‘Your Friends & Neighbors’ Stars Jon Hamm, James Marsden & More Unpack Season 2 Premiere

Your Friends and Neighbors is back, and there’s a new player in town. Warning: The following post contains spoilers for Your Friends and Neighbors Season 2 Episode 1, “We’re Here Until We’re Not.” 

Joining the action for Season 2 is James Marsden as Owen Ashe, a hot shot widower with a sports car, a bright smile, and a nebulous job title who befriends Jon Hamm‘s Andrew “Coop” Cooper at his swanky soiree in his new mansion.

He moves into town in a hurry. First, he arrives in his sharp blue sportscar to Sam’s (Olivia Munn) house, and after realizing she’s a realtor in waiting with an infamous rap sheet, he takes her on as his realtor on the spot and gives her the easiest big (and first) sale of all time. She has been excommunicated by the rest of the neigborhood, but now she has a fast new friend.

Marsden told TV Insider that it’s the lack of pretense that first interests Ashe in taking a chance on Sam. “He knows that [she was accused of murder], and I think he’s sort of fascinated by it. I think he’s one of these guys that the more flaws you have, the more interesting you are. The more life you’ve lived, the more interesting you are, and I think she’s one of the most honest, sort of transparent, no-B.S. people in Westmont Village. Everyone else is putting on a little bit of a facade in the show, and she’s very direct and just says it like it is, and I think it’s refreshing to him.”

Showrunner Jonathan Tropper admitted that it’s a role that was written with Marsden in mind. “When we came up with the idea of the character, we became very committed to the idea of James Marsden. He was the model from the very beginning. And so, once we finished the writers’ room, I just began stalking him, and he was doing a promotional tour with a friend of mine, and I did a lot of things to get in front of him and pitch him the show because the show hadn’t come out yet. And I brought in the big guns and called him, and we got it going,” he said.

Hamm agrees that the show is “lucky” to have the actor on the call sheet this time. “James’ career speaks for itself. He’s on a bit of a run at the moment. He’s having a moment, as they say, with Jury Duty and Paradise and, of course, Marvel and X-Men and Cyclops and what have you. So we were lucky to get him, and he delivers. He comes in, and he knocks it out of the park. So it was a real pleasure,” Hamm told us.

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The season also begins on a note of peace between Coop and his wife, with Mel (Amanda Peet) not only approving but insisting that he has the right to engage in a new romance during their family trip to Mexico. Hamm says the d’etente is owed to the relief of overcoming his hardships in Season 1.

“I think that they’re like everybody. Nobody is stagnant in their growth emotionally, physically… and they’re going through with the events of the first season and with Coop being confronted with the possibility of jail time and all the other things that were very, very serious consequences, I think that put a lot of their relationship into sharp relief, and I think they kind of had to understand that there is still feeling there and they’re still obviously [sharing] responsibility given the children and whatnot, so I don’t think the final chapter is written on their relationship at all.”

One couple that is struggling in the premiere is Barney (Hoon Li) and Grace (Eunice Bae), as the latter pressures her husband to consider working with her father… because she’s pregnant with a surprise bonus baby.

“What she needs is to feel that her family is secure. She doesn’t know what Barney’s doing, but she knows it ain’t right, and she knows it ain’t safe, and her top priority is always gonna be her family and whatever that takes, whether it’s working for her family or something else, as long as she knows her family is taken care of. That’s what she’s gonna do, and Barney’s just not cutting that mustard anymore,” Bae said of her character’s position. “I think when we start this season, Grace knows she’s pregnant, but no one else does, and so I think there’s a real trepidation because she’s no spring chicken. Even money can’t keep you from getting into a geriatric pregnancy phase, and so I think she’s worried about the success of this pregnancy. It was unplanned, and on top of that, her husband is acting real funny, so she’s on all sorts of shaky ground.”

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What's Coming Next in 'Your Friends & Neighbors' Season 2?

He’s acting funny, though, because he’s discovered what Coop is really up to, and he wants in. And judging by the casing Coop does of Ashe’s house, well, they’ve got a mark in mind already. With that, the stage is set, but don’t expect a repeat of the same old same old this season.

As Tropper told us, “We were very happy with what we did in Season 1, but I realized there’s a strong danger we’d be repeating ourselves. And so I think the real pressure we put on ourselves was how to kind of approach it as a new show and make sure we didn’t do the same show we did for Season 1.” Trooper added that there’s “higher stakes” this time around, plus, “The danger is much greater, and the Hamm-Marsden chemistry is just fantastic.”

Your Friends and Neighbors, Fridays, Apple TV

– Additional reporting by Leah Williams