'Your Friends & Neighbors' is unafraid to tackle the indignities of middle age

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Set us as preferred In the Season 2 premiere of “Your Friends & Neighbors,” Jon Hamm’s Coop falls on his back while trying to steal a $100,000 Montblanc pen.Coop has fallen before.

This time, he can’t get up.After spending the first season trying to outrun the consequences of losing his job, his marriage and his place among Westchester’s elite, time — and middle age — have finally caught up with him.For Jonathan Tropper, the creator, showrunner and executive producer of the Apple TV series, the moment reveals “a vulnerability, a weakness in the armor” for Coop.

“It’s so normal and it’s so quotidian, to fall,” Tropper says.“And at the same time, for him, it could mean getting arrested.”It’s not just Coop, either.

His ex-wife Mel, played by Amanda Peet, has to confront the changes that come with perimenopause.None of it is treated as a revelation or a joke; it’s just one more thing to deal with in a life built around trying to keep up appearances.

Rather than becoming an exceptional storyline, aging is an essential part of these characters’ lives.Like much of the show, the season’s details of middle age came from conversations Tropper heard around him during his years among Westchester’s ultrarich — many of them in the sauna or steam room.“PRP, stem cells, cold plunges, GLP-1s,” he says.

“Everyone in their 50s is consumed with staving off the inevitable.”But while men and women may share similar anxieties, the show embraces how differently that plays out: When Mel tries to have sex in the car after a first date, for instance, she’s interrupted by vaginal dryness, a symptom of perimenopause.“I loved that scene when I read it,” 54-year-old Peet says.“I loved that I had more sex scenes in my menopause season than in any other season… [Mel]’s not just this invisi...