The Most and Least Surprising Thing About Jon Hamm’s 'Your Friends and Neighbors' Is Who Created It

Jon Hamm’s Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple TV+ is exactly my kind of show. Despite what the premise suggests — a wealthy stockbroker is fired from his job and starts stealing from his wealthy friends and neighbors — it’s really more of a relationship dramedy, far closer to Shrinking than, say, Breaking Bad. It is not, at least after two episodes, about a guy who becomes a master thief executing elaborate heists.

It’s about a middle-aged guy, Andrew Cooper, who is going through a tough divorce from his ex-wife, Mel Cooper (Amanda Peet), after finding her in bed with a retired NBA player, Nick (Mark Tallman). Andrew is detached, somewhat estranged from his two kids, and occasionally sleeping with another neighbor, Samantha (Olivia Munn), who’s fresh off her own difficult divorce. Andrew is bitter and floundering because he’s lost not only everything he worked for, but also his identity. For two decades, he was defined by his job and his marriage. Now he has neither.

The stealing is necessary — to maintain his lifestyle, pay alimony, and child support — but it’s also his way of processing grief and reevaluating his life. By pilfering from oblivious friends and neighbors who are so rich and comfortable, he’s starting to recognize what an asshole he’s been by looking at all the assholes around him.

Mel, for her part, seems to be going through a midlife crisis of her own. Her affair with the NBA player, which has continued for two years, feels less about Andrew and more about rejecting the person she had become. It’s a show about a former couple trying to break free from middle-aged malaise and rediscover themselves.

It’s exactly the kind of series you’d expect from the novelist and screenwriter behind the fantastic but little-seen This Is Where I Leave You, which slipped under the radar a little more than a decade ago despite an almost unimaginably great cast: Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Kathryn Hahn, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Jane Fonda, Connie Britton, and Timothy Olyphant.

It’s also exactly what you’d expect if you’ve read any of Jonathan Tropper’s novels. He’s sort of Nick Hornby crossed with Judd Apatow — funny, heartfelt, warm comedies about complicated people navigating divorce, loss, or dysfunctional families. That’s precisely what This Is Where I Leave You is about: a group of siblings sitting shiva for their late father. They’re sad and sweet and funny and bittersweet.

What is surprising, however, is that Tropper is probably better known for his television work as showrunner of Apple TV+’s Jason Momoa series, See; Cinemax’s surprisingly great Banshee; and HBO’s martial arts drama Warrior. It’s hard to square Your Friends and Neighbors with that beloved cult series about an ex-con, played by Antony Starr, assuming the identity of a murdered small-town sheriff. And yet, here we are.

But the one thing all of Tropper’s work has in common — except maybe See — is that he makes great television. He understands character, whether it’s a stockbroker in crisis, an ex-con pretending to be sheriff, or a martial artist navigating 1870s San Francisco. He’s an excellent drawer of characters, and a great writer can put those characters into any world and make it work. That’s what he did with Banshee, and that’s exactly what he’s doing now with Your Friends and Neighbors.