Your Friends and Neighbors: Jon Hamm’s New Series Critiques and Admires the Ultra-Rich
Apple TV+ has unveiled a new crime drama centered on a once-successful financier, abruptly sacked under the pretext of an affair with a subordinate. To maintain his lavish lifestyle and social standing, he turns to burglarizing the homes of his wealthy neighbors. Jon Hamm takes on the starring role in Your Friends and Neighbors, a series already renewed for a second season before its premiere. Dubbed an early-returning White Lotus by some, this article explores whether the comparison holds and if the show is poised to become the next big hit.
Paradoxically, Your Friends and Neighbors—Apple’s latest venture with Jon Hamm—finds an unlikely companion in Netflix’s 2021 series Maid. The chasm between the woes of Andrew “Coop” Cooper (Hamm), a financier ousted from a major investment firm, and a young mother escaping an abusive marriage to scrape by as a cleaner (portrayed by Margaret Qualley in Maid), is vast. Yet both stories reflect two sides of the same coin: American consumerist capitalism. Your Friends and Neighbors is mesmerized by the glossy allure of wealth, even as it attempts to critique it, while Maid fixates on poverty, despite its well-intentioned spotlight on resilience.
In Maid, every hard-earned dollar the protagonist made—scrubbing floors for $12 an hour—was immediately eroded by life’s relentless demands. On-screen tallies documented her dwindling funds: a bit of gas for the car, groceries unsubsidized by meager government aid, daycare fees that subsidies couldn’t fully cover. She toiled endlessly, yet after every expense, she was left with a mere $9 a week for rent. Coop’s struggles in Your Friends and Neighbors are of a different caliber: $1,000 a week for his daughter’s new tennis coach (essential for her Princeton prospects), or $100,000 annually for a country club membership—non-negotiable, lest the neighbors assume he was denied entry.
Both characters are trapped in a hamster wheel, albeit with vastly different stakes. For the cleaner, it’s survival; for the affluent, middle-aged Coop, it’s preserving his status. He isn’t starving, of course, but when his financial world crumbles—job loss, divorce (with the house going to his wife and kids), and a two-year non-compete clause barring new employment—he begins to see the absurdity of a world where mothproofing a closet costs $9,000. Yet, rather than picking up a mop or driving for Uber, Coop opts to steal from his neighbors, lifting watches worth hundreds of thousands to cover his expenses.
In Your Friends and Neighbors, Jon Hamm finally gets a chance—if not to rival his iconic role in Mad Men (the two shows play in different leagues)—to craft another enigmatic character. His charm, opacity, and superficiality perfectly suit the story of a jaded adventurer in New York’s wealthy suburbs. Hamm’s face is one of a kind, a blessing and a curse for the actor. No one else could embody the disillusioned ad man Don Draper, but with his classic good looks and self-deprecating wit (on display in Saturday Night Live sketches), Hamm seems like a man born in the wrong era—better suited for the company of Cary Grant in Howard Hawks’ comedies or Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers. Modern roles for him are scarce, and Your Friends and Neighbors, helmed by showrunner Jonathan Tropper, is a rare gem.
The series would undoubtedly feel different without Hamm. He brings a magnetic quality to this engaging, if somewhat toothless, critique of capitalism, elevating it into a potential audience favorite. Hamm is more than a talented or handsome actor—he possesses the star power and charisma that can captivate both discerning cinephiles and casual viewers alike (a trait shared by the likes of Nicole Kidman among actresses).
Your Friends and Neighbors aims to challenge the ethical underpinnings of wealth: Coop’s hedge fund dealings were socially sanctioned enrichment, but stealing a Patek Philippe from neighbors who wouldn’t notice its absence is not. Coop himself reflects little on either act, justifying his choices with a simple, self-serving rationale: he needs it. Yet the series also indulges in the opulent lives of America’s elite—grand homes, luxury watches, sleek cars, country clubs, and perfect smiles—presented straightforwardly, without the satirical bite of White Lotus. The creators seem to bet that audiences will be drawn to peek into the world of the top 1%, even without a deeper takedown.
When Coop is fired from the hedge fund, the company’s aging owner tells him, “It’s not yours if you can’t keep it.” Coop couldn’t keep his marriage, his house, his job, or his wealth, but he sees no issue with the mirrored logic of taking from his rich friends to get by—if they can’t hold onto their possessions, they don’t deserve them. Early episodes suggest this isn’t a series that will force its protagonist to grapple deeply with his privilege or blind spots. For now, Your Friends and Neighbors merely sketches intriguing themes, often skimming the surface. But perhaps that surface, like the thin ice Coop treads, will crack in the episodes to come.