Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 Episode 2: “Lady Bits” Puts Everyone on Edge

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

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There’s a lot to cover this time out, as Cooper’s leisurely lifestyle just took a surprising turn.

Mel is struggling to find her groove as perimenopause throws all kinds of challenges in her way.

And everyone else isn’t faring much better. So let’s dig into Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 Episode 2, the double deuce!

Coop’s Pickle Keeps Getting Picklier

Going from a daily grind at the office to an unemployed cat burglar gives you a lot of time to ruminate on life. And Coop doesn’t do well with quiet. It’s not something you come by naturally.

Coop isn’t present in his own life and never has been.

Now that Barney is on the inside of Coop’s capers, he wants to run it like a business. Should they move in that direction? It seems like a very easy way to upset the apple cart.

Because they only target people Coop knows and items he knows his pals won’t miss, it means they’re barely working part-time.

But in one year, they’ve fenced hundreds of thousands of dollars of “merchandise,” which is both insulting to those of us without similar junk drawers and impressive for the scale of this grift.

Barney Switches Things Up

Barney even wants to know how they’re reporting their income. As a former freelancer, I know that you don’t always have to tell people where the money came from. But now Barney is talking about money laundering. He’s right, but that’s an entirely different animal.

When Barney introduced Coop to Brett, the money launderer, he insulted Coop right out of the gate with an offhand remark about looking better than his mugshot.

But damn, did he have a lot of ideas or what? But when he said crypto, I recoiled. As it turns out, there is a paper trail for crypto. To get it up and running, Coop had to agree to let go 25% of his profits, and even Barney pulled back on the relationship after that.

They’ve come far enough to know that if you’re planning on giving away a large percentage like that, you might as well go back to work.

And who didn’t see it coming that Barney would end up using Nick’s gym to launder money? I really don’t like that. Bringing people into your criminal underworld without telling them is really uncool, even if he did date your best friend’s wife after the fact.

The Ashe of it All

Ashe tried to bond with Coop, who had to clue in Ashe to the slim pickings of single women in Westmont Village. Coop doesn’t seem nearly as interested in getting to know Ashe as the opposite.

Ashe seems like one of those guys who never shuts up and almost forces himself into your orbit, and you just keep playing along rather than pushing him away, which usually ends up being the wrong decision in the long run.

Why do we do that with people like Ashe? Saying no isn’t easy, and to keep the peace, we sometimes go with the flow.

What I did NOT see coming was that Coop would burglarize Ashe so early in their “relationship.” Security isn’t the same as something like a ring camera. You can have short-term measures in place before you go full-blown, security-firm secure.

What happens now? Since this discovery came at the same time Barney has been pulled into the life, I’m betting that he’ll want on board, too.

After all, he’s in the “import-export” business, so it’s quite possible he didn’t come by the Edith Wharton (or anything else he has) legally, either.

Mel’s Suffering Has Only Just Begun

Meanwhile, Mel is suffering through perimenopausal hot flashes, and let me tell you, those are not pleasant. There is nothing more unsettling than waking up in a pool of water, all tangled up in the sheets. The great thing is that as soon as the hot flash dissipates, you’re just lying in wet, cold sheets.

Then there’s the insomnia. The rage. Perimenopause comes with so many different symptoms. And even better? Estrogen has been in short supply of late. So, may I suggest that you tread lightly around women of a certain age? You don’t know when they’ve had their last fix.

Getting old isn’t for sissies, my friends.

Her friends want her to look into Ashe, the new meat on the block. She’s not interested and solely focused on her book, she tells them. We know that’s not true.

Once the majority of them left the steam room, she confided in one of her friends, who suggested hormone replacement therapy. As I said above, there’s no guarantee you can get those anymore (and many doctors refuse to even talk about it… no kidding).

But the MonaLisa Touch for vaginal atrophy? That’s a new one on me. Apparently, it’s a non-surgical, in-office laser procedure that relieves all of the very painful byproducts of a shriveling vajayjay by promoting collagen growth in vaginal tissues.

And since it only takes 5-10 minutes, is generally painless, requires no anesthesia, and just a few sessions, I’d like to know why every doctor isn’t touting it as soon as you are of age. Seriously, ladies, there needs to be a damned college course for getting through these years.

It’s not easy to discuss, and if you don’t know someone who knows something, you know… nothing. Whether it’s physical or emotional symptoms, it’s a lot to navigate on your own.

I loved Mel’s reaction to the dog shitting in her yard. Her reaction was so incredibly real. Amanda Peet has a way of doing that. Marching over to the neighbor’s house didn’t get the response she expected. Allowing a mastiff to “roam free” in 2026 Westchester? I don’t think so.

May I say that I didn’t realize Westmont Village was in Westchester? My family is from Westchester. I can’t help it. I love little connections that pull me into a world like that.

Everything she’s going through will be heightened as she tackles the new normal of perimenopause, which should bring plenty of excitement to Your Friends & Neighbors as the season continues.

Sam’s Actions Weigh on Her and Her Child

How long will Sam’s committed spinsterhood last? Mine has lasted quite a while. There comes a point when bullshit from the opposite sex just doesn’t titillate anymore. I don’t think that Sam is anywhere near that point. She’s hurt and healing.

But when she realized that she was the odd woman out, with her kid not even invited to birthday parties that used to be a given, she was so hurt. Her son is five-years-old and struggling with his father’s suicide, and now his best friend doesn’t invite him to her birthday party?

Daisy’s mom made it about Sam, which proves how shallow she really is. Is the party for the kids or the adults? The kids should always come first.

Sam thought it might be because of Mel, but Maggie insinuated that it was because she framed Coop for murder. Sam’s pain for her son is as real as it gets, though. Who could blame her for typing out a long response about poor choices to her former friend group before deleting it?

It’s another incredibly human response that sometimes even makes you feel better.

The Kids, Ali, and the Rest of the Story

We knew it was coming! Hunter and Deliliah Ashe have connected. It was exactly the kind of conversation you’d expect between the two.

Tori wants to relax and enjoy herself now that she’s been accepted to Princeton. It’s exactly what Coop didn’t need — to do nothing, with intention. He’s fully aware of how to do nothing.

The surprise party was a little premature, though. Tori isn’t going to Princeton and already declined — without telling her parents. I’m sorry. I get acting adult, but what on earth?? She had just acted as if she was going when she spent the day with Coop.

And hey, I totally understand the “I’m not sure I want to go to college at all” of the situation. That was me. My dad forced me, I excelled at partying, got horrible grades, dropped out, and went to secretarial school, which happened, in part, once I learned how much money my chosen direction would land me.

It was an excellent choice in hindsight, but my life might have gone much differently earlier than late in life if I had been allowed to choose my own destiny.

Ali tried to turn the day around by sharing her good news, which went over like a lead balloon. Her mother even compared Tori to Ali, saying she’s the same age that Tori was when she started showing signs of the person she’s become. Ouch.

Ali’s mental issues are hardly the same as resetting expectations for your future with your head on relatively straight.

The thing about “finding yourself” in college is that it rarely works. Once you choose a path, you tend to walk it for much longer than you anticipated.

Hunter already had his first Ashe-sponsored date with Delilah, which complicates things with their parents, whether or not they realize it.

I’m not a big fan of these extraneous storylines because I don’t always love kids. They’re so often portrayed as pains in the asses, and I’d rather explore other parts of the tale. But here we are!

Are you here and watching? Is a sense of impending doom washing over you? Shoot me a comment down below with your thoughts on Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 so far!