Warning: This post contains spoilers for Season 2 of “Platonic.”
It’s official: As of the “Platonic” Season 2 finale, Sylvia (Rose Byrne) and Will (Seth Rogen) are changing their friendship status to business partners.
Co-created, directed and written by married couple Nicholas Stoller and Francesca Delbanco, “Platonic” follows two former college friends now in their 40s as they help one another navigate their messy midlife eras. After a long estrangement, Sylvia and Will reunited in Season 1. In Season 2, they weather new changes.
Delbanco, who was a novelist prior to becoming a screenwriter, wanted “Platonic” to explore questions around what a fulfilled life really entails.
“It is possible to love your life and still look around and think, ‘This is it?’” Delbanco says. “The path of adulthood is, by necessity, about closing doors to things that you might have also liked to do. It doesn’t mean you don’t like the choices you made. It means you miss having a choice.”
This middle-aged angst is where comedy and drama become one.
“We always start with asking ourselves, ‘What is the emotional story we’re telling?’ because when you’re honest, that’s what’s funniest,” says Stoller, who worked on comedy films like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “The Muppets,” and “Neighbors.”
While Season 1 ended with Will’s engagement to his Johnny 66 boss Jenna (Rachel Rosenbloom), the new season picks up with an indecisive Will questioning if his happily ever after should include Jenna. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t. But don’t worry, she can always look into her father’s ruptured eye and be reminded of Will. (The disaster that is episode “Fore!” will make you think twice about hitting the green.)
With nowhere else to go, Will ends up living in Sylvia’s standalone dwelling unit, which only accentuates their different lifestyles. But what keeps this bickering, yet inseparable friendship alive is they keep each other accountable, holding a mirror up against one another.
“They can be truth tellers toward each other and can call each other out on their shit,” Stoller says. Delbanco explains these friends can outright tell each other, “You’re annoying me” or “Shut up,” which offers a fun dynamic to explore.
After an embarrassing loss on “Jeopardy!”, Sylvia’s husband, Charlie (Luke Macfarlane), quits his law firm in pursuit of writing a novel. Irritated he left their family in financial instability, Sylvia avoids reading his manuscript by kayaking the Los Angeles River with Will and her friend Katie (Carla Gallo). While Will and Katie enjoy splashing around in the contaminated waters, Sylvia finds it difficult to appreciate the beauty of seagulls.
When Sylvia finally forces herself to read the legal adventures of “Brett Coyote,” Sylvia discovers Will had encouraged Charlie to leave his job. As a result, Sylvia tells Will to move out and accepts a full-time job as an in-house event planner for a production company with a boss who loves to call everyone “b—h” (Aidy Bryant).
So where does that leave us in the season finale?
While Sylvia struggles with nonstop travel for work, Charlie suffers from writer’s block. (Byrne’s real-life partner Bobby Cannavale guest stars as Charlie’s protagonist in imagined sequences.)
During an emotional goodbye to their 2012 Honda Odyssey, Sylvia motivates Charlie to keep writing and even organizes a book release party for “Brett Coyote.” At his book launch, Charlie tells his friend and coworker, Stewart (Guy Branum), he misses work and wants to return to law.
Upon finding out Jenna issued a revengeful noncompete, halting the opening of Will’s new bar, Sylvia comforts Will and urges him to keep his business dreams alive. When Charlie and Stewart inform them the only way around a noncompete is to have someone else be the face of the company, Sylvia raises her hand.
For Stoller and Delbanco, this was not the first time they thought of mixing friendship and business on “Platonic.”
“We tried to do it this season over a few episodes and even in the first season, but it’s such a massive plot point that we realized this is not an episode idea, but a season idea,” Stoller says.
Starting a business will not only be prime for numerous comedic fights in a potential Season 3, which is not yet confirmed, but also serve as a practical tool for storytelling.
“As much as we would all love to hang out with our friends, it doesn’t dovetail with the life of an adult in their midlife. This way, it gives Sylvia and Will an excuse to be together all day, every day,” Delbanco says.
As for the real-life married duo? Stoller and Delbanco find working together to be much more effortless than Sylvia and Will.
“We share a tone much more than I thought,” Stoller says. “It’s rare that we disagree. But I know if Francesca doesn’t like something, it probably won’t work. She has a rare, keen instinct as to whether something is going to work both emotionally and comedically.”
Even on what feels like the longest day, what Delbanco appreciates most is how Stoller excels at keeping the energy up in the writers’ room.
“I am lucky to get to experience it in my normal life when we’re all having breakfast together,” Delbanco says. “But seeing it in a professional context, I am reminded of how powerful it is to make a room full of exhausted people laugh.”