{"id":520534,"date":"2026-06-05T18:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T18:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/520534\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T18:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T18:42:12","slug":"your-friends-neighbors-season-2-finale-interviews-dead-and-almost-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/520534\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 Finale Interviews: Dead (and Almost-Dead)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the Your Friends & Neighbors<\/a> season two finale.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tOlivia Munn<\/a> wasn\u2019t even supposed to be here.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Munn signed on to do the Apple TV series Your Friends & Neighbors<\/a>, it was a one-season thing. But by the time she filmed episode the second episode of season one, appropriately titled \u201cDeuce,\u201d showrunner Jonathan Tropper asked if she would stick around. Munn tells The Hollywood Reporter now that she \u201cwaited until the end of the season to make that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I was reading the first season, I really loved the idea of these people who are so wealthy that they\u2019re not going to clock when one of their expensive watches are swiped,\u201d Munn said. \u201cThere\u2019s some people who just are so wealthy they don\u2019t even know what they have, yeah? I just thought that was really clever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor one season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe first time you have no idea, right? Your expectations are really low, and then for it to be so well received was so exciting,\u201d Munn said.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut then the pressure to avoid a sophomore slump really sets in. Your Friends & Neighbors attempted to match the whodunnit mystery of <\/a>s<\/a>eason one <\/a>with the introduction of a new mysterious character, Owen Ashe, played by James Marsden<\/a>. Unfortunately, Ashe ends up just as dead as Samanatha Levitt\u2019s (Munn) last romantic partner, Paul Levitt (Jordan Gelber). Well, the second time he ends up just as dead.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the ninth episode of season two, Ashe is presumed dead after a crazy, drug-fueled night that ended with shots fired and some slippery marble. The character didn\u2019t actually die-die until the final episode of the season, however, when his SUV ends up at the bottom of a lake. Coop (Jon Hamm<\/a>), Barney (Hoon Lee) and Nick (Mark Tallman) make it out \u2014 as I write this, Ashe is still down there, and he\u2019s not coming up (not alive, at least).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a Zoom conversation with Marsden and Munn, I asked the guy who is now in all the TV shows and all the movies if he played Ashe any differently as \u201cseemed dead\u201d vs. \u201cactually dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo, because to me, I\u2019m always thinking about the audience,\u201d Marsden said. \u201cThe audience has to believe he\u2019s dead, so I just fully commit to that he\u2019s dead. And then maybe, you know, something happens and he just sparks back to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe something that happens here is ketamine serving as a late-stage defibrillator.<\/p>\n

\n\tAshe is, of course, not the only dead guy to not be a dead guy. The most famous one of our time is probably Jon Snow (Kit Harington) on Game of Thrones. He was stabbed in the back, quite literally, by Night Watch traitors, but revived by a witch using the power of the Lord of Light. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnyway, Munn explains it much better than me, and we paused the interview for her to bring Marsden up to speed in great detail. He gamely listened to what Snow\/Harington did, and then responded, \u201cI did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJon Snow (Kit Harington) in Game of Thrones.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of HBO<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you work as much as Marsden does, you\u2019re bound to die a few on-screen deaths. Those odds skyrocket when you star on a show with \u201cDead\u201d as the first word of its title.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI died in Dead to Me. I died every episode of Westworld. So I die quite a bit. I don\u2019t know why people want to see me dead,\u201d Marsden said, adding of his personal technique: \u201cI do closed eyes with, like, one kind of halfway open on the side.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI died in one show and and I didn\u2019t tell my mom,\u201d Munn said. \u201cI forgot, and it was really traumatizing to her. Like, they see me \u2014 I\u2019m dead. I get zipped up in a body bag. She\u2019s like, \u2018Why didn\u2019t you tell me?\u2019 I was like, \u2018Mom, it\u2019s just TV.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou forget how impactful it is on some people when they\u2019re watching,\u201d Marsden said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmanda Peet<\/a>, who plays Sam\u2019s frenemy (and Hamm\u2019s ex-wife) Mel Cooper, could not recall having died on screen. She has a painful memory, however, of playing a character in anaphylactic shock on Jack & Jill (1999-2001; she played Jack.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAll the cast members had to lean over me to be like, \u2018Are you OK?\u2019\u201d Peet remembered in a separate Zoom conversation. \u201cThe camera was over me, too. I was supposed to be on the ground with my eyes closed, [but] because Sarah Paulson makes me laugh so much, I couldn\u2019t fucking do it. It was like four in the morning and everyone was so tired and so pissed. The more pissed they got, the more funny I thought it was and [Paulson] thought it was. So finally we put a scarf over my face to see if I could just keep my eyes still. So, yeah, I think it\u2019s pretty hard.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou feel your eyes flutter and you\u2019re like, \u2018STOP IT!\u2019 You tell yourself to relax, don\u2019t flutter your eyelashes, and then they flutter more,\u201d Peet continued. \u201cIt\u2019s really anxiety-making right now just thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAmanda Peet in Your Friends & Neighbors.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tFor season three of Your Friends & Neighbors<\/a>, which was ordered months before season two premiered, Mel is entering into a world of angst \u2014 as if the menopause wasn\u2019t enough of an internal struggle for one woman.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the conclusion of season two, Mel sits down to write a new book. Not one on menopause \u2014 her editor already rejected that manuscript sight unseen \u2014 but about her life, which, about a year earlier, saw her ex arrested on suspicion of murder. Wait until \u201cshe gets on the trail and starts to sniff out\u201d the real story here, Peet teased of season three, adding, \u201cI\u2019m assuming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t(Tropper tells THR that Your Friends & Neighbors season three is \u201cmuch more of a direct continuation\u201d that \u201cpicks up very shortly after season two ends.\u201d About a year had passed in-universe between season one and season two.)<\/p>\n

\n\tFrankly, I\u2019m not sure Mel can take another season like season two, which she spent much of either fighting with her daughter (Isabel Gravitt), her own body and\/or her next door neighbors. She killed a dog, for goodness sake. Not that Peet minded any of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeet says she was \u201cso impressed\u201d at how Tropper wrote the menopause storyline for her character.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m the beneficiary of the fact that he wanted to make it nuanced and didn\u2019t want to make [Mel] this insipid ex-wife who\u2019s on the home front, waiting for something exciting to happen,\u201d Peet said, \u201cand I think that\u2019s kind of rare.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe wants it to be real and natural, but he has a wonderful sense of humor,\u201d she continued. \u201cMenopause is fucking funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYour Friends & Neighbors season two is now streaming on Apple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the Your Friends & Neighbors season two finale.) Olivia Munn wasn\u2019t even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[181747,18,117,19,17,90706,48523,98504,128,224919],"class_list":["post-520534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-amanda-peet","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-james-marsden","tag-jon-hamm","tag-olivia-munn","tag-tv","tag-your-friends-and-neighbors"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116698975870517910","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}