‘Your Friends & Neighbors’: I Was Wrong About Olivia Munn, Sam Is the Perfect Anti-villian of the Story
Jon Hamm, Amanda Peet, and Olivia Munn star in Apple TV+’s dark comedy-crime drama Your Friends & Neighbors is one of the most watched shows on Apple TV+ currently. The storyline of the show has managed to capture the attention of the audience right from episode one, and it’s just a couple of days from its season one finale.
Your Friends & Neighbors is already renewed for the second season, and the showrunner is extremely thrilled to be continuing the story for one more season. While we still wait to know who killed Paul Levitt, his wife, Sam, played by Olivia Munn, has been on and off the radar, and we examined why.
Is Olivia Munn’s Sam serving an anti-villain arc in Your Friends & Neighbors?
Olivia Munn plays the character of Samantha Levitt in Your Friends & Neighbors, the one who had been hooking up with Jon Hamm’s Andrew Cooper and the one whose husband’s mysterious death has been looming over everyone’s head. Especially Coop. But what’s interesting is no one suspects Sam [except the audience for sure] because very conveniently after breaking up with Coop from their friends-with-benefits arrangement, she goes to visit her parents in Boston, and that same night, Paul Levitt is murdered.
Of course, she’d have an alibi because she did go to meet her parents, but what we didn’t see was how she might have strategically planned Paul’s murder. The deceased gave Olivia Munn’s character enough reasons to kill him, but, she’s a smart woman, and she’d never dip her hands in the pool of blood. She has money, motive and can get the work done. When Mel meets her at the bar, she tells her that she does not know how to grieve about Paul because she feels nothing.
Now, either she does not feel anything because she got him killed, which meant that there was no emotional connection, or the fact that he was such a horrible husband to her that she didn’t get bothered by his death. Whatever the reason, Olivia Munn’s Sam perfectly embodies the anti-villain arc in Your Friends & Neighbors. Her behavior towards Coop suddenly changed after he didn’t respond to her feelings the way she thought he would.
Sam got hurt by Coop’s attitude and thus decided to pin Paul Levitt’s murder on him. When their affair was caught on nanny cam, she texted someone after leaving the station, and it was not Coop. Sam has been acting strange ever since the memorial, which makes her suspicious. Please note, that Paul Levitt clearly stated that he’d make sure that she’d not get any penny in their divorce, and he sort of insults her at the party, which just adds to the list of reasons why Samantha would go after her husband.
And because she’s angry at Coop, he becomes a scapegoat for her. Sam knew that everyone in town would believe that it was Coop who had motives to kill him. Everyone saw them fighting and when it was revealed that Sam & Coop had been hooking up, the narrative changed to because of Sam, Coop might have killed Paul.
We are just an episode away from knowing if it was actually Sam who planned everything or did someone else hate Paul much more than Sam!
Olivia Munn’s acting is exceptionally good as Sam, as she does a lot with her facial expressions. She makes sure to not show a lot of emotion or any less, making the character have her perfect anti-villain arc in the show. She as been appreciated for her work on the show. The show holds about 81% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes making it one of the favorites for the season.
Olivia Munn did not want any special treatment because of her health
The actress who was diagnosed with breast cancer spoke to the LA Times, where she noted that she is ready to reclaim her life as a public figure. Munn wants to be vocal about being a parent, a wife, and a survivor of cancer. She, however, does not want to have any special treatment.
Munn said to the publication,
That’s how I handle life. I don’t like it when it’s sugarcoated. I don’t like to be placated. Going through a year of battling cancer and five surgeries, the goal is not to be known as a sick person. The goal is to get to the other side and be back to normal.
When asked about her reaction to being offered Your Friends & Neighbors, she said that there’s a carelessness with which the people on the show live their lives. She added that they feel impervious to the world, and it’s fascinating to watch these people crumble. Describing Sam Levitt, Olivia Munn noted that she’s a survivor and she’s going to do anything to maintain her place and take care of her children.
Olivia Munn’s cancer had returned, and she informed Jonathan Tropper, assuring him that she’d show up on set. Tropper, while speaking to the publication, mentioned,
We committed to doing what we had to do on the show to make sure she was resting when she needed to rest and that we could do what we could with her schedule to make sure she got the time she needed for her health.
The actress is going to return for season two of Your Friends & Neighbors, and Tropper had revealed that they only planned to have Sam Levitt for one season, but it was Olivia Munn’s work that made them decide to extend Sam’s stay on the show.
Your Friends & Neighbors is currently streaming on Apple TV+ (US), and the finale episode is going to premiere on May 30, 2025, on Apple TV+.
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