Diksha Sundriyal
Apple TV+’s ‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ follows the misadventures of Andrew Cooper, who is fired from his job as a hedge fund manager. But that is not the first hitch in his otherwise perfect life. A few months back, he discovered his wife, Mel, in bed with one of his best friends, Nick, and since the divorce, Mel and Nick have practically been living together in the house that Coop bought for his family. While he has to resort to thievery to make ends meet, Nick, a former NBA champion, receives a lucrative deal as a brand ambassador of a luxury commode. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Fictional Luxos MT Highlights the Absurdity of Wealth
After retiring from a glorious career in the NBA, Nick resorts to other stuff to maintain his lifestyle. In the third episode, he has a party at his house where he invites all his friends, including Coop, while the women are busy with their form of entertainment. Here, he shows his friends a luxury commode that he describes as one of a kind and the best thing on the market. He explains all sorts of things about it, including its Bluetooth speakers, among other things. His friends see it as a fascinating thing they might like to add to their collection of all the pricey and weird stuff they already own. On the other hand, Coop is too broke to entertain such a thing now; from his perspective, it is an entirely absurd thing to have.
In real life, all sorts of luxury things, including commodes with incredible built-in features, arrive on the market every other day. The Luxos MT model Nick advertises in the show is an entirely fictional brand, so fans of the show might be disappointed to know that they cannot own the same thing. However, one can easily find a similar thing on the market, as things like Luxos MT are not unheard of. The show, however, uses it as a plot device to send across its point on different levels. One of the major things that the story focuses on is the class difference created by the wealth gap, and how much the presence or absence of money can change a person.
Moreover, through Cooper, we also get to see the insane amount of money that people throw at things simply for the sake of owning them, regardless of whether or not they need them. It also shows the stark shift in Coop’s life since losing his job. If he were still employed at his firm, he, too, would have seen the luxury commode with the fascination that would require him to throw money at it and buy it just to see what it’s like. Now, however, things are very different, and all he can think about is whether or not the commode will fetch him a good price if he steals it and sells it to Lu.
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