This post contains spoilers from Your Friends and Neighbors season 1 episode 5 from this point forward.
Following last week's close call, which saw Coop running from the cops and getting a wound on his leg from a dog bite as a souvenir, Your Friends and Neighbors season 1 episode 5 finds Coop and his new partner in crime Elena not backing down from their criminal endeavor. Instead, the duo pivot into a new area they hadn't yet tapped into: art theft and forgery.
Even though Lu isn't keen on flipping art for cash since it's a higher stakes game, she agrees to help Coop out. But her agreement comes with a 20 percent commission and an "I don't know you if you get caught" clause. She teams them up with the eccentric Christian (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), and they plan the swap. It all goes according to plan until it doesn't, and it comes at a great cost.
Coop and Elena break into the mansion to replace the pricey Lichtenstein painting with its forgery from Christian without incident. They bring the real painting to Christian for it to be authenticated and receive their money. To celebrate, Christian takes Coop and Elena to a club, where they all partake in cocaine. When Coop finds Christian making a move on Elena, everything goes south.
Who died in Your Friends and Neighbors?
When the situation intensifies, Elena pepper sprays Christian and, due to proximity, Coop. Because of the uproar, their big payday for the painting likely went out the window. And it comes at an especially inopportune moment for Coop, who was just saddled with a nearly quarter-million bill at Hunter's school. To prevent his expulsion for distributing Adderall to friends, Mel begged the principal to pay the difference on a fundraising project. Obviously, Coop doesn't have that money to throw around.
Since the altercation with Christian probably won't amount to anything, Coop needs another score. He knows that Sam, who just ended their friends-with-benefits situation, took her sons to visit her parents in Boston. After sending an embarrassing "You up?" text message, Coop decides to break into Sam's house and find something to steal and sell.
Unfortunately, that's when he slips on blood in her foyer and falls to the ground to discover Sam's ex-husband Paul dead. As we saw in the opening sequence of the series, Coop scrambles to clean up any possible trace of his DNA. Did he bleed when he hit his head? Are his fingerprints anywhere? Surely, haphazardly wiping the floor with his shirt will remove any sign of his presence! Honestly, it makes the scene look a little bit worse, but whatever helps him cope.
On his rush away from the scene and Sam's house, Coop falls into the pool and considers the possibility of ending his troubles and drowning himself. He doesn't and returns into the house (or his own home, it's not particularly clear, but we can assume it's Sam's house) to take a shower and wash his clothes. The next day, he and Barney play golf and avoid being honest with each other about what what down in each of their lives the night before.
Barney had also veered super close into self destruction territory when the stress of his home renovation, which added another nice chunk of change to the price tag, and a visit from his in-laws reached a fever pitch. His mother-in-law gave him a check for one million dollars to help expedite the process, but he gets drunk and burns it and almost his house. He's able to put out the fire.
Honestly, I'm not sure where Coop goes from here. He ruined one of his biggest theft jobs yet and broke into his lover's home and found her ex-husband dead. He's continuing to dig a deeper and deeper hole for himself that will make nothing but enemies when the truth comes out. But here's a question: Who killed Paul? Did Sam, who cried when she got to her parents' house, know anything? Will Coop's DNA be found at the scene? This story's far from over!
Watch Your Friends and Neighbors only on Apple TV+.