When Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen share the screen, you know you’re going to laugh: nervously or joyfully, depending on your tolerance level. The two rarely play “likable” leads — quite the opposite. They’re adults only by age, since they think and act like overgrown kids. In English, there’s even a term for it: arrested development, when maturity gets “frozen” and people keep reacting as if they were still in their twenties. And when it comes to embodying narcissistic, complicated, and gloriously dysfunctional characters, they excel. Together or apart. But especially together.

After the hit Neighbors (2014), they returned for Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016) and even shared the screen in Like a Boss (2020). They became a kind of professional duo of chaos. In their reunion with Platonic, they’re doing more of the same — and that’s a compliment. Their chemistry doesn’t rely on romance but on their uncanny ability to play characters who exist at the border between absurdity and believability, balancing charm with irritation.

Platonic was created by Francesca Delbanco and Nicholas Stoller with a straightforward premise: to portray the non-romantic misadventures of a friendship that thrives on chaos. Sylvia (Byrne) is a mother suffocated by routine, while Will (Rogen), freshly divorced, is stuck in an existential crisis. Old college friends, they reconnect and set off a chain of disasters — late-night drinking, public fights, juvenile antics trapped in middle-aged bodies.

The first season tracks this volatile reunion. Sylvia finds in Will an escape valve from the suffocating domestic grind, while he clings to her as proof that life hasn’t already passed him by. The result is two adults behaving like college students — only now with kids, spouses, exes, and bosses forced to watch from the sidelines. The ending makes it clear that while their friendship destabilizes everything around them, it’s also the one space where they both feel truly free.

The second season, released in August 2025, is more confident than ever. Sylvia realizes she needs Will’s chaos as much as she fears its consequences, while he tries to reinvent himself professionally but keeps tripping over his own flaws. Critics have been even kinder: the show scored a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, proof that Byrne and Rogen can carry almost anything, even when the plot seems to be nothing more than watching two adults running away from adulthood.

But here’s the rub: what becomes increasingly obvious is that Platonic lives on the thinnest thread of story. We suffer through Will and Sylvia’s mistakes and messes, but we drift along with them with no real sense of direction. There’s no arc, no transformation, which makes it harder and harder to justify the unbelievable situations they find themselves in.

Meanwhile, 2026 could bring prestige for both leads outside of the show: Seth Rogen is the frontrunner for the 2025 Emmy with Studio, where he plays yet another acidic version of his signature persona, and Rose Byrne sparked Oscar buzz after shining in Berlin with They Listen. With momentum like that, Apple TV+ may well push for a third season of Platonic.

But honestly, the lingering question is: why?