Summary
Eventually, Your Friends & Neighbors reveals some of its most significant developments yet in Episode 7. But it’s a surprise slog to get there.
On the one hand, Episode 7 of Your Friends & Neighbors contains by far the most significant developments yet, with the long arm of the law finally catching Coop by the scruff of his neck. There are two issues, though. One is that he’s being arrested for the only crime he hasn’t committed lately. And the other is that his comeuppance finally arrives in an episode that spends most of its runtime being surprisingly tedious.
Now, granted, it’s hard to see the funny side of things after Coop’s violent beating at the end of the previous episode. Coop wakes up from a nightmare surrounded by his family, but still confined to a hospital bed with an array of injuries. Barney is alive, it turns out, though not exactly well, and isn’t thrilled with Coop. He can tell that Coop is lying about who his attackers were; that he has been lying about a lot lately. And that isn’t great for their relationship.
“The First Honest Thing” compounds Coop’s misery with Elena’s. She discovers that Chivo is in debt to the tune of $175,000 after dumping a product haul into the East River, and she protectively declares she’ll settle the debt without really thinking about it. This also sours her relationship with Hector, whom she assumes knew about the debt and said nothing.
So, with all this going on in Episode 7, there isn’t much room for jokes. But it’s impressive how much Your Friends & Neighbors falls off when it isn’t being funny, which is probably quite telling about how much better of a comedy it is than a drama. And Detective Lin is such a nonentity, personality-wise, that the focus on her investigating the case feels a little dry. She’s the least interesting POV character by a margin.
But Lin’s important because it becomes increasingly obvious throughout the episode that Coop is being fitted up for Paul’s murder, even though most of the evidence is discovered through sheer happenstance. The evidence in Paul’s death suggests that he was also carrying a weapon, which he fired, but there’s no indication of what or who he hit. The nanny cam hidden in the teddy upstairs — remember when Coop was roaming around the house, tucking the kids in? — is discovered by Lin and reveals that Coop and Sam were sleeping together, which doesn’t mesh well with the earlier stories about how Coop and Paul had a fight shortly before his death.
Isabel Gravitt and Donovan Colan in Your Friends & Neighbors | Image via Apple TV+
When some more DNA evidence puts Coop at the scene, Lin is able to get a warrant to search his home. And when she turns up to do so, he isn’t there because he’s at Paul’s funeral with everyone else. Ali, whose romance with Bruce is wedged in awkwardly here, is powerless to intervene as the cops toss the place. And it doesn’t take them long to find something.
We don’t find out until a bit later what that “something” is, but it turns out to be another piece of the “who framed Coop” puzzle. It’s a gun that isn’t his, presumably the one that was fired during the murder. It’s obvious to the audience that Coop’s being framed, but certainly not to Lin, or indeed to anyone else at the funeral, who all see him being arrested and taken away in cuffs. So much for that social standing being preserved.
If nothing else, Coop has solid legal representation. Ali is able to warn him that the police are on their way after they’ve finished searching his home, which gives him just enough time to approach Kat to represent him. When she refuses because of a clear conflict of interest, he threatens to tell her husband that she’s sleeping with her daughter’s boyfriend. Needs must.
Your Friends & Neighbors Episode 7 ends with Coop in custody, Mel telling the kids what’s going on, and everyone who wasn’t present at the funeral — like Barney and Elena — finding out about Coop’s arrest on the news. We, the audience, know he’s innocent, at least of murder. But if someone is this determined to have him put away, how’s he going to get away with it, given all the other stuff he has been up to? It’s a shame that compelling question has to come at the end of one of the season’s dullest chapters.
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