Summary
Your Friends & Neighbors sticks the landing with a very good ending that handles the whodunit and a couple of big emotional payoffs for good measure.
The ending of Your Friends & Neighbors hinges on one key question — is Coop going to prison? From the very beginning of Episode 9, contemplatively titled “Everything Becomes Symbol and Irony”, he certainly thinks so. Fittingly, his friends and neighbors do, too. And his family. Coop’s incarceration seems to be a foregone conclusion, which means that a good chunk of the finale isn’t so much about what happens but what everyone is worried might happen.
This is an interesting angle to take, as it addresses something essential about the show’s thematic underpinnings. It’s about image. That’s what Coop has been trying to preserve all this time; why he turned to petty theft to sustain his lifestyle just so his ex-wife and his side-piece and his friends didn’t think he was the kind of guy who could no longer afford a Maserati. Now that the Maserati has been taken away, and the murder charges seem impossible to shake, the image is out the window. All that’s left is honesty. And that seems to be new to everyone.
It’s through Ali, who’s off her bipolar meds for sex-related reasons, that Coop finally sees the value in honesty. She has a minor breakdown on stage at a bar and leads the patrons in a passionate “f*ck Bruce” chant, because he’s ghosting her and she can’t process the messiness of it all emotionally. It’s the chanting that does it, I think. Coop recognises that at her lowest, the thing that cheered her up was sharing the innermost thoughts and feelings that she’d ordinarily keep locked away inside. And she’s roundly supported for it. The realization prompts Coop to finally have some frank conversations with his kids about the potential future, and the most emotionally impactful moment of the season is a wordless close-up of Isabel Gravitt as she sobs on her father’s lap.
Coop’s understanding of image, the realization that his is irreparably damaged and that there are more important things to worry about anyway, pushes him to consider the plea deal that Kat raised in the penultimate episode. If he confesses to manslaughter, he could get six years; if he pleads his innocence and goes to trial, he could be sent to prison for the rest of his life. But to some, this would be admitting defeat. To Mel, especially, who saw Coop give up on their marriage at the exact point he should have fought for it, this is history repeating itself. So, no deals.
Kat isn’t thrilled to hear this, but she’s willing to fight the case, especially when Coop inadvertently makes a breakthrough. Sam’s phone records, which have been used to validate her alibi, don’t feature Coop’s number; she has a burner. Kat senses an opportunity and takes this to Detective Lin, but unless Sam is a more viable suspect than Coop, it might not even matter. But it’s certainly suspicious. And to help him investigate the lead, Coop turns to Elena.
Olivia Munn in Your Friends & Neighbors | Image via Apple TV+
Things are a little testy between Coop and Elena since he knows she stole the hundred grand he was hiding in his basement, but they’re still partners — sort of, anyway. Elena gets herself hired by Sam so that she can sneak Coop inside and the pair of them can work together to find her burner phone. But they find more than they bargained for. One of the bathroom drawers has a false bottom, and inside is a couple of passports and Paul’s bloodstained suicide note. Nobody killed him. He killed himself.
The details of this event are cleverly recounted for us by Sam’s monologue, which takes the place of Coop’s. She explains, briefly, how Paul plucked her out of waitressing and poverty and gave her the life, kids, and designer jeans she thought she wanted, before trading her in for a younger model and leaving her once again with that worrying feeling of not knowing where her life was heading. She was in Boston with her family, which is when Paul FaceTimed her and committed suicide live. Since the life insurance policy would be nullified by suicide, Sam sprang into action. She headed back home and put a couple of bullets in Paul to create the impression that he was murdered — by Coop.
Sam’s betrayal of Coop feels like a bit of a cheat, a reflection of Elena’s arc that struggles to ring true because we had no real idea about her humble beginnings and the resentment she harbours for the rich. But her efforts to cover up Paul’s suicide are a reflection of Coop’s desire to preserve what he believes to be his, despite it never really belonging to him in the first place. Coop sees himself in Sam. But that doesn’t mean he’ll go to prison for her — and she won’t go to prison either, since she didn’t kill Paul, and didn’t technically commit fraud. But it’s her image that’ll suffer, and Coop’s that’ll benefit. A fair trade.
By the end of Your Friends & Neighbors, it certainly seems like Coop has learned a lesson about what’s really important. He’s offered his old job back and is able to negotiate an incredibly lucrative deal, but he flat-out refuses to miss a social function his reinstatement would clash with. He wants to spend the time with his kids — another great moment between him and Tori, when she insists he remains her tennis coach — and Mel, even though they’ve both decided, for the time being, to fly solo. But is that really what he wants? Perhaps not, since he leaves the party early and takes a drive. The flight he was supposed to catch leaves without him. While Jack is away, Coop sneaks into his house and robs him. He still isn’t very good at it, but at least he has the Maserati back.
