Latest news with #Coop
The Age
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
All US television is Trumpy now, even when it's not
In the original SATC era we wanted to join the wealthy and aspirational foursome for a drink, but now the zeitgeist has turned. The television shows that feel most relevant to the moment, and which are the most engaging, are all about the suffering and the immorality of the super-rich. It feels more comfortable, now, to reassure ourselves that while billionaires and tech-bro oligarchs appear to be running the world, they're living lives of miserable inauthenticity. It started with Succession, a brilliant and darkly funny exposition of the ways in which inherited wealth can corrupt family relationships. The creator of Succession, Jesse Armstrong, has just released a movie, Mountainhead, about a foursome of tech billionaires who hole up in a mountain mansion in Utah as the world seems to be ending. More recently we have Your Friends & Neighbours, starring Mad Men's Jon Hamm, a square-jawed hero of all-American good looks but with just enough despair in his face to hint at inner spiritual desolation. Hamm plays Coop, a one-percenter hedge fund manager enraged by his divorce (his wife left him for his good friend), who loses his job after a low-level sexual indiscretion at work. In order to maintain his lifestyle (which includes $4500 skin treatments for his daughter and $30,000 tables at charity galas), he resorts to stealing from his friends and neighbours. These people, who live in a fictional, highly manicured wealth conclave outside New York City, are so obscenely rich that they have $200,000 watches and rolls of cash lying around in drawers. Hamm does what he has to do – he becomes a cat burglar with a cynical philosophy. Loading Coop is just a man trying to get by, and if that doesn't involve selling his Maserati, or getting a new (albeit less well paid) job, then it is a testament to the show's good writing that we are still with him, even when we question his attachment to a lifestyle he purports to disdain. Another new American show, Sirens, stars Julianne Moore as the beautiful philanthropist wife of a billionaire hedge-fund manager, who is summering in her uber-mansion (it has a turret) on an unnamed east-coast big-money island similar to Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. She has a creepy, co-dependent relationship with her young personal assistant, who comes from poverty and dysfunction but who is loved in a way her wealthy boss never will be. Of course, these shows have a buck each way – they seek to satirise the super-rich and expose the underlying emptiness of their lives, while allowing us the vicarious experience of living in their luxury for an hour or so. The Hollywood Reporter calls it 'affluence porn'. We get access to the calfskin-lined interior of the private jet. We get to enjoy the week-long wedding festivities in Tuscany and gawp at the marvellous outfits, all while judging the protagonists for their materialism. In AJLT the materialism is not there to be judged; it is an integral part of the fun. Perhaps AJLT feels off because the writing is bad, and the plot lines so tired that dogs must be enlisted to prop up the action. Or maybe it is because in the second Trump administration the US political environment has become so oppressive and so inescapable that no story feels true unless it references it, however obliquely.
Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
All US television is Trumpy now, even when it's not
In the original SATC era we wanted to join the wealthy and aspirational foursome for a drink, but now the zeitgeist has turned. The television shows that feel most relevant to the moment, and which are the most engaging, are all about the suffering and the immorality of the super-rich. It feels more comfortable, now, to reassure ourselves that while billionaires and tech-bro oligarchs appear to be running the world, they're living lives of miserable inauthenticity. It started with Succession, a brilliant and darkly funny exposition of the ways in which inherited wealth can corrupt family relationships. The creator of Succession, Jesse Armstrong, has just released a movie, Mountainhead, about a foursome of tech billionaires who hole up in a mountain mansion in Utah as the world seems to be ending. More recently we have Your Friends & Neighbours, starring Mad Men's Jon Hamm, a square-jawed hero of all-American good looks but with just enough despair in his face to hint at inner spiritual desolation. Hamm plays Coop, a one-percenter hedge fund manager enraged by his divorce (his wife left him for his good friend), who loses his job after a low-level sexual indiscretion at work. In order to maintain his lifestyle (which includes $4500 skin treatments for his daughter and $30,000 tables at charity galas), he resorts to stealing from his friends and neighbours. These people, who live in a fictional, highly manicured wealth conclave outside New York City, are so obscenely rich that they have $200,000 watches and rolls of cash lying around in drawers. Hamm does what he has to do – he becomes a cat burglar with a cynical philosophy. Loading Coop is just a man trying to get by, and if that doesn't involve selling his Maserati, or getting a new (albeit less well paid) job, then it is a testament to the show's good writing that we are still with him, even when we question his attachment to a lifestyle he purports to disdain. Another new American show, Sirens, stars Julianne Moore as the beautiful philanthropist wife of a billionaire hedge-fund manager, who is summering in her uber-mansion (it has a turret) on an unnamed east-coast big-money island similar to Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. She has a creepy, co-dependent relationship with her young personal assistant, who comes from poverty and dysfunction but who is loved in a way her wealthy boss never will be. Of course, these shows have a buck each way – they seek to satirise the super-rich and expose the underlying emptiness of their lives, while allowing us the vicarious experience of living in their luxury for an hour or so. The Hollywood Reporter calls it 'affluence porn'. We get access to the calfskin-lined interior of the private jet. We get to enjoy the week-long wedding festivities in Tuscany and gawp at the marvellous outfits, all while judging the protagonists for their materialism. In AJLT the materialism is not there to be judged; it is an integral part of the fun. Perhaps AJLT feels off because the writing is bad, and the plot lines so tired that dogs must be enlisted to prop up the action. Or maybe it is because in the second Trump administration the US political environment has become so oppressive and so inescapable that no story feels true unless it references it, however obliquely.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Your Friends & Neighbors Finale Reveals Who Killed Paul — Will You Come Back for Season 2?
Your Friends & Neighbors wrapped up its freshman season by answering one big question — who killed Paul? — and left us pondering a few others. Friday's finale opens with Coop envisioning himself lying by the pool while Mel and his kids call him to come swimming. It was just a dream, though, and the cold, hard reality remains: He's facing a murder charge and a possible sentence of life in prison after being found at the scene of Paul's death. He can't even take refuge in golf: The country club wants to suspend his membership until his 'current difficulties' are cleared up. He signs over his half of the house to Mel just in case (which leaves her worried) and then spends the night with his kids and his sister Ali, whose acoustic performance leads to a rambling confession about her affair with her married ex Bruce. But hey, at least she got the crowd to chant 'F–k Bruce.' More from TVLine What to Watch in June: Your Guide to 110+ Premieres Across Broadcast, Cable and Streaming Dept. Q Mysteriously Disappeared From Netflix Hours After Premiere - But Now It's Back And Just Like That Premiere: Carrie and Aidan's Long-Distance Romance Hits an Embarrassing Snag (Plus, Grade It!) Coop gently nudges Ali to get back on her meds, since he might not be around to keep her in line, and he gives a pricey watch of his to his son Hunter. His daughter Tori gives him the cold shoulder at first, but eventually cuddles up with him to watch a movie, sobbing on his chest. Coop asks his lawyer Kat about a plea deal, and she thinks she can get his charges down to manslaughter, and he'd serve six years. He's furious that he'd have to go away that long for something he didn't do, but considering the alternative, he agrees to make a deal. When Mel notices Coop's watch on her son's wrist, she marches over to Coop's and confronts him: 'If you ever loved me, don't bulls–t me right now.' He admits he's contemplating a plea deal, and she begs him not to, imploring him to try harder to save himself than he did to save their marriage. So Coop tells his lawyer Kat he's not taking the deal: 'I am guilty of a lot of things, but I am not guilty of this.' He wants the cops to look into Sam again, and Kat points out that her phone records prove she was in Boston — but Coop doesn't see his number anywhere in the records. They figure out she had a burner phone, but the cops say they can't do anything unless they physically have the phone. So Coop enlists his old partner in crime Elena to volunteer her housekeeping services to Sam, and when Sam leaves to run errands, Elena lets Coop in to snoop for the burner phone. Meanwhile, the cops get a new report from the medical examiner: Two of Paul's three gunshot wounds came after he died. Hmmm… Elena doesn't find the phone — but she does find something else. When Sam gets home, Coop is waiting to confront her: 'Nobody killed Paul. He shot himself.' He lays out how Sam shot her ex-husband's dead body to make it look like a murder, because she wouldn't be able to cash his lucrative insurance policy if he took his own life. He also shows her what Elena found hidden away: Paul's bloody suicide note. Sam fesses up, explaining how Paul called her on FaceTime and shot himself right in front of her. She rushed home, leaving her primary phone with her parents in Boston, and staged the scene to look like a murder. And why did she frame Coop? 'You should've been kinder to me,' she tells him — and when he tries to walk away, she pulls a gun on him. He doesn't flinch, though: 'You're not a killer either,' he says as he calls her bluff and walks away. In the end, Sam gets arrested, but Paul was already dead, and she never filed the insurance claim, so she'll likely only get a slap on the wrist. Coop has a warm reunion with Mel and his kids, and his old boss Jack asks him to come back to work, even offering him a fat profit share to seal the deal. Coop attends a swanky fundraiser gala, and everyone welcomes him back into high society with open arms. ('Nothing like beating a murder rap to give you a social boost,' Coop quips.) As Coop slow-dances with Tori, Mel watches from afar, and Nick says he blames himself for their split: 'I fell in love with a woman who was in love with someone else.' Mel then joins Coop for a slow dance, and they both pledge to stay single for a while. He doesn't hold a grudge against Sam, and Mel wonders how he can forgive her so quickly. 'I wasn't in love with her,' he points out, giving her a knowing smile. Oh! As Coop leaves the fundraiser, he stops a mom named Jules and hints that he knows about her SAT cheat sheets — and warns her not to send her daughter to Princeton to compete with Tori. And while Jack and Liv wait for Coop to join them on a private jet to meet a client (and Ali spray-paints 'F–k Bruce' on Bruce's garage door), Coop instead heads to Jack's empty house and robs it, noting: 'It's time to get back to work.' is already renewed for Season 2 — will you return for another season? Give the finale, and Season 1 as a whole, a grade in our polls, and hit the comments to share your thoughts in full. Best of TVLine Mrs. Maisel Flash-Forward List: All of Season 5's Futuristic Easter Eggs Yellowjackets Recap: The Morning After Yellowjackets Recap: The First Supper
Elle
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
The 'Your Friends & Neighbors' Finale Just Revealed Who Killed Paul and Framed Coop
Every item on this page was chosen by an ELLE editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. Spoilers below. Throughout its first season, AppleTV+'s Your Friends & Neighbors has explored the trappings of money and status, and what the wealthy class will do to maintain appearances. The season 1 finale 'Everything Becomes Symbol and Irony' hammers its thesis home via the reveal of what actually happened to Paul Levitt (Jordan Gelber), the man Andrew 'Coop' Cooper (Jon Hamm) had been accused of murdering. After perusing Sam's (Olivia Munn) phone records, Coop realizes that his number doesn't appear anywhere in the files—a stark omission given the two were sleeping together and regularly in contact. This leads Coop and his accomplice Elena (Aimee Carrero) to search Sam's house for a burner phone. Instead, they find Paul's suicide note. When Coop confronts Sam, Your Friends & Neighbors swaps the POV. Sam narrates her side of the story, detailing her humble beginnings as a waitress and her initial draw towards Paul's money and the life it offered her. When he began cheating, she realized how unhappy she was in her marriage, and she knew that a healthy divorce settlement would be her only way of maintaining her lifestyle. Paul called her on the night of his death begging for forgiveness and to salvage their marriage. But when she didn't immediately concede, he pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head right there on FaceTime. Sam began to call 911 but stopped when she realized that deeming his death a suicide would nullify his life insurance policy—money she was banking on (literally). Instead, she drove from Boston to New York to stage a murder scene, shooting his already limp body twice before stashing the smoking gun in Coop's faulty Maserati trunk. Coop takes this evidence to the police to exonerate himself, and he's surprisingly chill about the fact that his former lover tried to frame him for murder, especially because her reasoning is pretty weak. 'You weren't very kind to me,' she reasons when he initially pushes her on her motive, and he seems to accept this without pushback. Coop was far from an angel in Your Friends & Neighbors, but he didn't mistreat Sam in a significant way to warrant this kind of backstabbing. And Sam only slightly pays for this—she's arrested, but it's later hinted that she'll get off with a fine and community service. Until that point, Coop spent most of 'Everything Becomes Symbol and Irony' preparing his loved ones for what seemed to be an inevitable conviction and sentencing. His attorney Kat (Heather Lind) thinks a plea deal for manslaughter in exchange for an eight year prison sentence (versus 25 to life for first degree murder) is his best bet, and Coop is this close to giving in and giving up. He gifts his son Hunter (Donovan Colan) one of his most prized and expensive watches as a keepsake, and tries but fails at a real conversation with his daughter Tori (Isabel Marie Gravitt). His bipolar sister Ali (Lena Hall) openly acknowledges Coop's lifelong support during one of her performances, before also blasting her married ex-fiancé in front of the crowd, whom she started sleeping with again. The watch tips off Coop's ex-wife Mel (Amanda Peet), who scolds him for not fighting hard enough—not just for his life right now, but also for their marriage. Mel's real talk is a wake-up call for him, and is the stimulus for his eventual liberation. The soulmates don't exactly get back together—Mel tells Coop at a charity gala late in the episode that she's going to fly solo for a while—but Your Friends & Neighbors is leaving the door open for their eventual reunion. After all, Coop admits to Mel that he was able to forgive Sam so easily because he didn't love her, in contrast to the grudge he held against Mel for her cheating. As for Coop's new career as a professional thief? Despite the predicament he found himself in due to this decision, he can't stay away—even when he has the option to walk. Coop's former employers return to offer him his job back, citing a Swiss client that will only work with Coop. He negotiates his offer, demanding 20 percent of that deal and 25 percent overall, sensing they're desperate enough to say yes. It turns out he's correct, and they agree to convene that evening to fly to Europe for a meeting. But when the time comes, Coop opts out. He leaves the gala early, telling Mel on the dance floor, 'This is where I leave you' (likely a nod to show creator and showrunner Jonathan Tropper's eponymous novel-turned-movie). On his way out, he finds time to threaten Tori's tennis rival's mom to secure his daughter's spot at Princeton, revealing that he knows about the SAT test answers in their home and isn't afraid to announce it to everyone. Some light blackmail to indicate he's no longer the black sheep and is back in the mix of the Westmont Village interpersonal politics. When Coop finally leaves, he detours to a mansion and gets to work instead of heading to the private plane launch pad, leaving his hedge fund colleagues to take the meeting alone. He nicks a piece of art from an unidentified neighbor's home, and leaves without a trace. As he drives away, the trunk of his car pops open one more time. Your Friends & Neighbors has already been renewed for a second season with James Marsden joining the cast as 'a guy who comes from money and has a relationship with Samantha,' according to Deadline. While Coop's stock seems to be up by the end of the first season, there's no question that his past with Sam and his choice to continue robbing his wealthy community will land him in hot water again when the show returns.
Tom's Guide
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
'Your Friends and Neighbors' season finale proves there are no consequences as long as you're rich and look like Jon Hamm
"Your Friends and Neighbors" has been a frustrating watch. I'm always down for streaming a great Apple TV Plus show — but this isn't one. I'm not even sure it's good, but I also haven't been able to turn away. Maybe it's Jon Hamm (it's definitely Jon Hamm) or maybe it's that there's a good show in here somewhere. Maybe it's just that this show is a soap opera masquerading as a prestige TV show, and for all their faults, soap operas are addictive. Whatever the reason, I didn't need much convincing to watch the season finale. Sadly, I found myself just as frustrated with the show's season 1 finale as I had been with the previous eight episodes. Partially, this came down to the fact that "Your Friends and Neighbors," which started as an exploration of a downward spiral, or as Jon Hamm's turn at breaking bad, devolved into a murder mystery, interwoven with a family drama. But it mostly came down to the fact that, by the end of the show, there were no consequences for anyone. The thing that made "Breaking Bad" work was that we wanted to root for Walter White, at least at first. Yes, Bryan Cranston is also an incredible actor, but Walter was a middle-class father who couldn't make ends meet and had just been diagnosed with cancer. Coop, on the other hand, is just a rich asshole. Yes, Jon Hamm is also a great actor, and without him, "Your Friends and Neighbors" probably wouldn't have been greenlit for a season 2. But ultimately, this is a super wealthy guy, ripping off other super wealthy people, and that's not exactly "Robin Hood" or "Breaking Bad." The more frustrating thing is, the show knows this and tries at times to make Coop likable. His relationship with his sister Ali (Lena Hall) is genuinely deep, and I wish the show would explore it further, because it's the best part about his show. In the end, that relationship isn't set aside, but it's almost resolved. While everything in Ali's life isn't fixed at the end of the season, she has real closure on her toxic relationship with her ex and is part of Coop's loving family. In fact, almost every relationship Coop has resolves by the end of the episode. He and his ex-wife, Mel (Amanda Peet), are now amicably divorced. His relationship with his kids is repaired. He just shamed his old boss and hung him out to dry. There are also no consequences for anything he's done this season. He's exonerated of murder because it turned out he was being framed by his booty call, Sam (Olivia Munn). She's reduced to a spurn lover and done a real disservice by this episode, but even she is let off with a slap on the wrist. As Mel says to Coop, it's "like none of this ever happened." The one thing that did happen this season? Coop has decided to become an art thief. Granted, it took an entire season to get here, but it seems that Coop has decided to embrace a life of crime. Which, to be fair, Coop has suffered no long-term consequences after robbing multiple neighbors, so why not keep doing it? The good news is that (hopefully), this can now be the sole focus of season 2. No more murder mystery, no more family drama, just Jon Hamm stealing art from rich people. Plus, one of those rich people in season 2 looks set to be James Marsden, who has been confirmed to join the season 2 main cast. Now, a dark comedy show where Jon Hamm robs James Marsden and it goes horribly wrong? That's a show I'd love to watch. If that's what we get in season 2, then I'll be happy to forget season 1 ever happened and hit play next. Stream "Your Friends and Neighbors" now on Apple TV Plus Malcolm has been with Tom's Guide since 2022, and has been covering the latest in streaming shows and movies since 2023. He's not one to shy away from a hot take, including that "John Wick" is one of the four greatest films ever made. Here's what he's been watching lately:
