Diksha Sundriyal
The second season of AppleTV+’s ‘Your Friends and Neighbors’ ends with Coop finding himself caught up in yet another murder. After being blackmailed by Owen Ashe to do his bidding this entire season, Coop finally decides to take charge of his situation. He tells Coop that the Excelsior investment is out of the picture, which sends Ashe into a fit of rage that ends with him slipping and hitting his head on the ground so hard that he dies. The question now is what to do next, and what complicates matters is that this time, Coop is not the only one making this decision. Nick and Barney are in it with him. One would think that having one’s friends by their side at such a time would be helpful, but it ends up making things worse. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Coop, Nick, and Barney Deal With Ashe’s Body
When Ashe falls to his death, Barney checks his pulse and concludes that he is dead. Nick’s first instinct is to call 911, but Barney and Coop advise against it. Coop points out that it looks rather shady with three of them standing over Ashe’s dead body, especially when all of them had been connected to the guy in some way. When Coop says he doesn’t want to go to prison for another death he is not responsible for, Nick points out that they are, in fact, not responsible for it. Barney, however, points out that the cops might not necessarily see it that way.
Moreover, with Nick being a star athlete, the case will quickly become national news, and the media and public interest it generates will not be good for anyone. At first, Nick refuses to go along with their reasoning, but in the end, he has no other choice but to join them. It is decided that the best course of action will be to remove all traces of their presence, especially that of a fight between them and Ashe. Together, they clean up the whole place, wipe fingerprints off, remove bullets from the walls, and leave CCTV footage showing them doing all this on tape.
When they are done, their next question is: what should they do with the body? At first, they think about just leaving it there. But Coop refuses to let Ashe’s daughter walk in on her dead father the next morning. No matter what scenario they think of, there is no way they can make his death look like an accident. So, they decide to throw the body in the river and let the current do its job. Right as they are carrying the body to the door, Sam shows up. She was supposed to meet Ashe earlier that evening, but she didn’t show up until now. She is shocked by the sight and tries to leave before she can get any more involved than she needs to.
However, Coop gets a hold of her and explains everything, despite her asking him to keep her out of it. She laments that Ashe’s death will be connected to her somehow, given how her ex died last season. What makes it worse is that she just got out of the exile that the last scandal had put her through. Coop assures her this won’t happen because they are planning to throw the body in the river. Exasperated, she advises them against it. Instead, she points them towards a property that is being renovated. They should bury the body there since concrete will be poured there in the following week, and no one will be the wiser.
Is Owen Ashe’s Body Found?
If there is no body, there is body crime, and whatever people think happened to Ashe will be pure speculation. So, to end things permanently, Coop, Nick, and Barney put the body in the car and drove towards the place Sam told them about. On the way, Ashe wakes up. It turns out Barney hadn’t checked the body properly. Ashe is certainly alive, and now he is out for blood. He attacks Barney, prompting Coop to tackle him, while Nick drives the car. The chaos leads Nick to lose control of the vehicle, which falls into the lake. Coop, Barney, and Nick make it out of the water while the car drops to the bottom of the lake.
When Ashe doesn’t come out, they take it as a sign that he is dead, for good this time. They wonder if this means his death can be considered an accident. This is a good idea, but the problem is that Ashe is in the backseat. So, they go back into the water and put Ashe in the driver’s seat. While there is a good chance the car won’t be found, even if it is, it will look like Ashe died in an accident. With the matter concluded, the three of them return to their homes, with Coop noting the famous quote about three keeping a secret when two of them are dead. His concerns prove right as Nick starts to spiral with guilt and refuses to talk to, let alone listen to, them.
It is also revealed that the FBI investigated the case and interviewed everyone, but they found nothing. As the days pass, it seems they have survived the worst of it, though their own lives start unraveling because of the secrets they keep. Theories and rumors start to take a round around the town, especially as Ashe’s work as an arms dealer comes into the picture. Some think he ran away, but there is also a good number of people who think he is dead. At least, his daughter thinks so. She reveals that she hated her father because she knew he did bad things. But she also knows that if he went on the run, he wouldn’t have left her behind.
She leaves to live with her aunt, bidding Hunter goodbye, probably for good. Just when it seems the worst is over, the episode ends with a man fishing in the lake. He is there to catch fish, but he seems to have caught something else entirely. It is not confirmed whether it’s Ashe’s body he has chanced upon, but given how unlucky Coop is and how much drama the investigation will generate, it is fair to assume that Ashe has been found, and the next season will focus on the investigation into his death. This doesn’t spell well for Nick and Barmey, especially with Nick drowning in his guilt.
What Happens to Elena? Why does She Have Nick’s House Robbed?
Coop’s entanglement with Ashe has an adverse effect on Elena. With no more robberies, she loses her source of income. What makes matters worse is that, on Barney’s advice, she threw her money into Nick’s gym, which she cannot get back now. She needed the money to bail out her brother, who had run away and gone missing since then. Because she didn’t have her own money, she had to borrow it from Felix, and now, he wants it back. She tried to hold him off as much as possible, but he is getting impatient, and she needs to give him something.
In the finale, she returns to Coop and Barney to ask for her money back. Previously, they told her she couldn’t get it because Ashe’s people were looking into the gym’s finances before investing in it. Now that Ashe is gone, so is his investment in Nick’s gym, but Nick is not ready to give the money back. Since they disposed of Ashe’s dead body, he has been on edge. He worries that the truth will come to light and he will be arrested for murder. He doesn’t want to do anything that raises suspicion, which is why he is not letting anyone touch the money yet. Barney and Coop try to assure him that everything will be fine.
While Nick may have been questioned by the cops, it was simply due process. Everyone who knew Ashe was questioned. So, there is no chance that anyone is monitoring Nick, especially his finances. However, he is not convinced and makes it clear that he will only get the money out when the whole thing blows over. Coop and Barney cannot tell Elena why Nick is refusing to give her money back, just as they cannot tell Nick that it’s Elena’s money they want to take out. So, they ask her to wait a little, but she is out of time.
With no other option, Elena opens the doors of Nick’s house to Felix. He was supposed to come alone, and it was supposed to be like the way she and Coop stole things. But Felix is not subtle. He brings his crew, who take more than they need and break things in the process. When Elena tries to stop them, Felix punches her in the face, saying that he needed to do this so the cops would think she was attacked by the burglars. With this, Elena’s debt might be clear, but that doesn’t mean she is entirely free of Felix just yet.
Why did DeMille Return the Money to Coop? Whose Money Is It?
When Ashe dies, Coop returns the $600 million to his estate, believing he is finally free. He goes back to focusing on his family. Sam, who is planning to leave the town for good even though Coop asks her not to, finds Ali’s apartment. Coop visits his sister, is glad to discover she is doing well, and spends the night at her place. Later, he attends the Father’s Day celebration at the club. He is happy to discover that Tori has decided she wants to go to college after all, even if it might not be Princeton anymore. Things get a bit heated between Nick, who gets too drunk, and Barney, who tries to stop him.
Nick fires Barney, and they start fighting each other in front of everyone. Coop tries to intervene, but it doesn’t help. The night ends with Grace confronting Barney about his lies. When he doesn’t tell the truth, she tells him to move out of the house. Coop goes to the bowling alley, where he and Mel start talking about whether they really need all this money, which in turn prompts her to press him for the truth. She, too, has sensed that something is going on, though she doesn’t know what. Earlier, she had been asked by her agent to write a book about what happened to her family in Season 1.
At the time, she didn’t want to do it because it was too personal, but at the end of the episode, we see her starting to write something, which means she might be ready to tell it to the world. She makes this decision after Coop doesn’t confide in her, and then she watches him talk to a mysterious man. The man that Coop talked to was DeMille. He came back to give Coop the flash drive with the video of him stealing the book from Ashe’s house. He also came to tell him that he has wired the money back into Coop’s account, meaning they are not done yet.
The thing is that it wasn’t all Ashe’s money, and with what Coop did with Excelsior, the others (who are much bigger fish than Ashe) might want him to do the same with theirs. Coop also points out the part about his kidnapping, but DeMille claims he has no idea what that’s about. If DeMille isn’t lying, someone else has his eyes on Coop. This means that even with Ashe’s death, the danger is not gone yet. If anything, Coop has gotten even more entangled in the world of crime, and there is no going back.
Read More: Is Owen Ashe Dead? Did James Marsden Leave Your Friends and Neighbors?
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