Season One of Apple TV+’s Platonic was refreshing for its refusal to sexualize a friendship between two adults of the opposite sex. There were no “oops we kissed” moments, no will-they-won’t-they tension, no last-minute coupling that betrayed the premise. It was a comedy that dared to say “these two people love each other – but not like that.”

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Rose Byrne’s Sylvia, a married, slightly square mom of three, reunites with her college bestie Will (Seth Rogen), a chaotic brewmaster in the middle of a divorce. They hadn’t spoken in years but, when they reconnect, there are no sparks. It’s just the wreckage of old habits and the joy of rediscovered friendship. 

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The first season clicked thanks to Byrne and Rogen’s crackling comic chemistry, and a writing team that tossed them into one entertaining disaster after another.

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Season Two picks up with Will about to marry Jenna (Rachel Rosenbloom), the high-powered CEO of the corporate brewery where he works and, essentially, his boss. Sylvia, having reinvented herself as a party planner, is organizing their wedding. It’s a solid premise: the tidy, Type-A Jenna is everything Will is not. So, naturally, he implodes.

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Because of course he does. Will is still a giant manchild with a gift for self-sabotage, and Sylvia is still the long-suffering friend who gets roped into cleaning up his messes, to great comic effect.

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Where Season One examined the world’s suspicion of opposite-sex friendships, Season Two shifts to something even trickier: how hard it is to make, and keep, real friends as an adult. The show mines this theme for both laughs and gut punches, as Sylvia and Will try (and fail, and try again) to evolve as people without exploding their friendship.

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Will waffles constantly over his future with Jenna, leaning on Sylvia to sort out his chaos. Jenna, for her part, is a fully formed adult: polished, ambitious, with a close-knit family and zero patience for Will’s emotional adolescence. It’s a dynamic that forces everyone – including Sylvia – to ask what they’re really getting out of these relationships.

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Along the way, there are wild plot swings (some literal), clever cameos (LOTS of former SNL cast members), and a welcome expansion of the core ensemble. 

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Charlie (Luke Macfarlane), Sylvia’s husband, gets an absurd and very funny arc as he attempts to reinvent himself as a mystery novelist, complete with a ridiculous writing hat and surreal cutaways that dramatize his worst ideas. It’s goofy, but Macfarlane sells the heck out of it.

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Carla Gallo’s Katie, Sylvia’s other best friend, also gets more screen time and makes the most of it. Her scenes with Will are standouts, as the two chaos goblins egg each other on through a series of terrible life choices. Katie is more on Will’s stunted wavelength than Sylvia is, and Gallo proves she’s more than game to go toe-to-toe with Rogen. It’s a blast to watch. 

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Meanwhile, Guy Branum quietly continues to steal every scene he’s in as Stewart, Charlie’s colleague at the law firm. With impeccable line delivery and even better body language, Branum wrings gold out of every moment. More of him, please.

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If there’s a knock against the season, it’s that the overall arc feels looser and less cohesive than Season One. That’s not necessarily a dealbreaker. Platonic thrives in chaos, but the show occasionally struggles to stitch its episodic hijinks into something bigger. 

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Will is still drifting. He’s clearly talented when it comes to brewing beer, but he can’t quite figure out who he is or what he wants. Sylvia, meanwhile, finds success planning events for a bratty celebrity and a major production studio, but it’s never clear whether her heart is really in it.

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Still, the engine that drives the show – Byrne and Rogen’s comedy dynamic – remains rock-solid. They feel like real friends, leaning into each other’s strengths and flaws in ways that are lived-in, believable, and funny as hell. Even when the story wobbles, their bond gives the series its emotional core.

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Season Two is messier, sure. A little off the rails at times? Definitely. But it’s also smart, funny, and sneakily poignant.

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Platonic continues to prove that not every great love story has to be romantic, and that sometimes friendship is the most complicated relationship of all.