Your Friends and Neighbors Episode 7 Recap: The First Honest Thing

Andrew Cooper cannot seem to catch a break in Apple TV+’s ‘Your Friends and Neighbors.’ The man has been on a downward spiral since he found his wife in bed with his best friend. Then came the loss of his job and turning towards criminal pursuits to maintain his lifestyle. For a while, the system, however flawed it may have been, seemed to work as he got the money he needed without much trouble. But then, he tries to steal from Sam, the woman he’d been having an affair with, and ends up finding her husband’s dead body inside the house, which invites more trouble than he’d ever expected or imagined. Now, he must face the consequences of his choices. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Coop Becomes a Prime Suspect in Paul’s Murder

At the end of the previous episode, Coop’s perfect day with his family is ruined when he is jumped by two men who beat him to a pulp. He is knocked out for twelve hours and dreams about stealing, being a stranger in his own home, his nefarious boss, and the bloodthirsty Christian, among other things. When he wakes up, he is surrounded by family while Barney is in the other room, recovering from being hit by a car. Detective Rebecca Lin visits him, but not with the intention of sympathising with him. Rather, the assault has made her even more suspicious of him.

To the detective, the connecting thread in the streak of violent crimes in an otherwise quiet neighbourhood of Westmont is Coop. She points this out to him while also hypothesising that he has gotten himself into something more than he can handle. She offers him help, while also mentioning that if he doesn’t accept now and gets in trouble later, she will have no option but to take him down. Coop tells her he will think about it, but it’s clear that he is not going to come clean to her. While Ali picks up from the hospital, Mel meets with Sam, who is busy with the paperwork regarding Paul’s death while also planning his memorial, a responsibility that she has mixed feelings about because they were not together anymore.

Coop returns to the hospital later to check in on Barney, who is done with his lies now. He asks him about the men who attacked him, but Coop claims he doesn’t know them. By now, Barney has put his life on the line for him and has no patience left for his antics. So, he asks him to tell the whole truth. He also brings up the part about the brick of cash Coop handed him a short while back. When it becomes clear that his best friend is not going to do him the courtesy of telling the truth, he asks Coop to leave him alone.

Elena Makes a Shocking Discovery About Her Brother

Since the debacle with Christian, when Coop punched him in the face for trying to assault Elena, the partners in crime have been keeping their distance from each other. She tried calling him when he went to Princeton, and Detective Lin showed up at Nick’s house to talk about the party and the fight between Paul and Coop, but he never picked up or called back. Now, it seems that Elena has moved on as well and is busy with her own problems, which turn out to be pretty huge when she discovers that her brother got involved in a drug drop that went wrong. He was spooked by the sound of police sirens and threw $150,000 worth of drugs into the river. Now, he needs to repay that money or else.

Elena is angry with her brother about his stupidity of not just throwing the drugs in the river but also for getting involved with men like Felix in the first place. She also knows that he will not be able to repay the debt and will get in even more trouble, so she decides to take care of it herself. For this, she needs to plan another heist, for which she goes to her cousin, Hector, who has been helping her with the security codes to the houses in Westmont so far. However, since Paul’s murder, he is spooked because now the cops are involved.

Hector reveals that since the murder, he has been getting demands to have the security systems replaced. It turns out that while he has been supplying codes to Elena for a good amount of money, he has no idea what she has been doing with them. Paul’s tragic fate makes him wonder if his cousin is involved in something bad, especially because of Coop. She assures him that neither she nor Coop is the kind to kill other people, but Hector is not convinced. He refuses to work with her anymore, while also warning her about the danger she might land in if she continues to work with Coop.

The Cops Close in on Coop

If Detective Rebecca Lin did not have enough to suspect Coop of something, her doubts about him are emboldened by new discoveries about the case. First, she finds a nanny cam in Sam’s house, which reveals the affair between her and Coop. Then, her officer goes through Coop’s trash to find his blood sample, which is sent to match with the blood found on the crime scene. It turns out to be a match, which allows Lin to get a search warrant for Coop’s house. They don’t find anything inside the house, but his car has something that is enough for them to arrest Coop.

While the cops tear through his house for evidence, Coop is at Paul’s funeral. Ali warns him about the cops, which gives him enough time to seek out Kat Resnick, a great lawyer whom he needs right now. He tells her about how he is believed to be a suspect. She offers to help him by getting him another lawyer while pointing out that working with him would put her in a conflict of interest with Sam. At this point, Coop blackmails her. If she doesn’t represent him, he will reveal her secret of sleeping with her daughter’s boyfriend, which he witnessed firsthand while robbing her house.

Soon after, the cops show up, and Coop is arrested in front of all his friends and neighbours, who are shocked by this new development. Fortunately, Kat shows up at the station to defend Coop. While most evidence against him can be dismissed as circumstantial, the fact that the murder weapon was found in his car’s trunk is too much to get him out of the charges scot-free. This means that he will have to spend at least one night in prison. His arrest sends a shockwave through the community as Mel breaks the news to their kids, while Elena stares at the screen in shock, and a heartbroken Ali tries to find comfort in Bruce, with whom she thought she had rekindled her relationship, and fails. Meanwhile, Coop makes himself comfortable in the prison cell and goes to sleep now that the worst has happened, or so he thinks.