SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for “The Things You Lost Along the Way,” Episode 6 of “Your Friends & Neighbors,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
On “Your Friends & Neighbors,” returning to the place where divorced couple Coop and Mel met and fell in love 20 years earlier was enough to get those smoldering embers burning into a blaze again. But does that mean they’re giving their relationship a second try? If it’s up to Amanda Peet, who plays Mel to Jon Hamm’s Coop, “I want them to be together, even if they fuck it up again.”
She continues: “They can’t stop their attraction to one another, and even though it’s been years, and they were college sweethearts, and they ran their relationship into the ground, it’s not over. It’s capable. It has a pulse.”
Coop’s larcenous ways have escalated to the dangerous world of being an art thief, where the right heist could bring him millions of dollars. However, with it comes higher stakes — and deadly consequences if mishandled. Desperate to make up $150,000 he was out because of a “painting snafu,” as he called it, Coop opted to steal from Sam, but instead found himself covered in her estranged husband’s blood and now is a suspect in his murder.
On the May 9 episode of the Apple TV+ series, after the police interview Coop, Sam (Olivia Munn) and Nick (Mark Tallman) about Paul’s murder, Coop and Mel take their daughter Tori (with their son Hunter tagging along) on a trip to Princeton, their alma matter. On the road trip there, Coop lashes out at Tori (Isabel Gravitt), who thinks she knows everything about being in love. “I know what it feels like to have it, and how it tears you apart when you lose it! This may sound stupid to you, but sometimes you know more about love by losing it than having it in the first place!” he shouts, and then quickly apologizes. Although Mel remains silent, the look on her face speaks volumes, as she wonders whether he’s talking about their busted marriage.
When they finally get to Princeton, the kids ditch their parents, who then head to a bar where they would hang out decades before. They strike a deal not to talk about real life all day, but if one of them does, he or she has to take a shot. It doesn’t take long for them to get drunk and get lost in the time warp of when things were magical between them. Coop then breaks into a church, where he finally confesses to Mel that he’s been fired from his hedge fund job.
In a season that’s shown the exes to be purely acrimonious, the sight of Coop and Mel enjoying each other’s company is new. “Even though they are no longer married, Mel obviously represents to him a significant emotional, safe harbor in his life,” Hamm says. “Coop is vulnerable, and Coop understands that he loves his ex-wife, and he feels like he is able to unburden himself of this secret. And although he doesn’t come completely clean, he doesn’t tell her about certain other things that are happening, but he needed that person in his life at that moment, and he’s emotionally vulnerable and they obviously have a night together, and it feels good. And he understands that, that this person once represented the person who makes him feel good — and I think probably in some ways still does.”
Coop apologizes for his part in the destruction of their marriage — previously, he’s blamed Mel’s affair with Nick for their split. “I took my eye off the ball way before you and Nick started up,” he says, leaning in for a kiss. Mel looks like she’s trying not to like it, but then she grabs his T-shirt and pulls him closer. They start to make out on the floor between pews but are interrupted by a priest hollering from the distance, “What the hell?!”
Later, the couple return to a hotel room to have sex. He asks what if they didn’t go back, what if they got the kids and just took off to start all over again? “Run away with me, Mel,” he suggests. She thinks about it long and hard, then responds gently, “Can’t hide forever.”
Mel is at an age at which she’s feeling very emotional, especially with her daughter going to college soon — she’s taking stock of her life. “There is a kind of vibrating midlife crisis kind of energy,” Peet says. “It just felt very poignant when I read it. Here, you go back to your old stomping grounds where you were in your youth, when things were less complicated, when there was so much promise, and mistakes weren’t made yet. So the idea that you could try to put the toothpaste back in the tube and get back in there for a moment, to me, it gives me chills — just the idea of it.”
Creator and showrunner Jonathan Tropper says that the design of the episode is to very subtly show that the minute they left town — and their friends and neighbors, if you will — they found each other again. But it’s not an option to leave forever. “This is a chance to see what that love looked like and to see what was lost, so we really understand how deep this loss goes,” Tropper says. “But then, on an emotional level, the fact is they’ve removed themselves from the place that put all the obstacles between them, and for just that moment, there’s this fantasy that, ‘We could be us again.’”
As far as Mel’s response to Coop’s “let’s start over” plea, although she didn’t come right out and say no, that’s pretty much what she was thinking. “In some way, women are wiser, more practical, and they know when they smell trouble,” Peet says. “That’s how I took it, that she was sort of like, ‘You’re a hot mess, and I’m not gonna get back on that. We went into our jewel box, and now we have to go back and turn into a pumpkin and say goodnight.’”
It’s a “fantasy” and a “weird little bubble” they’re both in that isn’t real, as Hamm puts it. “Once that bubble has popped, you kind of settle back into reality. And Coop, unfortunately, has to understand that his reality is difficult at the moment, and he’s gotta go back to solving it.”
When visiting Princeton, the memories of what they once were filled Coop and Mel with some hope of what they could be again. “It’s a wonderful part and chapter of their lives together, and there’s quite a lot of life still left to live,” Hamm says. “We’ll see what the next chapter brings for sure.”
But now that they’re back home, the dangerous realities of Coop’s current life have come crashing back. A quiet evening out for dinner as a family has him high on the possibilities. But that jubilation quickly turns into a night of violence when Coop is beaten within an inch of his life by two guys hired by a crooked art gallery owner who put overly aggressive moves on his partner in crime Elena (Aimee Carrero).
“He’s ventured into a world he knows nothing about — robbery, fencing goods, stealing art, moving art. It’s a whole new world to him,” Tropper says. “He spent however many years being a master of the universe and doing billion-dollar deals. He messes with art because there’s an arrogance that comes from years of being successful and thinking, ‘If I could do it in my elevated hedge fund world, I could do it in this little criminal world.’”
In the episode’s cliffhanger, Coop’s arrogance has left him bleeding on the street, well-aware that his illegal activities has opened him up to all sorts of shady characters — and the danger they bring him.
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