Four Years Later, The Perfect Ozark Successor Is Dominating U.S. Streaming

Ozark may be gone, but Apple TV+ has a new crime saga with a wicked grin and white‑knuckle stakes—the most compelling heir to Breaking Bad since Walter White left the lab.

Miss the slow-burn chaos of a family man inching his way into full-blown criminal? Same. After Breaking Bad ended, Ozark stepped up and kept that itch scratched. Now, even though Ozark closed shop in 2022, Apple TV has a new fix: a dark, funny, suburban-rot crime story anchored by Jon Hamm. It is very much in the 'nice guy goes very not-nice' tradition, and it works.

From Breaking Bad to Ozark to... this

Breaking Bad set the bar for tragic, addictive, occasionally twisted-funny crime drama. Ozark grabbed that baton and ran with it: Jason Bateman played Marty Byrde, an accountant who yanked his family to the Ozarks so he could quietly launder money for a cartel. Then the locals got involved, the bodies piled up, and each season got darker than the last. That show wrapped in 2022.

Now comes Apple TV's two-season hit Your Friends and Neighbors, which slides neatly into that pipeline. It stars Jon Hamm as Andrew 'Coop' Cooper, a hedge fund guy turned financial manager turned... desperate suburban burglar. Yes, really.

The setup: a dad who refuses to downsize

Coop is recently divorced, emotionally numb, and suddenly jobless after losing a very cushy gig. Rather than level with his family and cut back, he decides the best way to keep everyone in the lifestyle they are used to is to break into the homes of his own wealthy neighbors and skim what he needs. It starts as a fix, then becomes a plan, then becomes a mess. The tone swings dark, tense, and sneakily funny as his life frays and control slips away.

It flips the current 'eat the rich' trend

Ozark dialed down the quirky humor compared to Breaking Bad. Your Friends and Neighbors takes a different tack. We have spent the last few years watching pop culture gleefully roast the ultra-rich, and audiences have eaten it up. This show taps that energy and then twists it: you end up rooting for Coop to get away with it, even as the series makes it very clear he is not morally superior to the people he is robbing. It has the satirical bite of the moment but still humanizes its monsters the way shows like The White Lotus and Succession do.

• Recent 'the rich are not alright' touchpoints: Glass Onion, The Menu, Death of a Unicorn, Triangle of Sadness, Ready or Not, Saltburn, The Fall of the House of Usher

Jon Hamm, back in antihero mode

Hamm is magnetic here, giving his best TV turn since Don Draper. Different guy, same moral quicksand. The performance sells the show’s tricky balance: we see the rot and still track with him. That, plus clever storytelling, sharp twists, and a strong supporting cast, makes Your Friends and Neighbors a worthy companion to Ozark and Breaking Bad in the 'I should not be rooting for this guy, and yet...' category.

The series is already a streaming success in the U.S., and it is sitting at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. Two seasons in, it is the kind of binge that scratches the exact Ozark-shaped hole without feeling like a knockoff.