‘Your Friends & Neighbors’ Season 1 Finale: Who Framed Coop?

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Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast speed.

I'm Joyda Robinson.

I'm Rob Mahoney.

And we have the honor, the delight, the pure pleasure of talking to you about the Your Friends and Neighbors Season 1 finale episode.

Rob Mahoney, that sure was an episode of television, was it not?

It really was.

It was a season of television.

Many, many, many, many, many things happened, certainly.

We found out who'd done it.

So, if you haven't watched the finale yet you know you might want to go watch the finale before we talk about the the way this murder mystery concluded uh and a number of other things that happened inside of this episode of television i'm gonna say you really should if you if you are not caught up not just for the spoilers joe but i don't think you and i can appropriately do this episode justice it is the kind of experience that has to be seen to be believed I astounding stuff.

I guess before we get into that, and thank you all for your emails, especially press pressagetv at spotify.com.

A lot of them we won't be reading because a lot of them were incorrect guesses about who done it.

So thank you all for your speculation.

Yeah, I appreciate people taking their shots, you know, trying to get on the record ahead of time, just wanting to get it down.

Always take your swing.

Guess what?

No one solved it.

It took the ragtag team of Coop and Elena, and I guess Detective Lynn.

But I'm not

sure she

was actually involved.

Before we get into sort of the episode itself, Rob, where are you sitting?

I guess, like, we have been talking all season about how, however, we're feeling about season one, we're like, but season two, we're kind of interested to see what they might do with the sort of pieces that they have on the board.

Um,

or to see how that might play out in season two.

So, where are you feeling about that after the end of this finale?

Even more resolute in that stance.

I feel like where we end up, more gentlemen thieving.

And not just that, I will say, but like Coop almost like using the hedge fund plot line as subterfuge to then set up his next theft, I thought was actually one of the most enjoyable parts of the episode.

So like we get to the right place in the end, but to get there, we just got to sweep a lot of stuff off the deck.

We got to solve all these fake mysteries.

We got to get through all of these monologues.

There's just like so much happening in this episode, Joe.

But at the end point,

I actually am kind of intrigued by a season two.

And the show is like pleasant enough that I am along for the ride for that.

We are back to not just thieving, but we are like

obstinately art thieving, even though that went not well for us.

It was the most dangerous kind.

I mean,

sometimes you can't resist it.

I will say that, like, I was, I was hoping that this is how the hedge fund plot, you know, that, you know, there was this ticking clock.

He's got to be on the tarmac.

And I was like, I hope he goes robs a house instead.

Well, everyone he knows is at this gala.

That makes the most sense to me and sets us up for season two to be about more thieving, which is what we wanted anyway.

So thank you for that, your friends and neighbors.

Before we get into some of the other specifics of this episode, I want to read one email that we got from our listener, Hillary, about a previous plot point.

After the cocaine binge

that Nick and Coop and Barney enjoy, and they're on the golf course, right?

Hillary says, when Coop and Barney are having their heart to heart on the golf course after their night of clubbing, Coop says that it's midnight.

What?

Are we to think these men drove to Manhattan, went to a club, had a whole montage of drug-fueled dancing, drove back to Westchester, and have been driving around the country club.

And it's only midnight did they get to the club at 5 p.m.

Rob, care to comment on the timeline question that Hillary presents for us here?

You know, the logistics of that are quite frankly impossible.

Like we're in collateral levels of like, you just cannot cross that, you can't cover that much ground that quickly in addition to the full night's activities.

But as a washed person, I connect very deeply with the idea of the night feeling well and fully, not just over, but loopy by midnight.

I went out

to like a pub trivia thing last night with a bunch of people who are in their early 20s.

And I was like, yeah, we're going to like hang out.

And it was like 9.30.

Yeah.

And they were like, we're done.

And I was like, okay.

They're like, it's a Wednesday.

I was like, Gen Z, you are different.

Wow.

You are

different people than I grew up with.

I was like, okay, well.

Have a good night.

Healthy work-life balance and sleep priorities.

I didn't think it was possible.

Are they getting full nights of sleep?

Who's to say?

Couldn't be me.

All right.

We open this episode with

a dream sequence wherein Coop dreams that he is a fiction reader and he is reading Bright Lights Big City

by James.

I have this nightmare sometimes too, Joe.

Rob's like, good.

Oh my God.

Dear God.

Not that.

Anything but that.

Keep the contemporary fiction away from me.

Okay.

This book,

which came out in the 80s

and was made into a pretty subpar Michael J.

Fox movie, and Coop sort of quotes it later when he's talking about the line in this episode that gives the episode its title about metaphors and et cetera.

And it's about a a disaffected 20-something who tries to make it in New York and gets distracted by a life of cocaine.

And in the movie version, Kiefer Sutherland, who among us wouldn't be distracted by Keith or Sutherland and a pile of cocaine.

And just gets into sort of the idea that like

the very basic hit you over the head message of your friends and neighbors, which is material goods and the rat race and all of those things that we think are supposed to be the things we want or the American dream are really just

plastering over,

you know,

the actual issues and problems and hopes and dreams that we have that we're unwilling to address as we get sucked into the world of capitalism or the rat race or

in the case of, I guess, Olivia Munn's character Sam

sleeping your way to the top question mark.

How do you feel this works as like a literary illusion?

This gets into sort of what kind of show does your friends and neighbors think it is?

And is your friends and neighbors the kind of show where like you're like, yeah, you've really earned that 1980s contemporary fiction quote?

Or are you like, this is it trying to reach for being more hybrid than we actually want the show to be?

What do you think?

I think it is absolutely reaching and straining itself in the process.

Like, not only is that like a kind of a direct allusion and a nod to that sort of text and like just a totally different kind of fiction, but ultimately like the fourth or fifth different, like this metaphor is a real thing in Coop's life joke bit that they have tried to like shoehorn into this.

Like, I get it.

We're literalizing all these ideas that are happening right before our very eyes.

Right.

There are clear diminishing returns to that.

I just think once you get into the mealy mouthed monologues of this show, they don't really work.

And I say that as someone with, I would say, personally, an incredible tolerance for overriding.

Like I am down for it, generally speaking.

I will go along for a lot of rides.

This show has too much of a lot of things.

It has too many characters.

It has too many shows it's trying to be at once.

It has way too much riderly flourish happening.

And especially when you start putting that flourish into Sam's mouth, a character who I don't know that it made sense out of Coop's mouth either, but it certainly doesn't make sense coming out of hers.

I'm just like completely at sea okay.

I mean, this is the this is like the record scratch moment of the whole entire season is when uh Sam, again, as played by Olivia Munn, yes, gets her own voiceover moment.

That's gender equality, though, if you ask me.

You know, we've really solved it.

Oh, sure, sure.

Uh,

one

three-minute monologue for Sam and an entire season of Coop blathering on

sounds equal to me.

I found myself in a similar corner where I was like, why can

Train Spotting or Fight Club or these other, you know,

very

overly written, voiceover monologue heavy movies that I love, Fight Club

mixed, but definitely mix positive, you know, how can Tarantino get away with this?

Like, how can all these people get away with this?

And I'm not letting this show get away with it.

Like, what is the difference here?

I don't even know that it's the quality of the writing.

I think it's just like the overwrittenness is not matching the depth of what the story is trying to say,

potentially.

Or potentially, like, you know, those, those examples I cited were, you know, 90s early aughts.

Like, perhaps we're just in a more, to quote Jerry McGuire, like cynical age.

Like, you know, perhaps we can't handle this kind of overly written voiceover in our media anymore.

What do you mean?

I don't know.

I think we, I still think we can.

And certainly there's even like recent touchstones.

And it's also a thing that's like, you know, you cited like very masculine examples of that, but I think like Gone Girl does this really effectively, especially in terms of like the narration monologue.

Like it can be done really, really well if what you're saying fits the character who's saying it.

And I think that's one of, it's been one of the things I've bumped on the most with this show.

Everyone sounds like Jonathan Tropper writing a script.

You can get away with that sometimes if the performance is really, really sell it.

You know, if the character, if like there are characters, there are movies, there are shows in which it's like very clear that everyone is like a little too clever than a real person would actually be in those circumstances.

That can be super enjoyable to watch.

But I'm just like rolling my eyes so, so hard at this monologue.

And

I would take it a step further, Joe.

I think what you described, you said it wasn't bad writing.

If you're overwriting and not matching to character and not serving the actor performing it, that's bad writing.

Like it's just what it was.

You're right.

It's not, it's bad writing in terms of matching the rhetoric to the character.

I was just like, is this any more florid or ridiculous than some of the other,

you know, overwritten monologues that I've enjoyed in film and television?

And I'm like, I'm not sure, but like, for Sam specifically.

Yes.

I already this morning texted you about the line where she says, you move into an exclusive hamlet you've never heard of called Westmont Village.

You're from South Boston.

You don't know from villages.

Something Sam would never say.

But that's okay so that's something sam would never say here's something many most humans would never say a phrasing most humans would not use here's something that literally makes no sense

six years later you're a waitress because the stepping stone became a boulder what does that mean

i flagged that one too what does that

mean

and like

too big to step or climb on is it like a millstone around your neck like what it like what you know it's become a stepping stone yeah like it's too hard to climb, you can't scale it.

And you thought, oh, like, I feel like what they're going for is, I thought I would just step stone into a waitress and then become like a famous model or actress or whatever it is that the, according to her, hot girl in high school, like, thinks she deserves or is owed or whatever.

But, like, yeah, it's become a boulder that's too hard to climb.

I don't know.

I suppose we can work our way into figuring out what this means, but

I, you can't ask us to do that inside of TV models.

It takes a lot of diagramming to figure out what you're trying to say in that moment.

I was, and I could just like see whether it was Trapper or anyone else on the writing team, I could just see them like patting themselves on the back when they wrote that down.

And they're like, we really did it.

And I was like, oh no, what is this?

The Olivia Munn monologue is genuinely the low point of the entire series for me.

It is a huge reveal moment.

The whole season has been building up to it, and it's just the biggest possible dud.

But as far as the writing goes, Coop, this is a line from Coop where he's also kind of over-explicating in the narration.

And he says, it was all just an elaborate illusion where the magician and the audience were one and the same.

And I'm just like, oh,

that was

oh, brother.

But right before that, here's the, here's actually, okay, the Sam monologue is, I agree, I think the worst moment, the worst sequence of the entire season.

And I said, like, we say that as people who have, I've genuinely enjoyed Olivia Munn on this show.

And I don't, I do not recognize the performance or the character, certainly in the narration, but even in that like like confrontation, heel turn kind of moment.

Like I have no idea what's going on there.

Right before he says a thing about the magician and the audience being one and the same, this is, I think, the biggest mistake that they make inside of the season in this episode is right before that, he says, a big solid house, a small piece of forever, but there's rot in the foundation.

And I was like, oh, okay.

So.

this is, you know, underlining the message that they've tried to sell us all season, which is,

you know, similar to the message of Mad Man, which is like, you know, selling you,

what is the truth behind the American dream that you've been sold?

And it's a bunch of dysfunctional people making fucked up choices and shooting themselves in the foot and stuff like that.

Sure.

All of that's all that's fine and good.

When you say rot in the foundation and you watch him like walk down this sort of like green lawn, you know, beautifully manicured place, then you're invoking like Blue Velvet and David Lynch and Twin Peaks.

And I was like, I'm sorry, sorry, you can't play in the playground of one of the most masterful storytelling artists of our lifetime and give us this like cheese whiz version of it.

Like it's just,

it's an unflatting comparison to subject yourself to.

And I really think that if the show

tried

to do less and have more fun,

that's the tone it really needs to hit in season two.

And then we can all enjoy this like light and fluffy BE caper.

Like, why wouldn't we?

You know, I think that show could be a lot of fun.

I think there's some room too.

Like, you can have the light and fluffy BE caper with bits of dramedy, but this just leans so hard into it and so hard into that sort of messaging.

I thought the areas in which the hammering of the themes were a little bit more effective were on the coup and mel front.

Like this idea that not only is all this stuff a distraction, but like it look, it's the delivery of this dialogue is not great because it's literally like coop just like screaming the thesis.

But this idea that, like, you take your eye off the ball by focusing on these material things and you lose sight of all this stuff that's actually important or actually foundational, or it's like it's not rot, but it's just kind of unattended to.

Like, I think that's a reasonable underpinning for a show like this.

I just don't think it earns a lot that comes with it.

I agree with that.

I really liked that Melon Coop scene.

I don't like anytime John Hamm yells that much, but she was yelling right back.

And so that, you know, sort of like, again.

But later,

he,

while the Rolling Stones play.

As far as groans go, I gotta say, like the fact that you're getting me with the needle drop too, it was just, it was a lot going on.

He says, you work hard to get the life you want.

until someone comes to take it all away from you.

And I'm just like, I thought the message that we were really circling this season was that, Coop, you are the architect of your own disaster here like you know mel literally says it like there's a moment you stop fighting for us when you really need to fight for us you need to fight for yourself don't just roll over and go to prison fight for us fight to hold on to what matters which is your kids and like all this other stuff like and and then at the end coop's like someone takes it away and i'm like who someone who what are you talking about someone in the room with us right now i mean what like and so then i just feel like the show doesn't even understand its own messaging And Coop also tries to like have his cake and eat it too when he's just like, you know, I should have been nicer to you, but, you know, I'm not going, nor should he go to jail for her.

But just sort of like these moments where like Coop's like, you're fighting for this redemption.

You're not sure you deserve.

There's all these moments where Coop tries to like sort of say he's a piece of shit without, I think, actually believing that he's a.

piece of shit.

And listen, we're all pieces of shit.

So I'm not like, I'm not sitting on high judgment of Coop here.

We all have our issues, but like, I just don't like the way that the show is sometimes trying to pretend that this character is self-reflective and then just completely veering away from that the next second, you know?

Absolutely.

I think like second to second, again, not an unpleasant show to watch.

Like it has its charms.

I was laughing out loud at some of the elements of this episode.

It's also, I would say, structurally speaking, the structure of this episode is how many times can we let Coop dunk on people?

Like

one up the country club guy, one up the SAT mom, one up the hedge fund.

It's like he gets to do the comeuppance like world tour to everyone.

And I would say it extends beyond him, too.

It's also like Mel with the ladies at brunch.

If you want to go back further, it's Sam with the skincare

consultant.

And granted, these are not characters.

Like the people they're talking to are just like straw men and women who have wandered into the scene.

And it's like, let me tell you why I am so great and so right.

And it's like, you can only do that so many times.

And frankly, I'd prefer that many times to be zero, but if you need one or two, I'm going to allow it.

If you need eight or nine in one episode, that might be too much.

Well, especially when we're like,

you know,

maybe this speaks to someone and that audience is not me, but I just think that like

Coop grinding the SAT lady into dust

in an effort to clear the competition out of the way for his daughter to go to Princeton.

How is that, you know, after he just said, you don't have to go to Prince, like you don't have to go to Princeton.

you don't have to do this, you don't have to worry about this.

Like, I have learned my lesson and chasing Princeton and all these other, you know,

symbols of

success is not what we, the Coop, the Coop family, are going to be doing going forward.

And then he's like, except now I'm going to blackmail a lady into getting the competition out of my way so my daughter can go to Princeton.

I'm like, which is it?

You know, are we leaning full villain and saying,

how much money do you want from us to get Hunter out of suspension you know how can i blackmail you know like the the the shit that rich parents will do right to get their kids you know onto the road to college that's actually an interesting story aunt becky we salute you always but like felicity huffman you are you are in our thoughts but like

like then don't pretend that our characters are more enlightened than anyone else around them, which is, you know, because isn't what he's doing the exact same thing that SAT lady is doing in getting the SAT answers in the first place.

So, how are,

to your point, these characters who are dressing down the other characters around them?

The golf course guy was like really bothering me because I was just like, Coop, why are you pretending that like

you have any moral high ground here when you know you did not kill someone, but you've been fleecing your neighbors?

Totally.

There's nothing to stop you from like filching things from the lockers in this country club.

You are not the victim here in any way whatsoever.

So, in fact, for season two, like looking at the tea time list and busting into those homes, not a bad plan as far as theft goes.

So just like let him be a villain and I will have fun with that.

But like don't try to serve me a villain who I'm supposed to be like, wow, he's better and more enlightened than everyone around him.

That's where the show like really gets me.

So and maybe this is the kind of thing where, you know, we've talked about the season two element of kind of like clearing some of the decks and restructuring the show and focusing on the things that work.

Maybe this is the kind of thing where we look down the line at season four of your friends and neighbors and you're like, oh, this was the start of that descent into a kind of villainy for Crete, right?

Like, if the show was starting to clarify and understand what he is from this point on, I would believe it.

We've seen lots of successful shows where that's been the case.

On the one hand, yes.

On the other hand, I was thinking about this because I was thinking about

Nancy Botwin and on Weeds or Walter White on Breaking Bad.

Like, what is, you know, what is the equivalent of this character who starts as a head of their family and then finds themselves in increasingly sticky situations and sort of has to wriggle their way out of it um

and you know walter's uh

journey from mr chips to scarface which is the thing that they always like to say with breaking bad like

initially when he's

getting one over on people or all this sort of stuff like that it's just because like it is his it is a mess of his own making right but is to like literally get himself out of like life and death scenarios And, you know, similarly with Nancy Botwin, it's just sort of like she's painted herself into a corner and she realizes this, but the move she's making is to get herself out of a corner that she has painted herself into.

With Coop, it's just like he's choosing to just like

actively run towards those corners and like paint himself.

You know what I mean?

Like he's just like, he's active, making choices he does not have to make.

Yes.

Which is true of Walter White and Nancy Botwin too, but like, it's just sort of like.

It's a, it's a, the stakes are different.

And so the justification of bad behavior is different.

And if the justification of bad behavior behavior is like, I deserve to be in this country club or I deserve to have my daughter go to Princeton.

So let's get the competition out of the way.

It is so much harder than like Walter White's like, I deserve to survive this encounter with this, you know, drug ring that I have walked myself into, but like walked myself into.

You know what I mean?

And also underpinned by the stakes of like, I think I'm dying and I'm trying to provide for my family.

And Coop's version of I'm trying to provide for my family is like, I kind of don't want to trade in my car for the Mercedes and recoup some money.

And so instead I'm going to rob people.

And then instead, I'm going to get accused of murder.

And then instead, I'm going to be on still my high horse somehow through this entire process.

The other issue I have, I really liked the sequence where

like Tori comes down to watch

the sting

with her dad.

I'm going to say maybe the best parenting episode yet.

Yeah.

Genuinely like

really like good parenting moments with both kids, has an actual manner of communicating and

conversation with them.

I really like both of those sequences, with Hunter and Tori both.

I agree, but there are ways in which these characters all feel like accessories inside of Coop's story.

In like, I think with Elena specifically, we were talking to Bill last week about how like Elena is...

is such a tough example of like a character I want to be interested in.

Yeah.

You know, a character that I said when she showed up that I was glad she was here, which I was.

But like the way she's used in this finale, which is just as an assist to Coop, because he has leverage over her to get the goods on Sam, which, like, he should not go to jail for murder.

Like, I support that.

But what's Alina's story at the end of this season?

We don't check in with her because she doesn't matter because

she's done being part of Coop's story.

So, like, her story now doesn't matter.

We're not like montage checking in with, like, what's going on with Barney?

Like, what's going on with these people where you've asked us to invest in their side story?

But at the end of the day, day, it's the Coop show, which is fine, but then don't ask me to invest in

the personal lives of these other characters.

Yes.

I mean, it takes them about 30 minutes to remember that Elena is still on this show.

Like she's just not in this episode until it becomes narratively convenient for Coop to like turn to her for help.

And even then, this is a character who ostensibly stole.

all of the money from Coop that he made from gentleman thieving and he's like kind of cool with it i think there's a there's a bunch of different moments in this episode where like uh

people like it's just like water under the bridge.

Like we don't really want to have like an actual conversation about some of the things that are pulling these characters apart.

And so we're just going to kind of let things be resolved and forgiven very, very quickly.

Nick shows up at the gala with Mel and just like, yes, cool.

Here's a kiss on the cheek.

I'm going to go my way to dance with these other ladies.

Okay.

This also, okay.

I had a really bad time with this episode of television.

It's a lot to talk about.

So much when Nick was like,

it was my bad for falling in love with someone who's in love with someone else.

And Mel,

a therapist who recently not only fucked her ex-husband, but slapped another woman

for also doing so, is like, what do you mean?

I don't get it.

Whatever could you be referring to?

And I was like, what are you like, she's not stupid.

That made her look stupid.

And I'm like, you've worked so hard to have me invest in Mel Mel and think she is like an intelligent, emotionally intelligent person.

She's constantly coaching Coop on emotional intelligence.

And so for her to be like, I don't know what you mean,

it was deeply frustrating.

It's not good.

Like, again, a lot of these little side exchanges just didn't work, which I think speaks to something we've been talking about for a while.

They're like, there's just too much going on with some of it.

Like, it's trying to stretch too thin.

And then you get to a point where it's like, Mel comes off kind of looking like an idiot in this episode.

Ultimately, like other characters who are supposedly people don't have actual feelings.

They just like nod along and give a thumbs up to Coop as he kind of goes along his merry way.

Right.

I, there's a real tension point between storylines like Elena's, which, as you're saying, like, don't, she is not operating independently of Coop at all within the world of this show.

Except for the moment where they needed to set her up to steal his money.

You know what I mean?

Like the stuff with her brother.

But even then, there's no, like, we literally haven't seen her brother since he was getting his fries eaten at Kristelberg or whatever that was.

Like there's been, there's been no independent follow-up.

I would say on the counterpoint to that, like Allie is a character who has her stuff with Coop, has stuff that's independent of Coop.

I don't think it's working particularly.

I don't think it's super well executed, but it's like, okay, that character has a story.

I don't think Elena even has a story, which is a huge problem.

Do you think

when we get Allie walking down the street at the end of this episode, do you think, whose note was it that we need to put a a smudge of blue paint on her face so people know for sure that she's the one who spray painted fuck bruce on his garage you know what she really got that bar into a lather yeah chanting fuck bruce it could have been anybody so you really do have to clarify that it must be allie it must have been allie it could have yeah uh shout out bruce's wife who's like immediately like um i know you did something i know you deserve this bruce

i live with you i know i know how you operate Bruce sucks.

Everyone knows it.

Everyone at the bar knows it now.

The Alley stuff, I think, overall, it just doesn't really work, but I can see them at least trying to create a story out of it.

I do want to give all credit.

Lena Hawkin really fucking sing.

Like when she starts belting doll parts, I'm like,

I now understand why this is the most quiet and irreverent bar in human existence.

Like, this is actually a place you go to see a show.

And that, like, you know, Tori and Hunter were like, we want to go and we want, you know, like them acting like a family,

you know, circling around their aunts and stuff like that.

I liked all of that stuff.

There is like some great, there's some great family stuff inside of this episode that I definitely see.

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How did you feel, Joe, about the fact that the reveal in the finale of season one that Hunter is a concert-level pianist?

Didn't we get like an he's, isn't he like a musical savant?

Like, isn't it?

He's a musical kid, like, but he's, I would say there's a tangible difference to me between like making beats on your laptop and what do you mean?

Like, compose, composing in the manner he does in this episode.

What do you mean?

I feel like strokes on the keyboard and strokes of your computer and strokes on the keyboard of the piano, same level of skill, same level of hours of practice, don't you think?

Why are you being so elitist, Rob?

I don't understand.

Strokes on the keyboard equaling strokes on the keyboard is the level of metaphor and symbolism we needed narrated in this episode.

All right, what else do we want to talk about this episode?

You know, who comes off really well in this episode, actually?

Is like our favorite character, Kat.

Love Kat.

Kat, great, in every scene.

Yeah.

Why did we not get the legal drama in literally any respect?

Here's, you know what?

We've, we've heard a lot of grievances, Joe, big and small, about this show.

Sure.

Here is my utmost grievance.

And this is very personal to me.

Okay.

You're not going to put us in trial for, like, for Coop's trial.

Like, we're not in the courtroom.

We're not interested in going there.

That's fine.

Like, you write the show the way you want to write it.

You tell the story you want to tell.

You simply cannot negotiate the plea deal off screen.

Like, I need Kat in the room with the prosecutor hashing out the plea deal.

In her, like, oversized fashion blazer, which I loved.

A hundred percent.

Like,

this let cat eat, let her have her moment.

Uh, overall, like, the legal plot line, as far as the murder goes, is basically just like, uh, I guess I'll take the meeting for the plea deal.

We got a plea deal.

Oh, wait, I don't want the plea deal anymore.

And then that kind of backdoors into the burner phone subplot, which then backdoors into a widow committing $20 million insurance fraud, but kept the bloody suicide note subplot.

Do you think the murder weapon was also in her little passport drawer before she dropped into Coop's trunk?

Yeah, so did they, I guess they had two guns

must have been what happened?

Because there was the one gun that had never been fired that was in the gun safe at their house that got turned over to the police.

And I guess

that was the second gun?

And what about the gun in her bag?

I guess this was the bag gun.

I think there's, and Coop at least lampshades this by being like, when did everyone get guns?

But the lampshade line was actually funny.

The lampshade line that I did not like was when Officer Hernandez was like, I sound like a TV cop.

And I'm like,

just calm down.

You're in a TV show.

You're in a TV show.

I'm in the bag for Officer Hernandez.

No, obviously my favorite character on the show, but like, you know, it's

also

when, yeah, I mean,

when Coops

comes into Kat's office to talk about whether or not he's going to take the plea deal and like their discovery is just all over the table and she's like here let me fit out of this pile of documents let me fish out the phone records which just happen to be right here like um

it's fine uh do you think that sam

when she was putting together uh this plan at the last minute to uh to fool everyone with the pinging of the cell phone towers,

do you think she got that from the podcast serial?

Or is she just like a murder podcast aficionado, a true crime aficionado in general?

What's Sam's question?

I honestly would have loved a subplot where like Sam is constantly listening to murder pods.

Every time you see her in her SUV,

then she's just like, you know, just brushing up, just trying to see what's what, just trying to cover her tracks a little bit.

I think that would honestly be a, maybe it's too big a tip of the hat, but look, in a show where, as we talked about last week, there are just no plausible actual like people who could have committed this murder other than possibly Sam.

And then it turns out it's not a murder at all.

Like it was already pointing in her direction.

Why not point a little harder with some?

I guess, I mean,

I will say, in terms of like the whodunit reveal, I will give the show credit where it is due and say, like, we were like, there's no way it can't be Sam.

And in a sense, we were right.

But from a certain point of view.

From a certain point of view.

But

they found a way that it wasn't Sam.

And in a way that it wasn't just like a rando walking in, and it wasn't like Allie or Elena or another character that didn't make sense.

The son, as someone suggested, you know, like whatever.

Like, um, so yeah, the suicide, but then, but then we have to endure the line where she's like, I don't know, what did she say?

Your husband blows his brains out on FaceTime is like something that is part of her monologue.

I also

have she also name checks the show.

Like, there's just, there's so much happening in that monologue.

I don't like.

I will say, by virtue of her not being the murderer, and as Coop alludes to, probably getting off more or less scot-free, like short-term, possibly, community service, probably.

Like, we get to keep Olivia Munn in

the show potentially, which I'm, I still am excited about, even though this was not her best episode or her character's best episode.

Um, I don't know what you do with that character moving forward, but as like an outcast, like we, I think we're starting to see within this finale that like staring and tittering behind people's backs whenever like anything starts to happen.

I think, I I think that's like a good framing for these characters.

It's a good way to kind of put them on edge a little bit.

And I'm eager to see what they do with Sam if she stays, if she just doesn't straight up move out.

I think it has to be like a Mel and Sam reconciliation, is like all, you know, we got to tease that when they're sort of like looking at each other from their

matching shiny SUVs.

Yeah, their yin-yang of Range Rovers pulling out of their spots.

If you were to loop, you know, given that

Coop insists on continuing to Gentleman Thief in season two which she simply must um

who are you most excited to loop into the criminal enterprise in season two

i mean i think we got to get barney fully on board it's barney to wash the money gotta wash the money gotta be like these big stacks of cash like it's just not gonna cut it hiding it in a corner event yeah bag yeah no we gotta look if you're gonna be a gentleman thief the whole point is it's a little more dignified than that okay so you know be have some self-respect for your new chosen profession you say Barney to wash the money.

Yes.

I say Mel to like,

you know, a sort of like Mr.

and Mrs.

Smith, like, you know, double act situation from

this family.

Yeah.

I think Barney makes the most sense in terms of like, if we're going to continue to go down the road of, of a, like, a breaking bat or a weeds where the enterprise just grows and grows and grows, you do need someone to like put all the cash into one of those cash counting machines and then like do all the favorite parts.

I love that.

That's that's the kind of montage I'm talking about.

Okay.

But I need Mel involved.

I think it would be really fun to have Mel involved.

The kids,

maybe.

I mean, you do need, you do need some sick beats when you're on these jobs, you know, like maybe you need a soundtrack.

Do you think we're careening towards a hunter

aunt Allie collaboration where they like

a sick album together?

He like produces produces her album and it's a huge hit or something like that i i would honestly love it um joe how do you feel about music writing on screen you know like the aha moment of like we just wrote we will rock you how do you how do you feel about those sequences um

oh well in that movie specifically i think i kind of baited you on that one very bad terrible

i let my biases show a little bit i gotta admit but there's like um

what's um

what's the what's the Paul Dano Beach Boys movie with John Q said?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, love and Love and Mercy.

Love and Mercy.

Uh,

watching Paul Dano

come up with good vibration

is

cinema.

That one is good.

That one's really good.

Watching Queen come up with We Won't Rock You is one of the worst things I've ever seen.

It's very bad.

I do think the real life songs are a little harder, but if you had Hunter and Allie, you know, like banging out an original track, one, the track needs to be good.

That's always challenging, making fictional works of art go.

It's really tough.

But when it hits, like.

Just ask Studio 60.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Did you ever see the Nick Offerman joint Hearts Beat Loud?

Yeah.

Like

Kirsty Clemens, like really good original music.

And that's a scene where it's like their scene of like writing that song is electric.

I agree.

So you know what?

I'm open to it.

I don't know what the future holds for Allie.

She's got to clean her face, wipe off the blue smudge first, or maybe not.

Maybe lean into it.

And that's her new signature look, you know, whichever way they want to go.

But I think those should those two should get into the studio together.

Yeah, yeah.

To give uh,

to give Hunter a plot line that isn't just like Hunter gets the girlfriend out of watch this season.

That's character, that's development, that's growth.

Shout out to Mel

when she's like Morgan Adderall Morgan.

That was good.

That's good.

Again, there's there's good jokes in this show.

I just want more of the jokes and less of like

Sam monologuing about stuck up hedge fund guys.

You know, like I want a little less of that.

Not because it's not true, but because like you were also

very recently a rich stuck up person yourself until you realized you had no money.

You don't deserve it.

You and all the other money guys, you walk around like such big shots.

Like all this money is proof of something when it was handed to you.

Ma'am, you were at a country club like two days ago, like lounging by the pool, hobnobbing with everyone else.

I don't know what's happening.

I almost called her lady there, and I think we are like contractually obligated to say that Kat gets a don't call me lady moment here in the finale.

So here at theringer.com, we support the great work of all women not wanting to be called lady in loud and dramatic fashion.

Okay, so we are ready for the like Risly and Isles law and order spin-off that is Kat and Officer Hernandez.

Yes, yes.

See, I didn't know what I wanted this show to be until you just said that, and now it's been clarified perfectly.

We're ready for that.

Detective Lynn should probably be reassigned to another borough.

I would appreciate that enormously.

I just don't understand what they're doing with this character when she's like talking through a full mouth and you're like, wow, that sure is one tough broad.

She gets sauce everywhere.

What a.

No, she wants her sauce on the side, though.

You know, like, she's trying to be proactive about it, but this burger place is trying to keep her down.

And Officer Hernandez is like, you're going to get sauce in all of our evidentiary documentation.

I want to bounce through a couple of those characters and say, like, do we think they will be a recurring or in any way prominent part of your friends and neighbors season two?

Like, Detective Lynn, is she going to be back around investigating anything?

Is she just like a part of the firmament of the show now?

Yeah, because she's the cat to his mouse because even though he got out of this murder wrap, she already knew she was like, there's been something wrong with you from the jump, my guy.

So, yes.

Not wrong about that.

Bad police work elsewhere, but the instinct was correct.

What about Liv Cross at the hedge fund?

Do we ever see Liv Cross again?

What a shitty use of Live Cross inside of this episode.

I would have rather it was like the cocaine brothers who came to

give Coop the walk and talk than this use of Live.

Yes.

Yes, we're going to see her again.

How about Nick?

Is Nick done on this show?

Should be.

It's tough, but if I were them, I would say Nick has moved to Los Angeles and we wish him well.

No, you're going to move more toilets there anyway.

Like, I think you got to really know your market.

He would be big in Japan.

That's what I think.

Oh, you know.

Well, here's the thing.

That market is too well saturated.

Like, he's trying to break into an American audience that doesn't even know how far toilet technology can go.

Okay, fair enough.

Fair enough.

Who else?

How much do we get of Barney's home life with Grace and the renovation and his in-laws?

Like, do we see any of that stuff again?

Well, that will make more sense to me if Barney is inside of the organization.

I will be more invested in that if Barney is inside of the organization.

Because then it won't feel like a weird detour.

It will feel like part like flow naturally from the central plot, you know?

Yeah.

Having these twinning sorts of like domestic, who knows what, who is involved, who is not, who is covering things up, who is not.

Like that stuff can really work between the two families.

Can I amend the sort of like, we want Barney in the, I want Barney and his wife because she's like, she's like, you and me.

It's you and me against the world, remember?

You're right.

So like, I need the two of them to be on the money washing scam.

I think the order of operations should be Barney gets involved.

He quickly loops in Grace.

Like a mission.

And then it becomes a tension point that, like, Mel is on the outs, and you have to slowly incorporate her into the bling ring, as it were.

I love this.

What about our beloved cat?

Is she still in this show?

Is she done?

She has to be in the show.

She's our favorite.

She's keeping it

involved.

Like, again, I'm down for the spin-off.

And look, I think a lot of these characters, even the ones that aren't

fully fleshed out as independent people within this world, I'm sure will still show up in a sauna, at the pool, at a restaurant.

Like, they're still going to be part of the crowd, but I think there's a distinguishing line between who is like a part of that crowd, that posse who's like following Coop or Mel around, and who is an actual character who's fleshed out in their own right.

Yeah, Kat, I want more of always.

And I don't know, you know, if I guess if Detective Lynn is always here to try to arrest Coop, then Kat can always be here to, you know, get Coop out of hot water.

But like,

Elena, what about Elena?

I think she's still here.

I think clearly, if the designs are we're going to keep robbing people, Coop can't be doing it alone.

At least he tends to do very poorly when he does it alone.

I don't know.

I think he was doing better before Elena than he was after Elena.

That might be true.

Well, I mean, look, it wasn't her fault, but I'm just

going to embolden him to do, to take bigger swings.

And then that's where they got majorly fucked up.

I don't think they know what to do with that character at all.

I don't know whether we're ever going to see Chivo again.

I don't know whether we're ever going to see the chicken ring eating drug dealer again.

Like,

I don't, I don't, I don't get any of that stuff.

And I'm not like, I wish it mattered more.

I wish it were better executed within, you know, the scheme of this show.

I just don't think they're there yet.

Um,

what about

uh the cocaine brothers?

They're why would they leave?

Yeah, this is this is where they live, this is where they eat.

Like, there's going to be more bros nights that they can be invited to.

Like,

Look, I really loved the cocaine bender part of last week.

I really loved the cocaine bender that was this podcast.

As you and I were getting like high on Bill's takes, I came into this finale

even more excited about the state of your friends and neighbors.

And then characters started talking and I felt a little bit differently about it.

But I do genuinely love ending with, we're going back to gentleman thieving.

Like this is the bare bones of what makes this show effective and we're going to get back to it.

And that's what we wanted.

We did not want Coop to go to jail like as much as he wanted a courtroom drama.

We did did not want season two to be a protracted courtroom drama where we're doing neither we're neither being or we're eing we got to be an e in order to you got to do both you got to do both so there's a little too much e with no b in this in this show though like he never like obviously he's trying to sneak his way in but also good it was just so glaring in this episode that literally no one has security cameras i know we did like the one line of dialogue earlier this season about like a wi-fi jammer or whatever but you got to at least show him turning it on like you don't need a lot but show me that watch him stroll in in and just boop boop.

If you want us to believe in this technology, we got to show us the boop boop.

You know what I mean?

A single boop boop an episode is fine.

But wouldn't whoever I presume is monitoring the security feeds notice that like

every other night or so, someone is boop booping the security cameras in the neighborhood?

You know who does know a little bit about the B and the E is

Sam, who I want to ask you,

gentleman chef, how would you feel about the use of the meat tenderizer as

the instrument she used to break the window to make it look like someone broke into the house?

I mean, unquestionably works.

I don't know anyone who's ever done any kind of meat tenderizing in their life, like, you know, you have that flash of like, what happens if I miss this and I just tenderize the shit out of my hand, you know, as I'm like trying to keep this chicken positioned properly or whatever it is.

So yeah, like you can do some real damage with that thing.

I felt like they were trying to go for something really camp with like, she's got the like yellow rubber gloves and the knee tenderizer, this very like desperate housewives kind of like moment.

But I'm like, I don't know.

Again, go more camp.

Go more camp.

Make everyone a worse person and don't try to sermonize anything to us because I don't.

I don't think that's your strong suit, your friends and neighbors.

Be fun, be shallow, and I will enjoy you so much more in season two.

So I'm so glad you said that, Joe, because now that I'm thinking about it, one of the other touch points for me that came up as Sam is explaining exactly what has happened from her perspective,

it reminded me a lot of a simple favor for some reason.

Just like,

again, like kind of loopy, kind of camp.

Like that, that, at least the first movie, like found its audience and people like really latched on to that tonality.

And this felt like you're, you kind of want something like that, but you haven't really committed in any particular direction to achieve it.

And so I think if they do lean into the campier parts of this story, it could, it could really hit the right tone.

They're just fumbling in the dark for a lot of this stuff right now.

Yeah, I just think they're trying to be

more than they should be.

Be less, I'll enjoy you more.

That's all.

And I mean, I, that might be a little bit of a hallmark of a Apple show.

You know, we were trying to sort of do a taxonomy of an Apple show.

And I think we bumped into this a little bit with Bad Monkey

and a little bit, I would say, with Severn sometimes too.

Like Severance is trying to get like really deep.

and i'm like please take me only medium deep you know i i love a deep show i just am not sure that these you know these particular apple joints are um able to deliver on the depth that they are trying to shoot for you know i think the apple shows that have been most successful are the ones that understand that they need to only be

30 or less percent deep and are leaning into those elements of what they are the trashier elements the more commercial elements the more like watchable tv elements of what they are And then, yeah, like ones that kind of fall very comfortably into like the 60 to 70% deep.

Like we're going to hint at some subtext.

We're going to hint at some lore.

We're going to hint at a depth of these characters that you may not see on the surface, but like we're not going to dig too far into it.

You know, like we're going to let the plot drive this thing.

And then when it goes off the rails, it really goes off the rails.

I think this,

it wasn't a disaster, you know, like, again, I had a fine enough time watching this show.

I don't think it knows what it is yet.

I don't know that I know what it should be, frankly.

Like, I have, I've had mixed ideas throughout this season where I was like, oh, I kind of like this murder mystery.

Oh, wait, this is too much murder mystery.

I kind of wish we would get back to the thieving.

Like, I was kind of swerving along with the show, trying to figure out what I wanted it to be.

It's like, and I don't know if

I feel like there should be a consultant in Hollywood whose sole job it is to tell showrunners how many episodes of story, how much, how many episodes of story they have.

Because we were just saying with our last Sonali pod, we were like, this needed to be like a long, at least a nine, if not like a 12 episode season of television.

And with this, I'm like, I think you had maybe six episodes of story.

Um, you know what I mean?

And they just tried to fill it out with a lot of side plots that we felt then like spread too thin and our attention was scattered and stuff like that.

But there is like a core

similarly, you know, like with Bad Monkey, we wanted that to be shorter.

Hijack is a show that I wanted to be a little bit shorter.

You know, like there's,

you know, if someone wants to offer up their services in Hollywood, it's not me necessarily.

No, I think it's you.

I think, I think it's you with a mission impossible style countdown clock of the total runtime of the season.

Like, this is our target, you know?

You want to use 20 minutes on Elena.

We're going to take 20 minutes off the clock and then this is what you've got left.

This is, this is the like

the process in Hollywood is like you you you pitch your pilot and then you talk to the network and the network gives you like this many episode order for your season.

And I feel like the next step should be then you go break your season and you bring it back.

And then somebody says, actually, man, you only have X many episodes here.

So that's actually what the season is going to be.

Or actually, man, you need a few more episodes to fill this out.

Because not every writer knows what size bag to stuff their story in.

And either you get like two little story rattling around a giant bag or you get a bag that's overflowing.

And we need that perfectly sized Birkin bag.

We do.

And that is what we can enjoy.

And I think we're only going to get get it from Joanna Robinson.

No, you, I think you have to take this mantle, Joe.

Just because you can identify a problem doesn't mean you're the solution to the problem.

The truth as we talk about the many problems with your friends and neighbors.

But if you did want that job, I support you.

While we're kind of like throwing our hats in the ring or not, I would like to nominate us both as like snooty extras that Coop can yell at for season two.

Like, I'll be a waiter who brings him, you know, the Solmonier when he wanted like a filet or something.

Like, I'm down for whatever, whatever we we want to do with that.

I can't believe you brought Solmonier back into our lives.

It is Apple TV, you know.

We're in the

expanded universe.

But look, I just think that's a robust area for character actors right now.

Be the person at the next table over who gets yelled at or their glass broken or whatever.

Well, you just said you didn't like that part of the show.

I don't, but if you're going to do it, at least let us be part of it.

Okay, sounds great.

Yeah, definitely.

Your friends and neighbors, after, if they're listening to this, are like, we definitely want to hire those people.

They seem like someone we want on our team.

Definitely.

Okay.

Did we do it?

I think we did it.

Great.

Thanks to Kai Grady.

Thanks to Justin Sales.

We'll be back next week.

We've got some thoughts and feelings and Ireland's in the fire.

And we'll both be in LA.

So we might be doing some in-studio in-person stuff.

And

thanks to you, Rob, for going on this journey in the neighborhood with me.

I appreciate you always.

Thank you, Joe.

I have one parting piece of wisdom for you and our audience.

I just want everyone to remember that, like, it really turns out even the princes are just frogs in Brunello Cuccinelli polo shirts.

I want us to all take that with us.

It's right up there with like, choose life, choose a career, choose family.

You know, it's just like, just flows just the same.

All right, we'll see you soon.

Bye.