Television writer Jonathan Tropper (The Adam Project) had a clear concept for Your Friends & Neighbors from the start: a wealthy suburban man, seemingly secure in his success, turns to burglary after his life crumbles.

The series centers on Andrew “Coop” Cooper (Jon Hamm), a former hedge fund manager living in the affluent community of Westmont Village. When he’s suddenly fired, he’s not just left without income—he’s stripped of identity and status. In desperation, Coop becomes a thief, targeting the very neighborhood he once thrived in.

“It was always this idea about a wealthy suburban man who you would never suspect discovering how easy it was and resorting to stealing from his family,” Tropper explains. “He was lashing out against the system that had not worked out for him.”

Westmont Village: A Fictional Town With Real Influences

Tropper, who lived in New York’s Westchester County for 15 years, modelled Westmont Village after communities like it — idyllic, affluent, and interconnected.

Jonathan Tropper

“The fictional version is always more interesting than the real one,”he adds. “I wanted to create a town where the fishbowl effect was a little stronger, where the inter-connectedness of everybody was a little more powerful.”

That tight-knit environment becomes both a source of comfort and pressure.

“There’s a certain indirect toxicity of everybody being in everybody’s business,” he continues. “You start viewing your own life through the prism of this collective instead of your own perspective. And that perspective becomes your reality.”

For Coop, losing his job means losing his social standing. “That is a pressure cooker that forces a certain level of behavior that might otherwise not happen.”

Fired in a Hot Tub: A Visual Metaphor

In one of the series’ most memorable moments, Coop is fired while sitting in a hot tub with his boss, Jack Bailey (Corbin Bernsen)— a scene Tropper decided on very early in the development process..

“I had the visual of that before I really thought about any symbolism,” he says. “Sitting naked in a hot tub with your boss and being stripped of everything that defines you accentuated a level of vulnerability. Being in your suit in an office, you have your armor on — you have some level of agency.”

For Coop, the deeper loss is psychological. “He believed his life and income were permanent — that he had mastered the universe.” Tropper describes it as a moment of rebirth. “He’s been stripped of everything and born again.”

Coop the Criminal

Tropper designed Coop as a character whose actions are extreme but emotionally understandable.

“I wanted him to have impulses we can all relate to, even if we don’t always succumb to them,” he says. “This is a guy who did everything right, who was born on a fairly privileged track, followed that track, and was told there’d be a pot of gold at the end. And there was, for a while. But he was led to believe that once he had it, he’d have it made.”

Coop’s downfall isn’t just economic — it’s emotional. He doesn’t notice his marriage to Mel (Amanda Peet) deteriorating until it’s already too late. He’s sleepwalking through life.

Mel Cooper (Amanda Peet) Photo courtesy of Apple TV+

“He’s trapped in the fight-or-flight impulse,”Tropper notes.“There’s a quiet rage informing what he’s doing, even though you rarely get a glimpse of it. Ultimately, that rage becomes self-loathing and desperation as he realizes he fell asleep at the wheel. The system failed him, but he’s complicit because he became complacent.”

“He’s deliberately breaking the social contract,” he shares. “He’s lashing out at this community, this neighborhood, this system he believed in—now that he sees the superficiality and the artifice of it all.”

Tropper compares Coop’s awakening to what many people experienced during the pandemic. “Our entire world shut down in a way we could only imagine in a science fiction movie. The shaky foundations of society suddenly became very visible.”

Genre-Bending by Design

Asked about the show’s genre, Tropper admits it’s hard to pin down. “It’s not a thriller. It’s not a comedy of manners. It’s not quite a satire. It’s either a dramatic comedy or a comedic drama,” he ponders.

Instead, he calls it a “heightened drama”—  a blend of real emotion and stylized tone.

“If we played it completely straight, I don’t think it works. There’s a certain absurdist quality to it. It needs to feel emotionally true, with relatable characters and high stakes.”

At the same time, viewers are invited to question the characters.

“You’re going to sit there and judge them a little bit because of the world they live in and the choices they make.”

The tone walks a fine line between realism and exaggeration.

“It’s very close to grounded, but not quite. It’s a world that’s just slightly askew. Some scenes surrender to the drama, others to farce. But mostly, we’re threading that needle to keep you engaged.”

Selling a Tonally Complex Show

Because of its tone and complexity, Your Friends & Neighbors wasn’t easy to pitch. Tropper referenced films like American Beauty and The Ice Storm for their dramatic tone and suburban themes, and authors like John Cheever, John Updike, John Irving, and Richard Russo for their character work.

Still, he avoided obvious comparisons.

“I didn’t want people to assume it was Breaking Bad in a cul-de-sac,” he declares. “I did say multiple times, these are the people who would probably vacation at The White Lotus. But these are those families at home, not on vacation.”

Jon Hamm and the Shadow of Don Draper

Jon Hamm will always be linked to his iconic role as Don Draper on Mad Men, but Tropper says Hamm embraces that legacy while moving beyond it.

“I think he feels at peace with being associated with Don Draper, but he’s not beholden to it. He doesn’t feel trapped by that persona,” Tropper shares.“When we were doing press, he pointed out that Don Draper was the man who sold you everything, and Coop is the guy who buys it all.”

More important to Hamm was making Coop emotionally believable.

“He was taken to levels of behavior, and he wanted to justify them in a way where we never lose the ability to relate to him,”says Tropper. “He doesn’t have to always make the right choice — he can do bad things, he can make mistakes — but how do we do it in a way where he stays humanized?”

That balance was central to both Hamm’s performance and Tropper’s writing.

“He doesn’t have to be sympathetic at every moment, but we didn’t want his behavior to cross into irredeemable. We spent a lot of time talking about how to toe that line — to maintain Coop’s humanity and fallibility without making him reprehensible.”