The laugh-out-loud Platonic season two was meant to be something else entirely

With a title like Platonic, it might read as a challenge, a test over whether heterosexual men and women really can just be friends. But the streaming comedy series never wavers in its conceit. It’s not a question mark, it’s a declaration.

So many man-woman friends have been set up to eventually fall in love after rounds of will-they-won’t-they. Mulder and Scully surrendered. So did Sam and Diane, Lorelei and Luke, Jess and Nick, and Robin and Ted. Harry and Sally most definitely did.

What’s rare on screen is the genuinely platonic friendship. Joan and Sherlock is one. Jack and Liz is another. “That’s what I enjoyed the most about 30 Rock,” co-creator of Platonic Nicholas Stoller told The Nightly.

“The reason we wanted to do this show is there really aren’t that many.”

The “we” is Stoller and Francesca Delbanco, who are, perhaps ironically for a comedy about platonic friendships, husband and wife. The two created the show after previously collaborating on Friends From College.

Platonic stars Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne as Will, a brewer, and Sylvia, an event planner, who have been friends since their university days. The first season saw them reunited after an estrangement triggered by Will’s ex-wife, and working through what they mean to each other and how they fit into their lives.

At no point was it ever a possibility that there could be something “more” to their relationship.

It was funny and goofy, and it explored the frustrations, redemptive power and the depth of their bond, and how it could be as significant as any romantic entanglement.

But it’s also a comedy, so there were a lot of shenanigans, messes and supporting characters - Sylvia’s husband Charlie (Luke Macfarlane), her friend Katie (Carla Gallo) and his workmate Andy (Tre Hale) – to highlight the absurdities of middle-age.

That was meant to be the end of it. Rogen and Byrne had signed up for the one season, and Stoller and Delbanco had intended Platonic to be an anthology series, moving onto a different set of characters each year.

“But then we had so much fun writing for Seth and Rose, and they are so incredible, and we were like, ‘What would be really great is if they would just keep doing the show’,” Delbanco recalled. “We worked up the courage to ask them, and then things kind of fell into place.”

Stoller has known Rogen for 25 years and Byrne for 15, and worked with them both on the two Bad Neighbours movies.

“We’re just friends at this point, and there’s a real comfort to us working together, getting the gang back together. We all respect each other and there’s a lot of trust. Besides being hysterical and talented, they’re also very pleasant people to hang out with when you’re making a TV show or movie.”

Delbanco and Stoller wrote that first season as having a beginning, middle and end.

Stoller added, “We had to blow up the tidy bow we put on the end of the first season. The stories ended up being kind of stranger because we had to dig so deep, and we went to places that we found more interesting than if we had known what we were getting into before we started.”

This surprise second season, which starts on Apple TV+ tomorrow, is funnier and goofier than its predecessor. It’s more confident in the way it explores the challenges in Will and Sylvia’s lives, and how each character influences the other into making good and bad choices.

It leans more heavily into physical comedy and is genuinely laugh-out-loud. One scene in a later episode set on the Los Angeles river, not exactly a landmark of natural beauty, was, Stoller said, “one of my favourite things I’ve ever been part of shooting, that just made me laugh so hard”.

At the core of Platonic are these two characters who are relatable, despite the ridiculousness of some of their situations.

“We set out to make this a show about midlife, and people at midlife in all different circumstances,” Delbanco explained.

“People who are divorced, people who are married, people who are raising children, people who never want children, people who are satisfied by their careers, people who have no careers, people who hate their careers.

“There’s a lot to be said about midlife. Oftentimes, it feels like searching shows are about people in their twenties, young people, and the family shows are about people whose lives are settled but you’ve got these crazy kids or something.

“My experience of midlife is certainly you’re a grown-up now, and you have grown-up responsibilities, and you have grown-up problems, but you still have all kinds of insecurities, and did you make the right choices?

“That’s what we wanted to represent.”

Platonic season two is streaming on Apple TV+ with new episodes weekly.