Your Friends & Neighbors TV Pilot Beat Sheet Analysis
Why We Chose to Do a Save a Cat! Beat Sheet Analysis of the Your Friends & Neighbors Pilot
It’s tempting just to write “Jon Hamm, antihero” but there’s so much more to this tale of a downward spiraling hedge fund manager in an affluent community with “dormant secrets and affairs that turn out to be more dangerous than he [Hamm’s character] could have ever imagined.” (Kaiya Shunyata, rogerebert.com)
Your Friends & Neighbors
Created and Written by: Jonathan Tropper
Directed by: Craig Gillespie
S1 E1: “This Is What Happens”
The World: The uber-wealthy world of hedge fund managers in New York City
Franchise Type: Dude with a Season-Long Problem/Man with a Plan
Pilot Episode Genre: Dude with a Problem
An innocent hero is yanked into a life-or-death problem and, despite massive odds against them, must overcome it using their wits. Many stories are about dudes or dudettes with problems. But the keys to this genre are ordinary people who are undeservingly pulled into the predicament and forced to react.
The 3 elements of a DUDE WITH A PROBLEM story are:
1) An innocent hero who is dragged into a mess without asking for it—or even aware of how he got involved.
2) A sudden event that thrusts our innocent(s) into the world of hurt—and it comes without warning.
3) A life or death battle is at stake—and the continued existence of an individual, family, group, or society is in question.
Platform: Apple TV+
TV Genre: Hourlong comedy crime drama
Story DNA
Hero: Andrew “Coop” Cooper, a blithely successful man who loses everything—wife, kids, job, reputation, wealth, sanity—in a very short amount of time
Goal: To get back to where he was before his life fell apart
Obstacle: Lack of funds, employment, respect, love—and his own broken compass
Stakes: Significant jail time and/or death
Save the Cat! Beat Sheet Analysis for the Your Friends & Neighbors TV Pilot
Opening Image
We begin with a startling flashforward close-up of Coop’s (Jon Hamm) face as he wakes up in a pool of blood next to a dead body. He frantically tries to clean up the crime scene and escape, but in his haste, accidentally falls into a pool in the back yard. Sinking into the freezing water, we hear his VO opening pitch, which is, in a nutshell: How the hell did I get here?!
Theme Stated
As Liv Cross (Kitty Hawthorne), an employee at Coop’s firm, hits on Coop in a bar, they banter about life goals. Hers are “lasting love, hot, healthy sex, financial comfort, peace of mind, harmony…” When Coop interrupts to quip that those are everybody’s life goals, she claps back, “And how many have you achieved?”
Andrew Cooper is a lost soul who thought he had every item on that list, only to discover how quickly it can all disappear. And then what’s left behind to care about? Your Friends & Neighbors will take a season or more to try to answer that question.
Set-Up
Cut to four months before the bloody body incident to a thesis world that already has a million things that need fixing. Andrew “Coop” Cooper is a wealthy hedge fund manager (on paper, at least) reeling from his recent divorce. His wife Mel (Amanda Peet) cheated on him with one of best friends, Nick (Mark Tallman), and Mel and Nick now live together, with Coop’s children, in a house Coop is paying for while he squats in a depressing one-bedroom rental with a 24-hour film noir channel playing on the TV.
The lonely and floundering Coop has a mini-fling with Liv.
Catalyst
Coop’s boss and friend, Jack Bailey (Corbin Bernsen), abruptly fires Coop over a supposed HR complaint from Liv.
Debate
Coop laughs at first, assuming this is a joke, but like everything else in his life recently, it’s deadly serious. He then reacts in stunned disbelief—how did a consensual one-night stand three months earlier somehow lead here?
The hits keep on coming: Jack states that because he’s being fired “for cause,” all of Coop’s clients belong to the company, and in fact, his capital account does, too, which is basically all of Coop’s equity. Coop threatens to sue but Jack wheedles back, promising a six-month severance if he doesn’t, leaving Coop with only an anemic “Fuck you” in response.
Break into Two
Coop tries to bounce back emotionally by taking his son Hunter (Donovan Colan) for ice cream, hoping for a little bit of love and connection. He is not going to take this upside-down antithesis world lying down!
B Story
Coop’s dissolving life and sanity are the A Story, undergirded by his fraught B Story relationship with his ex-wife, Mel. There is obvious affection between them, but Coop’s need to be the breadwinner + silent sufferer + vocal cuckold hampers his growth as a man and their potential for true friendship.
Fun and Games
Hunter is none too thrilled about the spontaneous ice cream date and after Coop’s 17-year old daughter’s 20-year old boyfriend smashes into his Maserati Gran Turismo, Coop dissolves into a rant about insurance premiums and statutory rape, getting him ejected from the house THAT HE’S PAYING FOR (in case you missed that tidbit the first time) by Mel and a cloyingly sympathetic Nick. Coop drives off in a bitchy huff, his damaged trunk popping open on every bump.
Well, if he can’t get emotional support, he can at least get some physical release. Coop calls another lost soul in the middle of a divorce, his neighbor Sam (Olivia Munn), for a late-night visit. Surprisingly (please read with heavy sarcasm), this also blows up in his face when he’s honest with her that he’s not interested in anything but exactly what just transpired in his sad little single-guy bed and she stalks off in a tearful rage that strangely resembles Coop’s recent bitchy huff.
After a dismal meeting with his business manager and neighbor Barney (Hoon Lee) about his finances, Coop attends a neighborhood barbecue at Peter Miller’s (Robert Eli) home where the entire aforementioned cast of characters that he’s screwed and been screwed by congregate on one side of the yard, eyeing him with less than neighborly affection. What’s left to do except get hammered and publicly call them out for their assholery?
Midpoint
After getting kicked out of the yard, Coop wanders through Peter’s house, drunkenly opening drawers and looking in closets. In a bureau, he discovers numerous wads of cash and pockets one, raising the stakes and starting a ticking time clock that we know will eventually lead to him waking up one night in a pool of someone else’s blood.
Bad Guys Close In
All of Coop’s external bad guys are still around doing questionable things (his sister Ali (Lena Hall) is off her meds again and needing rescue), but now Coop has passed through some sort of Rubicon where his internal bad guys are going to be leading the charge.
When he goes to bring a new drum set to Hunter at the house, flashes of his former life with Mel and the kids haunt him and he ends up punching Tori’s boyfriend in the nuts, further damaging his relationship with his family.
Finally, Coop loses all dignity and kinda stalks Liv, begging her to withdraw her complaint so he can get his job back.
All Is Lost
Liv, stunned, tells Coop that she never filed a complaint.
Dark Night of the Soul
Coop marches into his old workplace and shouts at Jack for lying to him and poaching his livelihood. Jack doesn’t budge, cruelly stating that “it’s not yours if you can’t keep it,” which causes Coop to do a primal scream in his car.
Break into Three
A and B Stories cross as Coop and Mel drink beer on the front porch of his depressing rental house. She’s concerned that he seems so… alone… and for a moment we think he’s going to tell her what’s really going on, but instead…
Finale
…Coop gathers the team, which is himself (see “alone” comment above) and his VO commentary and executes the plan of breaking into the Millers’ home while they’re away in Belize, pocketing a very expensive watch and another wad of cash. In a high tower surprise, the police show up at the door and we fear our antihero’s nascent life of crime has been nipped in the bud, but Coop talks his way out of the situation.
In fact, the spot price of his silver tongue causes a new season-long plan to occur to him: Coop knows a whole lot of rich people, so rich that they won’t even miss the odd bundle of Benjamins or the $170K Patek Philippe Nautilus watch.
Final Image
We end on another close-up of Coop’s face in his dubious synthesis world, lounging in the Millers’ home theater watching Gilda, drinking their expensive whiskey, and smoking a joint he nicked from their supply. Oh, he is so back in the saddle, bro—what could possibly go wrong?
