Jon Hamm has one of the great TV faces. Square-jawed and ruggedly suave, it’s the face of a matinee idol with a dangerous edge. The quiff is well-coiffed but grey-flecked. That Marlboro Man chin looks unshaven by lunchtime. Those hooded eyes have a weary, lounge lizard quality. One of his first Hollywood parts was a 1997 episode of Ally McBeal, where he played the aptly named “Gorgeous Guy at Bar”. A decade later, Hamm became thealpha faceof a certain prestige drama. Ad Men, was it? Mad Dogs? Something like that.
Your Friends & Neighbors (Apple TV+, 11 April)is a fitting new vehicle for Hamm’s slippery good looks. The launch episode is bookended by shots of his big, mildly befuddled face in screen-filling closeup. This show knows exactly what’s it’s doing. It is blackly comic, frothily fun and highly moreish.
It begins, as all TV dramas must nowadays, with a shock tactic scene, before flashing back a few months to show how we got here. Here, it’s Hamm’s character waking up in a pool of blood next to a murdered dude. He promptly rewinds to show us the “swirling hot mess of my life and how the hell everything went so wrong, so fast”.
After being fired in disgrace from his job as a hedge fund CEO, divorced dad Andrew “Coop” Cooper struggles to maintain his megabucks Ivy Leaguer lifestyle – let alone keep his spoilt family in the comfort to which they’ve become accustomed. In desperation, Coop resorts to robbing his rich neighbours in upstate New York, only to discover that what happens behind those white picket fences is even murkier than he imagined. Secrets, lies, sex, daytime drinking, crushing up and snorting the children’s ADHD meds – you know, the usual.
The light-fingered antihero never loses our sympathy for stealing from his so-called friends because they’re all obnoxiously minted and smugly punchable. Their multimillion-dollar mansions, Coop points out, are “filled with expensive shit that would never be missed”, “piles of forgotten wealth just lying around in drawers”. He’s basically Robin Hood in a Ralph Lauren cap. Super-duper Cooper also cares for his mentally unstable sister, so it’s all good.
He drives a Maserati and drinks Macallan 25 whisky. Meetings take place on golf courses or tennis courts, at yoga studios or Instagrammable parties. Gritty urban drama this ain’t. Just to thwack viewers over the head with conspicuous consumerism, on-screen graphics break down the value of Coop’s loot. As he waxes lyrical about Patek Philippe watches or Hermès handbags, it’s like watching an upscale QVC. The White Lotus with a lock-pick.
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Beneath the grabby pitch of a gentleman thief – as Coop’s pawnbroker puts it, “Rich guy loses his big job, has liquidity problems, turns to petty crime” – this is essentially a gossipy relationship drama. It’s about extramarital affairs, midlife crises and divorcees co-parenting troublesome teenagers. It’s Desperate Housewives with kleptomania. Breaking Bad meets Big Little Lies. If Hamm weren’t in it, Nicole Kidman definitely would be.
Midway through the nine-parter, Coop hits the “nose candy”. Cops start sniffing around. Things get dark and deadly. It’s propulsive, pulpy and soapy. So confident are Apple of the show’s success that it has renewed it for a second season before the debut run has even dropped. The Hammster will soon be back on his wheel.
This isn’t just The Jon Hamm Show.Amanda Peetand Olivia Munn are typically terrific as Coop’s ex-wife and new girlfriend. Who are we kidding? It’s totally The Jon Hamm Show. When he’s not on screen, attention drifts. A wordy script is made denser by his sardonic, velvet-voiced narration. He doesn’t quite break the fourth wall by waggling his eyebrows but somehow it feels like he does.
Of late, Hamm’s TV showreel has been limited to villainous supporting turns in the likes ofFargoandThe Morning Show. He’s always roguishly charismatic but such gigs haven’t made the most of his mercurial talents. This is his best role since you-know-who. He’s gone from Don Draper to crime caper. It suits him.