Episode 4 of Your Friends and Neighbors was largely about Coop and Elena becoming business partners. Things started off great, and there was a steady flow of money between Coop, Elena, and their number one buyer, Lu. But then Elena expressed her dreams of leveling up with the help of Hector since he had the passcodes to all the houses in Westmont Village. Things took a turn for the worse when the dynamic duo trusted Hector too much, and Coop ended up getting bitten by a dog and chased by the police because the codes that he had given them were incomplete. Instead of lying down and taking a breather, Coop then had to attend Mel’s birthday party, which was also a disaster because Mel was too unstable to deal with a whole event centered around her. The one who sort of calmed her down was Coop, and she finally admitted to him that she thought she’d be happy after cheating on him, divorcing him, and stripping him of a major chunk of his hard-earned wealth, but she wasn’t. Did Mel continue her redemption arc or regress? Did Coop’s and Elena’s dynamic evolve? Also, what’s up with Barney? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Mel Grounds Hunter
Episode 5 of Your Friends and Neighbors opens with Mel making it up to Nick after that disastrous birthday party with the power of fornication (a scene that’s edited to perfection with the scenes of a TV audience reacting to the toilet that Nick has been promoting). Meanwhile, Hunter gets caught letting his friends snort his Adderall while he is busy getting his face painted like Bowie by his probable love interest, Morgan. Mel and Coop are called in for a meeting with the principal, who tells them that Hunter will be expelled for his actions. What does Mel do? She decides to bribe the principal by completing the fundraiser for the new athletic center. What does she do after the principal accepts the deal? She grounds Hunter and takes him home while putting the responsibility of dumping $250,000 in the school’s bank to save their son on Coop. Sure, Mel doesn’t know that Coop doesn’t actually have a job; he isn’t actually working with someone from Dubai, and he is jobless. But what kind of an idiot does she have to be to not even say that she will chip in? Even if Coop had a high-paying job, how is it fair to dump the burden of shelling out that kind of money to ensure the future of the kid that Mel herself has taken the responsibility of raising?
I mean, Mel is particular about the amount of time Coop can spend with Hunter and Tori, and she doesn’t even inform him about all the other times Hunter’s behavior has been criticized, but when it comes to money matters, it’s all on Coop? Isn’t he already paying for their tuition and extracurricular activities? Now this? Wow, the Mother of the Year award should go to Mel. You know what? I had a few people in the comments section of last week’s article sympathizing with Mel because she was being so vulnerable and whatnot. Some of them even scoffed at me for not buying that act. What do they have to say now? Mel is just straight-up diabolical. She is the villain of the show. Yes, capitalism is as well. But right after that, it’s Mel. Anyway, back home, Mel sort of gets a taste of her own medicine as Hunter refuses to listen to her lecture about him spending time with friends and giving them Adderall because who the hell wants a lesson in morality from someone whose life’s most defining moment has been their adultery? Instead, Hunter chooses the company of Tori, who compliments his music-composing skills. I think this is a subtle way in which Tori is trying to put Hunter on the right track, because if he starts getting validation through his music, then he won’t try looking for the same from his peers (who probably just want him around for his Adderall).
Barney Crashes Out
Barney’s home renovation project hits a rough patch as Phil, the guy in charge of the whole thing, reveals that there’s a shale bed in the area they were supposed to build the foundation for… something. So, now Phil has to essentially use explosives to pull out the rocks from the ground and make it more manageable. Which means that it’s going to cost Barney a lot of money, money that Barney doesn’t exactly have. Phil gives him the option to put a pause on the project and wait until his men are done with the next project, thereby giving Barney enough time to accumulate the money that he needs. But since Grace wants the job to be done ASAP, and maybe she has an inflated idea of Barney’s bank balance, she tells Phil to keep at it as Barney will arrange the $200,000 that he needs. To add to Barney’s worries, Grace’s incredibly strict parents, who don’t exactly approve of Barney because of his inability to speak Korean, show up to meet the Chois. They have an incredibly awkward dinner together where Grace’s parents have an argument with her (in Korean) over staying at the very place that’s being renovated, how that’s bad for the children, and how it shows that Barney doesn’t have the money to rent a place until the construction is completed. Although Barney doesn’t understand a word, he gets the vibe and excuses himself to take a breather. That brief moment that Barney thought he had all to himself is interrupted by Grace’s mother, who, in the most passive-aggressive but typically Asian way (I’m Asian, so I can say this), gives him a check for $1 million to help him with his finances.
Now, look, here’s where I stand when it comes to taking money from your parents. When you are struggling, it’s perfectly okay to take the help of your parents or your in-laws. Consider it a loan. Pay it back later. It’s all in the family. No big deal. However, if your parents or your in-laws are showing off their “old money,” then that’s unacceptable. I have no clue why parents or in-laws do that. It’s not a competition. Also, it’s pretty weird for Grace’s parents to choose this occasion to dunk on Barney when it’s their daughter (who is probably jobless) who is draining her husband’s bank account on a whim. Or is it okay for a rich family’s daughter to do so because they want their daughter to either stay dependent on them or their partner? I know it’s a cliché, but instead of being criticized, this kind of behavior is becoming more and more normal. The show is centered around the upper-upper class of American society, but I’m seeing this attitude trickle down to the upper middle class as well, which is just weird. Be independent, folks! Okay, getting back to Barney’s downward spiral, after that abysmal dinner, he decides to spend the night in an under-construction building in his front yard, drinking the whole bottle of whiskey that Grace’s father had given him. Then he proceeds to light Grace’s mother’s check on fire and almost ends up burning down the building he is in. Fortunately, he comes to his senses and uses a nearby extinguisher to save his already dented reputation and bank account. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that either in the next episode or by the end of this season, Barney is going to join Coop and Elena’s thievery project so that he can afford the lifestyle that he and his wife want.
Christian Molests Elena
Since the dog bite wasn’t a learning lesson, Coop has decided to take things up a notch by going from stealing expensive trinkets to stealing expensive art. To be specific, Coop wants to steal a Lichtenstein. But Lu says that she doesn’t deal in paintings because it’s way too risky. Coop agrees to give her 20 percent of the profits, and that’s when she agrees to introduce him to her contact, who not only buys paintings but also makes fakes so that they can be replaced without getting the owner suspicious. While that seems like a win (which is rare) for Coop, he is almost immediately made to feel like a loser by Samantha, who seemingly breaks up with him and also informs him that she is moving to Boston with her kids for some time to “get away from everything.” Yeah, we’ll come back to this at the tail end of this article. For now, take solace in the fact that, with Samantha gone, Coop gets to spend some time with Ali as they watch old movies on the TCM channel together. I love watching movies, but I’m not a cinephile, a cinema connoisseur, by any standards. So, anybody reading this, if you have managed to identify all the movies that Coop has watched in the show so far. Anyway, coming back to the plot, we see Coop and Elena meeting Lu’s contact, Christian (played by Olafur Darri Olafsson, who is having a great 2025 with Severance, Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, and now this), at an art gallery. I love the setting of the conversation between the three. It is simple, but just a giant eye looking at them talking about art theft at an art gallery makes the whole thing so dynamic and ominous. Well, after trading some barbs, Christian gives the fake Lichtenstein to Coop and promises to sell the original discreetly as soon as Coop and Elena deliver it to him.
We get brief scenes of Ali stalking Bruce—the guy that Ali was supposed to marry but didn’t and now pines for day and night—at Nick’s gym, and Samantha’s reaching her parent’s house with her kids, and then the focus of the episode returns to Coop and Elena stealing the Lichtenstein pretty easily; a bit too easily. Yeah, that’s because the problematic part comes when the dynamic duo goes to Christian to sell the painting. So, while waiting for Christian’s experts to analyze the authenticity of the product, the art gallery owner takes Elena and Coop to a club to party, where they all get high and vulnerable with each other. Coop is super-professional with Elena and vice versa, but Christian, predictably enough, interprets Elena’s friendly behavior as an invitation to sexually harass her. Coop intervenes, and a fistfight ensues between him and Christian. Elena uses pepper spray on Christian and extracts Coop from the situation and out of the club. However, instead of being thankful for Coop’s intervention, Elena reprimands him for trying to be the hero before they got their hands on the money for the painting they stole. This is a pretty sticky situation because Coop is of the opinion that they can always steal another painting, and getting molested by a guy isn’t worth it. Meanwhile, Elena is of the opinion that she is more than capable of handling guys trying to molest her because, at the end of the ordeal, she knows that she is going to get the money, which in turn will allow her to fulfill her dreams. Technically speaking, both of them are right in their own way. Their aim is to earn money, and if they don’t get the money after putting in so much effort into stealing something, then what’s even the point of this whole endeavor? Well, let’s hope that when Lu hears about this, she is going to stand beside Coop and not back that molester.
Paul Is Dead
At the end of Your Friends and Neighbors episode 5, Coop decides to make it up to Elena by robbing something from Samantha’s house. Guess whose dead body he finds there? Paul’s! So, yes, we have caught up to the present timeline (because the whole show has been a flashback so far), and the mystery created by the opening minutes of the first episode has finally been solved. That said, we have a new mystery on our hands because who the hell killed Paul? Now, when I didn’t know whose dead body that was, I had assumed that Coop’s journey would start with theft and end with him becoming a murderer-for-hire because stealing wasn’t cutting it. After learning that it was Paul and also finding out that Coop has nothing to do with his death, I think Samantha is the killer. Right? At Mel’s party, Paul was pretty antagonistic towards her for lawyering up against him. I guess Paul’s young girlfriend, Misty Perkins, had also broken up with him. So, it’s not a stretch to speculate that Paul showed up at Samantha’s house to threaten her. Things got heated, and maybe Samantha accidentally pushed him down the stairs, thereby leading to his death. After that, Samantha broke up with Coop and went off to Boston to lay low there until things cooled down. The only issue is that Coop has found the body, which is something that Samantha probably didn’t anticipate would happen in a million years. He is going to connect the dots and realize what has gone down. What’s he going to do after that?
Is Coop going to confront Samantha? Will he give her up to the police? Will he extort her for money, you know, to keep her secret intact? Or will Samantha cross-extort Coop because the fact that he has found the body in her house while she was away proves that he has been breaking into houses in Westmont Village? Is Coop not going to do anything about it because he knows that if he says anything, the police, or even Samantha, will paint him as Paul’s killer? I mean, the motive is right there: a woman’s lover kills her ex-husband in the name of love (or something like that). But how long can Coop keep a lid on this? So far he has been dealing with the burden of lying and theft. Murder? That requires some advanced-level skills to digest. Also, the revelation that a murder has happened in Westmont Village will cause everyone to tighten their security systems, which will put a stop to Coop and Elena’s thievery project. So, in order to keep their business venture up and running and to save Samantha from going to jail (because he probably does love her and vice versa), is Coop going to hide Paul’s body? I guess we’ll know in next week’s episode. I am going to be honest; I totally didn’t expect this show to become this interesting, but I’m glad that Jonathan Tropper and his team have subverted my expectations!
