Spoilers for the series premiere of Your Friends and Neighbors, “This Is What Happens” lie ahead, so read on at your own discretion.
A new show just made its debut amid the 2025 TV schedule, and it’s the latest original series from Apple TV+, Your Friends and Neighbors. The show is a thriller, dramedy series starring the one and only Jon Hamm, and it’ll both tickle your funny bone and possibly make you cringe with nervousness. Jon Tropper serves as creator and writes on the show as well, and he spoke to CinemaBlend about the pilot episode. In doing so, Trooper also revealed a scene from the installment that underwent a lot of rewrites, and I definitely get it.
Early in the pilot, Andrew “Coop” Cooper (Jon Hamm) and – the much younger – Olivia “Liv” Cross (Kitty Hawthorne) meet at a bar. The pair quickly become acquainted, and what results is a cheeky back-and-forth that sees them sizing each other up and pondering the ramifications of a hook-up. As I watched, I was impressed not only with how much dialogue the actors had to deliver but by the sharp writing. During my interview with Jonathan Tropper, I asked if there was a specific scene he kept re-working, and this turned out to be the one:
Yeah, I mean, one of the opening scenes where John's character, Coop, meets a young woman in a bar. That's a five-page scene. It's a lot of dialogue, and I probably wrote 30 versions of that scene. And then, after we shot it, I recut it a little bit. It felt a little too long.
I’m not surprised in the slightest that the See writer took more than a few passes at this scene, especially given how specific the conversation between Coop and Liv has to be. The notion of writing around “30 versions” of a scene may be commonplace to a screenwriter yet, to me, it still seems intense. Jonathan Tropper has proven himself to be a thoughtful writer, though, so it tracks that he would put so much time and effort into ensuring the scene was right. Trooper went on to share more with me about the process of crafting such a scene:
But, yeah, scenes like that take a tremendous amount of thought, and even though the first version spilled right out of me, then there's a lot of focusing it, rewriting it, getting sort of the rhythm of it right. And, you know, so I definitely rewrote that a lot.
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Considering the scenes I’ve watched after having viewed the first seven episodes of Your Friends and Neighbors, I’d wouldn’t be surprised if a number of them were also rewritten quite a few times. The writing is certainly strong as are the performances by Jon Hamm and the cast. Another notch in Hamm’s TV resurgence post-Mad Men, the show focuses on recently divorced hedge fund manager Coop as he grapples with losing his job. (That firing happens due to his tryst with Liv, who’s a junior level employee at his old job.) From there, Coop turns to stealing from people in his affluent social circle and learns the dirty secrets that lie within their personal lives.
Apple TV+ subscription holders may want to give this title a try, as Jonathan Tropper and co. weave a story about messy people and their relationships with capitalism, materialism and more. For those who’ve yet to see the episode and plan to watch, be sure to give the entire installment your full attention, of course. However, believe me when I say the bar conversation between Liv and Coop is certainly worth admiring.
New episodes of Your Friends and Neighbors drop on Fridays. Be sure to check them out and also read up on upcoming Apple TV+ shows.
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