The Smiths vs Hot Neighbour: a bar cart face-off

Editor's note: Spoilers are ahead for those who have not finished the series.

Francesca, with production designer Gerald Sullivan and set decorator Andrew Baseman, meticulously crafted the interiors for the Smith’s home to reflect their covert identity as a stylish pair of young and wealthy software engineers. Every detail—including the bar selection—contributes to a vision of luxury that’s equal parts hipster and decadence. “We wanted to think about the ultimate fantasy of what [a home] could look like,” says Francesca. “And we wanted John and Jane to have experience.”

Andrew adds that what he calls a “warm version of luxury” conveys that the company John and Jane work for is insightful enough to know how to conceal the home's true, impersonal nature.

While the rest of the house wears the disguise of intimacy, the whiskey cellar is where Jane and John get to unmask. This is the room where they’re allowed to be assassins, and it shows in the minimal design of the room. While this space doesn’t need to play pretend like the rest of the house, it doesn’t skimp on luxury. Andrew lined the walls with a selection of whisky and cognac that signals decadence over value, like Henessy XO, which retails for around $350 per bottle (there are 4 bottles on the shelf).

Hot Neighbour’s bar cart, however, tells a different story.

“We wanted the hot neighbour character to be very specific,” says Francesca. Adding that she and Donald wanted him to be “mysterious and strange.”

While he may read as suspicious in early episodes of the show, when we see his bar cart in the final episode, it acts as a very subtle foreshadowing of his true identity. “Typically, the reveal would be that he was working for the same company while he was living right next door,” says Francesca. “We were like, ‘ok, let's make it get as close to that as we possibly can. And then make it stupid.’”

The twist is that Hot Neighbour is actually a Sotheby’s real-estate analyst. And knowing a thing or two about valuations, his home bar is sensible and well-rounded. Not audacious like that of the Smiths. The bar features one of each essential spirit and an impressive mix of legacy brands like Tanqeray and craft distillers like Madre Mezcal. The mix of prices also shows that Hot Neighbour is curating his cart in favour of quality, not luxury.

While the Smiths' opulent whiskey cellar reminds us of their true identities as high-paid assassins, Hot Neighbour's understated bar cart hints at his thoroughly unexciting life as a numbers guy. By curating two very different home bars, Francesca and Andrew deepen the narrative, revealing the characters' complexities and foreshadowing their true selves with such precision we’re left wondering what ours might say about us.