Why Aren't We Asking Who Killed Paul Levitt on 'Your Friends & Neighbors'?

Spoilers

Through three seasons of White Lotus, the big, lingering question driving much of the conversation—both online and off—is: Who is responsible for the murder teased at the beginning of each season before the series flashes back to the events leading up to it? By the midpoint of each season, that question becomes an obsession. I know because I write about it often. And with all due respect to White Lotus, that speculation usually fills in the gaps when the characters or storylines aren’t compelling enough to discuss, because not every week can include bro-cest.

What I find interesting, at least in my own mind, is how little I care about that same question in Apple TV+’s Jon Hamm series, Your Friends & Neighbors. The show uses a similar framing device; it also opens with a dead body. Here, Jon Hamm’s character, Andrew Cooper, is sprawled in a puddle of blood that’s oozed out of the corpse. The series then flashes back to the events leading up to that moment, which actually arrives at the end of Episode 5. At that point, we also learn the identity of the dead man: Paul Levitt, the ex-husband of Olivia Munn’s character, Samantha Levitt.

But once the police begin their investigation—interviewing Samantha, Andrew, and Nick (the boyfriend of Andrew’s ex-wife, Mel, played by Amanda Peet), I almost entirely forget about the “mystery,” because I’m far more invested in the characters and their behavior, which often has little to do with the dead body.

That’s been a running theme for me throughout the series: The hook driving the plot — that after he was fired as a hedge fund manager, Andrew resorts to burglarizing his friends and neighbors to maintain the lifestyle his family has grown accustomed to — is less interesting than the relationships at its center. It almost feels like a comedy (dramedy?) of remarriage: Andrew and Mel, going through a contentious divorce, are also rediscovering themselves and, in the process, potentially finding their way back to each other. Or so I hope.

That dynamic played out beautifully this week when Andrew and Mel returned to Princeton, where they first met, to take their daughter (and her tag-along brother) on a college tour. The kids quickly found other things to do, leaving Andrew and Mel to relive their college days and reconnect. That’s the real thrust of the season, and it’s been a pleasure watching Hamm and Peet navigate it. Andrew is slowly coming to terms with how his actions drove Mel to cheat, while Mel is beginning to understand the ways she sabotaged their marriage. Both seem trapped in middle-aged ennui, working to overcome it while apart.

Of course, Andrew’s reckless behavior threatens to unravel all that progress. His side hustle led to him getting jumped by an art dealer he screwed over, and now Andrew’s best friend and wealth manager, Barney (Hoon Lee), might be dead after getting hit by a car while rushing to help him.

As for who killed Paul Levitt? The obvious suspect is Samantha, despite her alibi—she was in Boston with her kids. It almost feels too obvious, except that I suspect Samantha knows more about Andrew’s secret life than she’s letting on and might be setting him up for Paul’s murder. She clearly hated her ex-husband and seems bitter that Andrew hasn’t fully reciprocated her feelings. Unless it’s some random third party, I’m not sure who else would make sense as the killer—unless, of course, it’s Elena (Aimee Carrero), the housekeeper and Andrew’s partner in crime, who might want to take full control of their operation.