Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 Episode 6 Review: For Everything Else, There Was Bowling

Critic’s Rating: 5 / 5.0

5

Welcome to a Very Special Episode. Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 Episode 6 was a slice of life that, unless you’ve already tapped out of your family never to return, every one of us will experience at some point in our lives.

The adage that the only certainties in life are death and taxes lasted so long because it’s true. Humanity may have the power to change one of them, but it’s a long way off from warding off the other.

Because this particular hour isn’t a story about Coop as much as the human condition, I’ll be sharing a lot of personal thoughts. So, if you’re not interested and decide to tap out now, you’ll receive no judgment from me.

The creatives got every aspect of “For Everything Else, There Was Bowling” right from my perspective. It also gave Jon Hamm a chance to show off his skills with something beyond Coop’s normally stoic presence.

I’ve never realized how similar Coop’s family is to my own until we were right there in the midst of them on one of the worst days of their lives.

Beginning with the bickering over the casket and flowers, and the funeral director’s continual upsell, the reactions are spot on.

There is always someone in the family who wants the very best, and another who couldn’t care either way, and yet someone else who balks at the idea of spending thousands for something someone uses once and is never seen again.

Death is a massive business in this world, pathetically so. More time is spent on niceties that do nothing to truly honor the dead and have everything to do with how your family will be perceived by others.

Even attending a funeral comes with the same expectations, so it’s no wonder that capitalism has taken it over instead of society demanding something more meaningful from the experience.

Then again, how it’s evolved is partly because we all struggle with death. It’s so permanent, and wrapping your head around that is impossible. Do we have any illusions that religion sprouted not only to keep society in line but to help people cope with life’s impermanence?

So why not create an entire industry that will capitalize on grief? It makes sense. People aren’t in their right minds, and sometimes spending money is the easiest way to address the problem.

I swear, Coop’s mom, Marley, was channeling my mother. I lost my dad decades ago, so she was (and this is hard to believe) younger than me at the time, but who she is today is so much like Marley.

Doesn’t everyone’s mom act inappropriately during times of stress? 

Whether she was talking condescendingly to Ali under the guise of concern, complaining about the number of people in her small house, the caterers who can’t use a vegetable peeler, or giving away hedge clippers and removing the TV she never liked from the wall — all during what should have been a celebration of her husband’s life — I felt like I knew her.

It’s no surprise at all that Marley welcomed Ali’s ex and Ashe with open arms. Those charming fellows with black hearts often get preferential treatment from moms who miss the darkness underneath.

They also often forget that the reason their kids aren’t as charming in that moment is that they, too, are grieving.

The expectations to entertain and put on a good showing can be too much for some people. It’s as if by throwing a rocking afterparty for the funeral, you can send people who knew your loved one off with their best foot forward.

Ali discovered bits of herself in Ron’s desk, showing her how much she was loved. He had childhood artwork and a CD of her music, so Ali knew that she was always close to his heart.

Coop wasn’t looking for how his dad felt about him as much as he wanted to understand the man he had just lost. In his dad’s dresser were reflections of the man he was and what was important to him.

And it hurt Coop to think that, during a moment of celebration in the past, instead of thinking of his dad first, he bragged about his own lot in life by gifting Ron a $ 4,000 pair of Cartier cufflinks that he would never wear. He didn’t even have the right shirts to utilize them.

Yet Ron kept the box in his top drawer with life’s other meaningful tchotchkes, so even if the gift was useless, it meant enough to him to keep it within his grasp.

These are the times when you reassess who you are, how you experience life, and where you have been. Surely, Coop looked in that drawer and wondered what his children would find when he eventually passes.

But I can’t think of a more suitable way for Coop to have honored his father than picking up that bowling ball and heading to the lanes.

Ron and people like my parents came from a time when the bowling league was a rite of passage. Leagues were formed, and friends and memories were made.

Coop knew that his father’s league ended years earlier, but he had no idea he’d carried on a relationship with a woman learned to love long after.

It was from her that Coop discovered who his father truly was because Ron felt comfortable sharing things with Elaine that he didn’t with his family.

While he may have had the whole world he loved under one roof, that didn’t mean he couldn’t find even more beyond it.

The way Ron described Coop to Elaine made it sound as if he were a ticking time bomb. Ron was concerned for his son, wondering if he’d ever truly be happy. Not so much because he was incapable of it but because his expectations of what happiness meant were more extreme than his own.

Insight about those you love after you die rarely comes from inside. You find what mattered to them in the most unexpected places, and Coop discovered his father’s peace inside a beloved bowling alley with a woman he never knew existed.

Honestly, I was pretty blessed during my own experience. People truly did want to celebrate the man they knew. What surprised me most was how different my experience with my dad was from everyone else’s.

The stories people told hit me much the same way Elaine’s thoughts hit Coop. I always thought my father hated work. It turned out that after he had gone, people missed him for his keen insight into worldly events and his wicked sense of humor. 

If something happened in the world, people ran to my dad while getting their morning coffee because he’d be worth listening to.

People brought flasks to his wake, toasting the man they knew. They shared stories they may never have dared while he was alive.

Because of that, some of my best memories of my dad came after his death, and I hope that Elaine’s words for Coop, and knowing his dad had more than he ever imagined, help Coop find his own place in the world.

Death is tragic, but how we process it makes all the difference. Coop stepped away from tradition and received a beautiful gift in return.

How will this impact the rest of his life? I hope the remainder of Your Friends & Neighbors Season 2 explores that.

And yes, there were some other bits here and there with the kids and Mel, but this was Coop’s hour, so I’m stopping it here.

Please share your thoughts with me below, or at least rate the episode, so I know you’ve been here and what you thought of this introspective look at death and its aftermath.