‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ Episodes 1-3: Your (Not So) Friendly Neighborhood Jon Hamm

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I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney.
I don't know why that intro was so aggressively enthusiastic for me, but here we are to talk about your friends and neighbors. Could I posit a yes, Joe? Is it because your internal life is crumbling and you're trying to put on a brave outward appearance for your many rich neighbors? You'll hear a more sardonic voiceover version of the intro as we go forward.
We are here to talk about your friends and neighbors, New Apple TV Plus show. We are here to talk about the first three episodes of the season.
They did a double premiere drop last week. We were not around to cover it, but we are here to catch up with you here on episode three.
We are uncertain as of right now exactly what our cadence of coverage is going to be for this show. It's going to kind of depend on y'all.
If you are loving your friends and neighbors, let us know. And I guess I just want to start out with a big picture question, Ramahony.
Did you like the first three episodes of your friends and neighbors? I did. I found it honestly like pretty well balanced.
I think it hits a very particular sweet spot of just kind of biting and acidic enough that it can have its like moments of cultural commentary and it can take the pot shots at the ultra wealthy, but also so much sugar that if you are ultra wealthy, you could probably enjoy this show and probably enjoy it in a ball-busting sort of way. Jon Hamm, I think, is a great avatar for that kind of exact zone of threading the needle tonally of what the show is trying to do.
That is fascinating to me because I feel like it slightly tilts on the wrong side of biting satire to sugar for me. The wrong side being too much sugar.
I guess like not enough. If the premise of this show, which maybe I'll tell folks in case they're listening and haven't watched the show yet, is Jon Hamm plays a character who has done everything, quote unquote, everything right, gone to Princeton, got the right job, got the right wife, got the right car, had the two kids, got the increasingly large house and stuff like that.
And then everything has just crumbled around him. His wife has cheated on him.

He's getting a divorce through a complicated series of moves. He has lost his job.
And he is, as Rob alluded to, trying to save face with his friends and neighbors by not sharing how financially dire that is for him. And we go in and out of the various houses in his very, very well-to-do neighborhood.
He lives in this enclave where everyone knows everyone, and they all barbecue together, and they have kids that are relatively the same age, and they have parties at each other's houses and stuff like that. And we're doing spouse swaps and all this, the privileged class, enjoying their privileges, but also Jon Hamm at the end of episode one.
Spoiler for the end of episode one. I mean, we're covering episodes one through three, so I think it's fair.
I'm traumatized from The Last of Us. It's very true.
We're treading very softly all around spoilers right now. He starts stealing from his neighbors as a way to finance his new life

and stealing things that they won't miss

that are obscenely, obscenely valuable.

And that concept I like.

When that kicked in at the end of episode one,

I had a really tough time

with the first, I would say,

quarter to half of episode one. It's quite talky and quite talky in a way where you're being talked at.
Yeah. I'm going to circle back to that.
When we got to, oh, because I didn't know the premise. I don't know.
I just did no research. I came blind to this show.
I've since done some research, but I was like, oh, this is the premise he's stealing from his friends and neighbors. Like, that's fun to me.
I love a heist. I love a gentleman thief.
Like, that sounds quite fun. Okay.
So to go back to the talkiness, the monologues. Yeah.
What we get sort of back to back, we get a cold open of, oops, murder or death at least.

Yep.

And Jon Hamm falls into a pool and the record scratch and he's like,

yep, that's me.

Hey, well, bet you're wondering how I got here.

And then we get this bar encounter.

Yeah, the classic double cold open.

Which that was the nadir for me.

That bar encounter was the bottom of my enjoyment of of the show and then we get this rewind of with some uncanny valley digitally de-aged john ham of like his life leading up to sort of this moment i did everything this is not my beautiful house it's not my beautiful wife like sort of thing so yeah the the bar scene very like two quippy quippy characters monologuing at each other and then this sort of thing. So yeah, the bar scene, very like two quippy, quippy characters monologuing at each other.
And then this sort of him talking about the American dream and how it failed him back to back, tough for me. Everything from there is up, up, up.
So tell me how all of that landed with you. I would say monologuing at each other is maybe kind because it's a lot of Jon Hamm's character Coop going on an extended monologue.
And Liv, this woman he's talking to, has her banter and has her moments and gets to have some good lines, but she's very much a participant in his speech. And that sequence I did not particularly enjoy.
I also just hated her character in that scene. She was trying to be so quippy cool in a way that I...
So cool girl in a way. And then what rolls out after that...
And again, this is where I should have learned my lesson from Fleischman is in Trouble, the FX show that came out last year, which does a really good job, really, really good job, of trying to present a story that's poor, poor, pitiful Jesse Eisenberg until later it shows you all the shit that Jesse Eisenberg did to get himself into the situation. And this show is alluding to that with various characters being like, Coop, don't you think you had a role to play in your wife's infidelity and this, that, and the other thing? So I'm trying to keep my powder dry on that.
But in that first quarter of that episode, when he gets fired by Corbin Benson, and like all this sort of stuff like that, the implication is it's like a false me too moment, which just really bothered me a lot. And even though they're, you know, spinning the top on that one around, I was just sort of like, in this economy, we're doing like a false you meet too narrative.
My hackles were definitely up on that. It's quite a delicate subject matter to wade into for a show that I would say is not quite delicate overall.
I enjoy some of the characterizations. I enjoy some of the dynamics on the show.
As you're saying, overall, this idea of an ultra wealthy person who loses their job and turns to petty theft is appealing and you get to see him in the way that you see in shows like breaking bad or in shows like weeds this like a person who doesn't know how to be a criminal getting slightly and incrementally better at being a criminal and in coop's case i think in a really self-destructive way right this is not a clean job is him, but like breaking into a friend's house, smoking weed, sitting in their theater room, enjoying some of their delights because he knows they're going to be out of the house, but it's that surgical what he's doing. And so the blundering thief part of the story, I'm really enjoying.
The Me Too elements are not great. And I don't know how to read or how to feel about the fact that that character Liv is still in the show.
And she's being kind of strung along as she might be kind of part and parcel of this litigation that he's pursuing to try to get his job back or get some money. I guess mostly to get money.
On the one hand, it's good that they're not just like disposing of her or they didn't turn her into a careerist like, oh, I'm going to leverage this sexual encounter with Coop to try to get this job. like she really really didn't want any part of it and if anything i i think the one area on this in which i will give the show credit is it seems pretty aware of the fact that coop does not seem to care that much about this woman he is so self-absorbed with his own life and how he gets his his piece of the pie that when she brings up the case of um if you have this lawsuit, I'm going to get dragged into it.
My career is going to be thrown for an incredible loop. I'm going to be painted as the bad guy here, really, fundamentally.
He doesn't seem terribly bothered by that. And so, yeah, it's getting into tricky territory, but he seems like somebody who the show is aware is not suited for that tricky territory, at least.
Okay, yeah. Yeah, I really want to...
Okay, that that's such a good point i want to come back to sort of the likability of coop which i don't need a character to be likable but i like that you brought up because i i definitely several times wrote down sort of like golden age of television anti-hero narrative in what you know this is of the weeds breaking bad mad men um you know era of. This feels like something that would have been on FX.
Like, I just like, or Showtime is a good call. Like, I really feel like I recognize this story and it's not a story where it's slightly out of fashion.
And that doesn't mean it's not something I want to watch, but it is maybe something that I feel like I've seen what it has to say. And that is sort of where I am with that.
I want to go back to Jonathan Tropper. So Tropper, who is the creator of the show, was a novelist and then became a TV showrunner.
He wrote This Is Where I Leave You, which was turned into a film. This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper is a book I always confused with.
Then We Came the end by Joshua Ferris they're two different books but a novelist and then he he co-created or he created Banshee a show I actually really liked and Warrior a show I really liked and those are two sort of like his books are very this very sort of like upper middle class family problems infidelities talkie sort of stuff and then Warrior and Banshee which were much very sort of like upper middle class family problems, infidelities, talky sort of stuff. And then Warrior and Banshee were much more sort of like genre swings outside of that concern.
This is a return to sort of his novelistic form. And what he said in a panel that made so much sense to me is that this was an idea he had a really long time and he had written the first hundred pages of this book and then decided to make it a show and i was like okay we're hit with monologue monologue monologue monologue at the beginning i'm like this is the first hundred pages of the book that he had written and now and then as it goes on it's being transformed more and more into like actual tv storytelling but on the like talky front both amanda peen and olivia munn in interviews have compared tropper's writing style to Aaron Sorkin, someone that they have both worked with.
And I'm curious, as a Sorkin head yourself, do you agree or what do you think? They have worked with, with all due respect to both of them, who I like quite a bit, versions of Aaron Sorkin, who I would not say is prime Aaron Sorkin if we're being respectful about those properties. like Studio 60 is not it.
And the newsroom, although I think Olivia Munn's character on that show evolves over time and she kind of finds her place in it. And I definitely appreciate that arc.
Also not necessarily the most resonant stuff. And at its worst, I think Your Friends and Neighbors has some of that.
But actually, I think the bantering style does mostly fit. And it works better

in some context than others. And I think once we get

out of some of those initial scenes, it sort of

finds its footing. I agree.

And so it's hard to tell how much of that is

am I bumping on dialogue or am I bumping

on narration or am I bumping on

overall framing? Like the show is trying to

do out of the gate with the narration,

which is Jon Hamm narration.

Something we know he can do. He has done successfully on other shows.
I would say some of this narration is played at 1.25 times speed for some reason in a way that I don't understand. And it's going for a sort of like big, short, Wolf of Wall Street fight club.
I am the smart, smarmy guy talking over this, telling you how the world is.

And even some of the visual cues are very Fight Club, right?

It's like the straight out of the Ikea catalog parallel of

let me show you all these luxury goods.

I don't know how to feel about that stuff.

Sometimes it really works for me.

Sometimes it feels like a lot.

And this is a show that I think that's where I am overall.

We are three episodes in.

We have, I would say, five or six different jokes about objects in the show being a metaphor i can be a sucker for that but it's also a lot at this stage was the toilet like where you're like this is where i leave you like this is the bottom of me um the voiceover is so interesting to me because i also wrote i wrote fight club down 100 I wrote American beauty down. Uh, there's like a lot of American beauty in here and, um, I, and Sunset Boulevard.
And so like Sunset Boulevard, because a Coop is a character who loves to watch classic cinema B we start with him in a pool and he's like, yep, that's me. And the only thing that's ever done that perfectly well record scratch.
Yep. That's me is sunset Boulevard.
But like, well, so for the record, is this you saying that blood sport is classic cinema? Obviously. I just wanted to get you on the record about it.
Thank you. Thank you.
Um, I've long wanted to get my blood sport takes off, but I think that, um, I think the voiceover is so interesting because, um, they were talking about sort of reinventing the voiceover. And I'm like, I don't think you have.
But what it offers, I guess, is the idea is that Jon Hamm's voiceover narration, the yep, that's me, bet you wonder how I got here, is an omniscient all-seeing, already knows how this all played out. So we're hearing his sort of wry delivery on top of Coop's sometimes frantically fumbling actions.
And I'm not opposed to it. I just don't think it's necessarily like the freshest thing I've ever seen.
And it can be too clever by half sometimes. I think where I am finding more comfort in the show and the momentum in the show is, as you described,

the more conventional TV storytelling of it when we get into the rhythms of the crime and even the rhythms of the domestic dramas. I love that this is a show about adults making adult mistakes.
And fundamentally, that's a great place to ground this even in something as kind of exotic as this ultra-wealthy neighborhood in which everyone is understandably obsessed with brands in a way that feels very true to life and feels very uh you know like it's channeling into the consumerism that the show is commenting on and ultimately that john ham's character is literally stealing from these people and so there's there's a lot to mine there uh but like that's the part of the show that i'm enjoying more than, is just the actual, let's tell the story about the guy stealing the things, and not let's do the narration from the guy about stealing the things with the added context of whatever perspective he thinks he's providing. So there's a couple elements as he gets deeper and deeper into the trouble that he is creating for himself.
We've met the character of Lou, played by Randy Danson, who is not only encountered Coop at her place of business, but has now infiltrated his home and knows where he lives and met his sister who will come back to, et cetera. I like her a lot.
And there is an implication. I don't, I have not watched beyond episode three, but I was curious why Amy Carrero, who plays Elena, Nick's housekeeper, I suppose, domestic worker, is in the main cast.

And we only really kind of meet her in Episode 3.

And I was curious about that.

And then we get the end of Episode 3 and you get the gun click, you know, the gun him and I'm like it's gotta be her right it's definitely her yeah and I'm definitely curious how she is going to like hopefully get involved as like an accomplice like that sounds fun to me like this idea that she might be an accomplice to him uh Amy has talked in interviews about how she was like reluctant to take, like she had made it a, like an idea in her career that she did not want to play like, you know, a housekeeper at some point in her career as a Latine actress. She was like, this role is really fun and juicy.
Yeah. So they're all like kind of teasing, like something really fun and juicy is coming for her.
So I'm excited to see how she works in. And, and Olivia Munn's character as someone who started as a waitress and has been sort of married up into this world versus everyone else who comes via the Ivy League into this world.
Those little tiny class tensions or encounters are more interesting to me than the privileged class enjoying their privileges or rich people behaving badly or uh poor poor pitiful me i my daughter can't afford this like thousands like dollar like dermatological thing that she doesn't need like that as the show gets closer moves into that world i think i will like it even more if that makes sense i i really enjoy olivia munn's character's character overall I think is a great breath of fresh air into this show and especially now that we're seeing her and Amanda Peet's character Mel interacting more directly. They are part of this big group of ladies who has the self-defense class.
That is, by the way, Chekhov's self-defense class. Somebody will be using a grapple on Coop at some point in this season.
I feel like it's inevitable.

But I really like their dynamic

together. I really like seeing those characters bounce off

each other. And I like seeing overall

Sam, who again is Olivia

Munn's character, trying to

grapple with how to express

that kind of wealth.

There's something so perfect about her

showing up to that self-defense class in the

Loewe sweatshirt that is perfectly relaxed fit, but also probably costs like $3,000. These people know how to flex their wealth in exactly the right way.
And I think she, although she has a different background, is showing that she knows how to get around the country club lifestyle as well. But what I love is, isn't Amanda P's character Mel wearing her Princeton sweatshirt? Of course.
That's something you can't buy. You had to have been there.
That's a great point. Yeah, I think that Olivia Munn is so interesting because this is an actress that I have...
She's a celebrity that I have had real ups and downs with in my time as a pop culture person.

And I loved her in the newsroom.

The newsroom was like this like real revelation for me where I was like,

Livia Munn, not really a huge fan.

And then I just thought her character Sloan in the newsroom was like the best part of the newsroom.

What are the newsroom power rankings in retrospect?

I mean, number one is obviously the single moment in which they informed the pilot of the plane about Osama bin Laden. Correct.
Number two is Olivia Munn, probably. Number three, Alison Pill, I want to say.
Yeah. I'm trying to think.
Thomas Sadowski is up there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A real mixed bag, the newsroom. But as you're alluding to, Olivia Munn is great in it.
And one one of the genuine, like bright spots in that show. And I think she's great in this.
I think she's wonderful in this again, for all my mixed feelings. I think she's really talented at exactly this level of like subtle comedy.
I have a lot of empathy for her character and her like said, you know, you mentioned earlier and i do want to circle back to coop uh obviously but like her her vulnerability around him like you know her her like being so ready to be like oh you want me to leave or you want to leave uh this can be over what is this even um also the way their sex scenes are filmed is like very interesting to me because um there's this like awkwardness to it which is not what you would expect from like olivia munn like absolute uh 10 out of 10 stone cold stunner so it's it's uh it's really funny let's talk about coop so i was watching an interview where theer said, the thing that I love about your character, Coop, is that no matter what he does, we like him. And I was like, ooh, that's not my experience with Coop.
Yeah, what show is that from? So I'm wondering how you feel about Coop. Where are you with Coop? I find him pretty deeply unlikable in a way that as a TV character, I appreciate.
I almost would, I would welcome them trying to make him less likable or in particular, I think what I'm chafing against is, you know, we talked about Olivia Munn coming into the show and the energy that she provides it, you know, the energy that Amanda Peet brings to the show, the energy that Barney, who's Coop's like best friend and business manager, which it's, I think it says something about somebody when their best friend is their business manager. And I'm not sure what the order of operations there was, but you can suspect.
Really funny. Really like, really welcome presence.
Totally like the funniest part of the whole show. Like really, really good stuff.
Really, really terrific. I love Lena Hall on this show who plays Coop's sister, Allie.
I don't know what show she is in because all of her scenes seem so disconnected from everything else that's happening. And Coop's relationship with her seems so disconnected from who he is with everybody else.
And so like, is that the sort of like equalizing olive branch where they're trying to get us to like this character more? I don't really understand the role that it's playing in the show as of yet. I'm glad every time she's on screen, I just don't know who that Coop is because the guy we're spending time with for the rest of the show is not likable really at all.
I love her. I love her, especially in her aunt role in episode three as she's helping her nephew through his drug trip and stuff like that.
I thought all that stuff was good. Very relatable needing help out of a bathtub.
That's a deep recline and squat. It's tough scenes for all of us.
A real 30s moment for her. But I did write down Saving the Cat.
This is the moment when Coop shows up to help her out and is kind to her. I'm like, yeah, this is like a...
And it and it was funny. I was talking to Andy and Chris a little bit about like their feelings on the show.
And Andy was like, Oh, the sister piece. And I was like, well, I like the sister piece a bit better than Andy does.
Yeah. But like it's, it is, uh, it's straight out of, um, an FX show that I love that was canceled soon.
Terriers. Like it's a, it's a terriers plot, like, the sister who needs his added care and what she does for this character who is doing questionable things and also divorced from the woman that he loves and kind of wants to get her back.
There's a lot of Terriers in the dough here, but I like her. I like all of her scenes.
So, like, I don't like that I feel like I'm being slightly emotionally manipulated. But I'm enjoying it as it's happening, if that makes sense.
That character is just so effortlessly likable. Yeah.
And I get why you want that for balance. I just want to see kind of how they tie all these threads together, where all these things come into play.
And her getting to interact her getting to interact with coop son hunter i think is starting to tie these stories together a little bit more closely will they pay off i don't know uh overall i think the kids are like those are very recognizable child figures to me this like very pampered tennis playing princess daughter who i think also has some great moments and great lines and headphones kid is such a like a real

phenomenon that I appreciate the

show wrestling with in that way

but I don't know what to make of

that family dynamic like the overall

wrestling between

Coop and Mel about their kids and

kind of like who gets to do what and of course like we got

to talk about Nick's place in this just

one of the most nominative

determinative performances of all time from Mark Tallman, playing a former NBA player. I am so excited to talk to you about Mark Tallman.
This was marked in my notes as like, can't wait to hear Rob's take on this. So Mark Tallman, Tallman, Tallman is his name.
Literally Tallman. He's a former athlete himself playing an NBA player and gym franchise owner Nick Brandis.
As someone fluent in the world of the NBA, is this a recognizable person to you? Are you ready for my Jon Hamm opening monologue at you?

Yes.

And I encourage you to interject with your own witty banter.

And anytime you like Joe.

Okay.

This was a whole journey for me.

Okay.

Here's what we know about Nick.

Okay.

He played critically for Team USA in the 2004 Olympics.

Joe, how familiar are you with the 2004 Olympic men's basketball team? What do you think? I don't know. Maybe you're a secret Olympics head, and I don't know about it.
No, it's a strong 0% there for me. But you do lock into an Olympic storyline once in a while.
I do. And if nothing else, the 2004 Team USA basketball group is one of the great disappointments in American basketball history.
A classic like, did not send the players they should have sent, got undermined and upset by ultimately superior team playing, but maybe inferior talent. And so him displaying his bronze medal, which is what the USA won in Athens, in his trophy case, very good, also gives us a critical clue as to who might be on this team.
Very limited pool to now draw from. He's wearing number 15 on Team USA, which is Richard Jefferson's number.
Now we're starting to get somewhere. There's like a certain physical similarity between Nick and Richard Jefferson.
He has a championship ring, which Richard Jefferson also has, but he played for the Knicks, which Richard Jefferson never did. Played for the sort of cross town, but really cross state, then New Jersey Nets.
He's also a three-time All-Star, which Richard Jefferson never made the All-Star team. And so Knicks, plus multiple All-Star births, now I'm thinking, plus 2004 Olympics, is the Stephon Marbury, kind of Knicks complicated legend, who then went on to a very successful career overseas, particularly in China.
Then we see Nick Dunk in this episode with an ease that I would say is Richard Jeffersonian and not what a 6'2 Stefan Marbury would be doing post-playing career. It just doesn't really add up.
That man is not 6'2". And so then I'm looking at Amanda Peet, who is, by my detective work, 5'7", is the most accurate read on her height that I can find online.
I would describe their side-to-side comps as he is 1.2 times Amanda Peet's height, which would put him in the 6'7", 6'8", range, which is well in Richard Jefferson territory, all of which is to say, I think we're really getting at a Richard Jefferson comp here with a couple of Stephon Marbury, like, you know, some breadcrumbs to throw us off the trail, but ultimately Richard Jefferson is the answer. I mean, round of fucking applause for NBA scholar Rob Mahoney.
So a couple of things I learned from that. Number one, he is indeed a tall man.
Like tall man is correct. Number two, I guess, oh, this is a question.
If he is a Richard Jeffersonian sort of character, what should that tell me? How does that inform how I'm thinking about this character? It's tough because I think what it tells you is one quite successful, but not mega indisputably famous and successful. One of the details I bumped on is you see in his trophy case, like a GQ cover and someone who is a Richard Jefferson level NBA celebrity probably isn't GQ cover famous necessarily.

Maybe there's something about him that sort of transcends that.

Maybe there is a public life

that's a little larger than the game.

Was there anyone on the 2014

that you could see on the cover of GQ?

Oh, absolutely.

Like this was famously like LeBron James'

Team USA debut.

So like some huge NBA stars on that team in their right,

but who were a little bit either miscast

or kind of too earlier in their careers

to be those figures.

And ultimately the fact that he is a mere three-time All-Star

and not like a 10-time All-Star

puts him in a different category.

I'll also say temperamentally,

Richard Jefferson is a little more cutting

than I think our guy Nick.

Nick seems quite pleasant, quite affable,

is really making an effort

to at least mend some kind of fence with Coop,

whether that can be done or not.

I think Richard Jefferson is a little more biting than that.

Here's what I loved about how,

thank you for that absolute masterclass, Rob.

I appreciate it, Joe.

Just incredible stuff from you.

Here's what I love about the way that the nick character is sort of rolled out um he is this like sort of coop replacement you know what i mean the kids the kids don't love him but like he is this coop replacement in many ways is affable i did think he was living there until it's revealed that he's not. And then I did think

that Mel was much more into

him until it was revealed that maybe she

kind of isn't. And I

think that's all really interesting because

Nick's great and it's quite, it's status

for Mel. Like, you know, what

a thing to move on

from your husband to and all this sort of stuff like

that. And all the ladies at the country club

are sort of like ogling him as he swims

across the pool. Quite excited.

But like that Mel

I don't know. from your husband too and all this sort of stuff like that.
And all the ladies at the country club are sort of like ogling him as he swims across the pool. Quite excited.
Quite excited. But like that Mel has him is what Mel needs in this moment to feel like she has attention, but not seemingly what Mel probably wants to keep in the long run.
Given especially this burgeoning Mel deeply identifies with her troubled teenage patient.

So she keys cars sort of darkness to her.

That seems like it perhaps matches the darkness inside of coop.

And,

and so there is this idea that like,

I mean,

I,

I think their scenes together are incredibly good.

Amanda,

Pete and John Hamm and her sort of,

it's tough.

Cause I really like Mel until she's cast in the role of slightly nagging wife coming to you for more money sort of thing, which doesn't seem like it matches other parts of her. It's very confusing to me.
But when they are together and she's talking to him in a way where she's like, I know you. We know each other sort of thing.
And her talking to Olivia Munn's character about not feeling seen by him and not getting attention from him. And this is something that she did just to feel seen and feel like she had attention.
All of that, that rollout, I think, is really good. It is really good.
I would also watch a whole show that is just her in therapy, taking the destructive ideas of her patients and trying them to see if they help her personally. I think that's a great premise for a show, to be honest with you.
That's another Showtime show entirely. Absolutely.
I really like Amanda Peet a lot.

I'm tempted to say welcome back,

but she's been kind of fluttering

in and out of various things for a bit.

Like she hasn't completely disappeared.

I think the last thing I saw her in

was something that has a similar shape to this

in a lot of ways, which is Brockmire.

Did you watch that show, Brockmire?

Oh, I love Brockmire.

Really enjoyable show

in which she's also cast opposite

sort of like a broken, although slightly more comedically pitched man in a lot of ways. Unfortunately it seems to be Amanda Pete's zone.
She is asked to fix these people or at least to coexist with them. The nag part I hope gets toned down over time.
I hope there are just fewer scenes that pitch to that effect. The problem is I think the reason that those scenes are there is they're trying to ratchet up the sort of like pressure for Coop to steal more stuff, right? Like he needs to feel the financial stress from somewhere.
And he's feeling it from Barney, certainly, who is reminding him at every instance, you only have like a couple of months worth of money to actually live the way you want to live. And you owe me, you haven't paid me.
You got to pay me. At some point, you have to pay your best friend to be your best friend.
And Mel is there to say, yeah, your son, who you don't pay attention to, needs a drum kit. Hey, your daughter, who actually wants to play tennis for Princeton, she needs some tennis lessons from a pro.
That said, Jon Hamm's forehand looks pretty fierce. I think our guy can play.
He can. Jon Hamm can play tennis and golf.
This is like the best Jon Hamm moment I saw on the various like panels and interviews that I watched around this is they were talking about like, we need to find something that Jon couldn't do, but we have like, he can golf, he can play tennis, like he can do all this stuff. And Jon was like, oh, I'm just incredibly white.
Like that's's it that's all which is really funny but um yeah all of that I think it was honestly it was the dermatology moment that I was just sort of like really like the tennis pro thing I'm kind of like okay we're trying to get into Princeton yeah the pressure's on I understand that pressure cooker like I grew up in Marin County California like I understand like all of that uh how that can just sort of cook your brain of this is the only thing, this is the only thing that equates to winning. We have to get into Princeton or else, you know, we're worthless.
But yeah, it was the dermatology thing that I was just sort of like, I don't know. And almost like, I would almost rather hear that from the kids.
Like if his daughter was like, I need this procedure. And he was like, I don't know how to say no to my daughter, who I love and have brought up in this pampered world where if she asks for a thing, I give it to her.
So that request coming from her would just sit a lot easier for me than coming from Amanda Peete's character, who seems quite sensible in so many other ways, you know? She does. And if it's coming from the daughter too, then you get the different character motivation of he's trying to connect with his daughter, who he gets to spend less and less time with.
And, you know, in the way that sometimes divorce or divorcing parents do, you know, you're trying to shower them with the things that they want so that you can maintain the bond that you have. But that dynamic isn't there.
literally just mel asking for money a lot this this latest episode for hunter this like party storyline for him um really helped crystallize that character for me he was just sort of like vaguely there vaguely wants a drum kit or whatever but like his his relationship with his aunt him seeing his aunt him seeing his grandparents in a certain way was like all really good stuff, I thought. And then, yeah, him going to this party, having this horrible drug trip, feeling mortified and embarrassed and having his aunt like come help him.
All of that stuff really, really worked for me. I did write down, though, early on.
And again, this is TV and we should be patient and watch things roll out. But I remember in this earlier era, this golden era of the antihero television, there were all these trend pieces about the shitty teen characters on Homeland or The Good Wife or whatever it is.
And I was just like, are we going to avoid that trap or are we going to fall right into it? Where are we with this? So I think we're moving in the right direction. But what do you think? Well, within the context of the show, this is where it helps to have Coop himself be as unlikable as he is, is that the teen characters, by association, by comparison, they seem like relatively good hangs.
Like, yes, Hunter is quite shy and quite quiet. And he is just starting to understand the power of being in a band and what it can do for your social life.
Very critical. Don't take the mushrooms.
I gotta say, for us to... The foresight for us show on our The Last of Us pod to create an email address that was thisisyourbrainonshrooms at gmail.com and then immediately walk into this show and see Hunter's brain on shrooms, unable to drum.

Not great for your sense of rhythm, it turns out. Yeah.
I was like, this would go two ways. As the guy who pushed it on, either you transcend into another.
I was like, how's this going to go for Hunter? Is he going to have this transcendent musical moment, and then, uh-oh, it's just shroom o'clock all the time? Or is it going to go very badly for him? Just realizing in this moment, because Cooper is Andrew Cooper's last name, that this kid's name is Hunter Cooper. It's like...
That's not it. You can't do that to your son.
It's tough stuff. Tori Cooper, okay.
Okay, but Hunter Cooper, Victoria Cooper, fine. Hunter Cooper, that's able to offer prescription items.
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That's goldbelly.com promo code gift. So let's get back to the sort of like question of class and the time we find ourselves in now.

Jon Hamm has been...

What time is that, Jo?

I can't afford eggs o'clock. Oh, okay.
Katy Perry's going to space. Jon Hamm has been exquisitely media trained.
talk about this show as if it is like a cutting commentary on like the Elon Musks and Donald Trumps of the world, that it is here for the people who are out here struggling and losing their jobs and all this sort of stuff like that. And I'm just sort of like, I'm not sure I see the vision the way that Jon Hamm is presenting the vision here.
For me, it feels like he's like, this is the right time for this show, the way that Obama versus McCain was the right time for mad men. Like this's like this is the right time for this show the way that Obama versus McCain was the right time for Mad Men like this is the right era for this show I'm like this feels a few years too late for me Katy Perry going to space and we're murdering you know execs in the street and like all this stuff is going on with the billionaire class that like, I, I don't know.
Like it's again, like this is, I was, I am born and raised in Marin County, California. Like I, I, I have come from this world and I just am like, this, is this the temperature of, of the country right now? Is there a possibility for this show to be that for people? And I don't know if it's hypocritical for me to bump on it for this show and not for something like White Lotus.
When both are trying to convey a sense of, you know, you're miserable. Like, these things will not solve the misery inside of you.
Well, you haven't bought enough of them yet. One more watch, I think, might do it.
Might do it. Might just do it.
I don't know. What do you think about that, Ramahad? I think, for one, this is a much more pleasantly watchable show than White Lotus is, right? White Lotus, I think, wants to make you uncomfortable, not just with its commentary, but even just how the characters act and behave.
There's some of that here. And I will say Coop is much more confrontational in some of these settings, like much more directly will call out whatever he sees as being bullshit, whether you agree with it or not.
But overall, I think the temperament of the show, where it is most comfortable, the zone is trying to exist in. It's just like a comfortable watchability as we're easing through this story.
And yeah, there's this cultural commentary on the side that I don't think is quite biting, as we alluded to up top, and is quite sugar-coated at times. I don't mind it, but I don't see it as like, we're not going to come out 10 years from now unless this season does a dramatic change of pace and change of tone and say like, oh, this was one of the really resonant pieces of our time.
This really tapped into that

thing in the zeitgeist. It's talking around and about things that we talk around and about,

but it's doing it in a way that I don't think is exactly where any of us might want.

Yeah. I almost feel like the Mushroom zombie show is doing a better job of reflecting how we're feeling or severance.
You know what I mean? There are shows that I think are doing it and I'm not sure that this is. And it doesn't matter.
This can be a sort of Desperate Housewives-esque piece of candy if you want it to be. That's fine.
I just think it's that they're out there saying like this is really holding up a mirror to something and i'm like i i haven't seen it yet they gotta sell a show they're doing it looking yeah coppola was out here saying that about megalopolis you know like we we all have something to do here we all have a part to play and for us i think it is saying like yeah like i think the the the line that they're trying to walk makes the show very watchable, but I don't know that it makes it super resonant. Like I enjoy the show.
I'm going to be, I'm going to be keeping up with it and seeing what goes on, particularly with some of these like criminal element storylines as we, as we way deeper into Terrier's story, as you cited it, like that's kind of where I'm excited for the show to go. The other parts we'll, kind of wait and see and see how our opinions of them change over time.

I wanted to ask you on the sort of visual front.

So Craig Gillespie of Lars and the Real Girl,

I, Tanya fame, directed the first two episodes.

Greg Yutanis, who we interviewed for Presumed Innocent

on this feed, directed the third episode.

How are you feeling about the way in which the show looks or uses framing to tell its story? I'm enjoying it. I think it's a very well shot show.
And I think what I'm trying to figure out is how am I supposed to feel about the way that in particular, the like incredible consumerism of the show is displayed. Because it is clearly like in the target, right? Like in the crosshairs of what the show is trying to hit and talk about.
But it also wants to show you in loving commercial fashion every element of this Rolls Royce. It is loving of these objects in a way that these people are loving of these objects.
And so capturing that in the filmmaking is a really delicate balance. And I think there are some scenes, again, where it really hits for me.
And like the commercialism and the dissection of, you know, why wine snobs are obsessed with this particular bottle or why you can't pour like a glass of bourbon in this neighborhood without getting a TED talk. All of that stuff I think really, really hits.
But then you get into an extended car commercial. I'm like, are we going to do this every episode? Like, is this such a critical part of the visual language of the show where we're going to stop segment, go into catalog mode, go into infographic mode? Uh, I think it's still trying to modulate.
It feels like your friends and neighbors is how much to do those things. I think it's, have we exceeded one per episode? I feel like it's one per episode.
It's about one per episode so far.

I imagine every time he stops in to shop around one of his friend's closets or wine cellars, we're probably going to get something like that. Yeah, it's two watches and a bottle of wine, I think, is what we've seen so far.
I will say... And this little wad of cash.
Don't look. Cash money in these times.
It's not nothing. The dollar is not feeling great, but it's something.

I think that in terms of like,

this is delicious candy to be consumed or a delectable pot brownie to be consumed.

The shot of Jon Hamm in the wine cellar

watching his neighbor fuck her sister,

her daughter's boyfriend.

Yeah.

And then later hearing from her husband, like, how good their marriage is at Nick's party. But his face, like comedy ham is delightful.
And so like comedy ham in that moment is just like top tier. Great stuff.
We've been waiting for complicated front man, John Hamm, to return to television. But in the meantime, I would say he's played primarily two parts.
One, great comedy appearances in all sorts of doses and also various law enforcement officers. That's basically what he's been doing.
It's interesting. In this last year, our producer Kai pointed out that we could just recycle the Jon Hamm's nipple rings at gmail.com email address that we had for Fargo for this show if we wanted to uh he shows up in Fargo he shows up in Morning Show and he showed up in Landman uh and and he phoned he literally called into Landman if we're being honest about it like that is what his role is he called in more frequently than than Demi Moore did's true you know um but he uh he's playing like the heavy you know what i mean he's playing the villain in the morning show and in fargo um and landman like slightly less so but you know still a villain because he's a oil tycoon i need to parse this with you john ham is not someone I have ever found likable.
I, in, like, any of his characters. I enjoy his characters.
I find them compelling. Don Draper is endlessly compelling to me, honestly.
But, like, I never liked him. And I, and so when Jon, I thought what Jon did in Fargo was phenomenal.
Like, this, like, him this thing so like as a person I don't know him he might be like apple pie and sunshine this is nothing this is not not on Jon Hamm as a person but like likeable is a root for a bowl is never really what I'm going for and I'm curious like maybe we can play a little Bill Simmons, like, casting what ifs.

The story is that Jonathan Tropper wrote first hundred pages of his novel and then decided to shop it around as a TV show, took a meeting with Jon Hamm, and then went home and wrote the pilot script and wrote it with Jon Hamm in mind, right? So this is tailored for Jon Hamm. But is there another actor that could be in this role where maybe I, Joanna Robinson, don't, I'm not as like immediately out on Cooper, uh, the way that perhaps the show doesn't want me to be out on Cooper.
You know, that's the question is how much does the show want that? Right. Cause I, I agree with you that Jon Hamm plays a lot of very deeply unlikable people, But part of what makes Don Draper work is there's a pure competence at his job that I think is very charismatic for a lot of people.
And you see him in a pitch meeting and you're like, I would follow this guy anywhere. And then you see him go home and you're like, this is the most contemptible man who's ever lived.
And that contrast, him in a suit presenting in a certain way is part of what makes that character so effective. And I think there's a part of that here where just by putting Jon Hamm in front of us, someone who looks and acts and behaves like Jon Hamm, even when he's acting in something, is going to make him a borderline kind of likable in the way that like famous, attractive people are likable in a lot of cases.
And then you see what you can get away with. Like how far can you pull that character down to make us bend the line of what we're willing to go along with? Because we've seen he's going to end up in a pile of blood.
I'm guessing he didn't kill that guy. Oh yeah.
Feels like we fell down the stairs accidentally. And clearly he's stumbling into a bunch of stuff that he didn't intend to, right? There's the SAT guide, or the answer key, I should say, in the drawer, clearly walked in on this affair with his neighbor and her gentle boy caller.
And then whatever it is that's going to happen with the dead body. Gentle boy caller is an extremely cursed phrase.
Thank you so much for introducing it. The show did it.
I'm just calling it how I see it. They have cast James Marsden for season two of this show.
Ooh. And I'm like, it's Marsden, actually, like, closer to...
Because I agree. I mean, like, Don Draper is an all-timer character.
And I, like, I love watching Don Draper. And to to your point i love getting transported by don draper uh inside of a uh an ad pitch and stuff like that anyway um last thing i'll say on the don draper to uh andrew cooper trajectory and this is something that john ham said in an interview that i did really really love is that he was saying don draper was responsible for selling the american dream andrew cooper bought the American dream.
And it didn't pan out for him. And I'm like, this is how you sell a fucking show.
I was like, that is good shit. Give this man a slide remote.
Like he knows how to cook up there. Yeah, I gets it.
All right. Anything else you want to say about this, uh, this show before we head out? The one thing we didn't really talk about, Joe, is sort of the corporate undermining angle of this.
Like, we talked about the lawsuit, but it seems like the subplot between Coop and his former boss who sort of played him and sort of set up this situation is like being positioned as a pretty important plot line for this season. You don't cast Corbin Burns into doing nothing.
Not to just sit in a room and make a couple calls and occasionally pour himself a glass. There's got to be more to it than that.
That's some real Jon Hamm Inland Man energy from Corbin Bernson, I guess, in this show. Yeah, I'll be intrigued to see how that pans out.
I have actually one last really important question for you. Please.
Would you rather go to Drunken Weed Brownie self-defense night or were playing basketball one-on-one so hard that someone snaps their leg?

I rewound that several times to understand the angle of how that happened. But anyway, are you going to Nick's house or are you partying with the ladies? Nick's house feels a little cursed.
And I think that was true before the compound fracture, but even after it. And look, that stuff does happen to basketball players sometimes.
It's very traumatic to a degree that I don't think the people in that room were adequately expressing.

Very, very striking to see someone's bone poking through their leg like that. But let's take that part out of it.
Before that starts, a lot of rage happening. A lot of just

weird conversations that I don't know that I necessarily want to be a part of. A lot of selling

and hawking $30,000 luxury toilets. I don't know.
Not my vibe.

No to the toilet party. Are you hanging out with the ladies or are you just going to stay home? I think I'm staying home and watching Bloodsport.
Gentle boy caller, no. No, I am not the gentle boy caller in this case.
But I don't think I'm welcome in that space. They're doing their thing.
They're there for a glass of white wine, a pot brownie or two, some canapes, and some light to medium roughhousing. And I'm not going to stand in the way of that.
I don't want to intrude. So I'm going to stay home.
Me and Jean-Claude Van Damme are going to have a great time. My bowl of pasta.
I don't even know what kind of sauce he put on that. It doesn't look like Coop can cook very much.
But, you know, desperate times. Sometimes you just got to rough it.
A little buttered noodle. Okay, buttered noodle and some blood sport.
Sounds good. Gen good genuinely all of their parties seem slightly cursed to me like i don't really want to go to any of those backyard barbecues uh nor do i want to go to the club but like let's rewind the initial barbecue where we're putting crab legs on the grill now we're talking like nick nick knows how to throw a party and some of these other people know how to throw a party.
I just think that particular night, everything was going off the rails. Toilet night, cursed being locked into a wine cellar, watching, again, gentle boy caller and this woman you know go at it.
Like, it was just one thing after another. I don't think anything that night was going to go well once Coop left the house.
All right, so stay home with your butter noodles and your Jean-Claude Van Damme. Thank you to Rob Mahoney.
Thank you to Kai Grady. Thank you, Joe.
Thank you to Justin Sales. And we will be back with more of something.
But certainly the last of us, thank you so much for all of your emails that you've already sent us to what is the email address, Rob Mahoney? This is your brain on shrooms at gmail.com, but also email us at prestigetv at spotify.com

anytime you like.

And I would say in particular about this show, Jo, about your friends and neighbors.

How are you feeling about it?

What is resonating with you?

Which of the two parties would you like to participate in and why?

I want to hear all those takes.

And we're trying to figure out exactly how we want to continue along with this show.

So it helps us for sure.

Perfect.

All right.

We will see you soon.

Bye.