eventually there's a reckoning for all the lies we tell." And there are a lot of lies right now. "The problem is, it's cumulative. The lies keep getting bigger, and they're compounded by other lies," Tropper says. By the end of season two, Coop has drawn Nick, Barney, and Sam into his web of deception. "The stakes are rising, the lies are piling up—it's basically a tower of nonsense, like a game of Jenga.".
Tropper says, "It's impossible not to pick the wrong block, and then everything starts to fall apart.".