Platonic’s first season came to an end on July 12 with a one-year time jump. The show chronicled the restart of Will and Sylvia’s very platonic friendship, which had an impact on the relationships around them, including Sylvia’s husband Charlie, played by Luke Macfarlane. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Luke about Charlie’s true feelings about his wife’s friendship with Will. (Note: this interview took place on July 10.)
“I think Charlie believes that you can’t abandon people, so I think he wants something to happen. He wants the friendship to exist,” Luke told HollywoodLife. “He was the person at the beginning of the series who says, ‘That’s what friends do. They reach out to people when they’re in trouble.’ In a lot of ways, maybe we’ll see another kind of troubling moment come up. Hopefully, Charlie can be a little bit less kept in the dark when they’re working on their new problems together. I think he really wants to believe that they can continue to be friends and they should continue to be friends.”
The time jump saw Will and Sylvia crossing paths again after having another falling out. While the first season ends on a hopeful note, there’s definitely more to explore with these characters. “It’s definitely been discussed,” the actor said about season 2. “It’s definitely something that a lot of people want to have. The details are tricky because of the strike, primarily. I know there’s definitely interest and conversations, but that’s about all I know.”
While there were certainly issues throughout the season, Charlie was an understanding husband about Sylvia’s close friendship with Will. He never made her choose between their relationship and her friendship with Will.
“Fundamentally, he is not going to be that guy,” Luke said about Charlie. “I also think just on a bigger sort of global idea is anytime we give somebody a set of rules, it almost means… when are you going to break them? In any aspect of life, assigning somebody a set of rules that are imposed upon them does not allow them to figure out what their own rules are. And that’s what a relationship should be about. It’s like, I think there’s a general understanding between the two of us, but I don’t think you can spell it out for anybody.”
The Bros actor added, “I think that he does have a very strong sense of self. He really does. I think that is at the core of it all. He believes that his love is real and that they actually have a good relationship. I think that is definitely at the core of it.”
Luke revealed that he knew from the beginning that Will and Sylvia’s relationship was “never going to end up in romantic territory.” However, he definitely felt the “palpable” tension and chemistry between Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen’s characters.
If the Apple TV+ series does get a season 2, Luke noted that he’d love to see Charlie have his own version of a platonic friend. “I think it was kind of suggested that maybe his work buddy is his platonic friend. I’d be interested to see what his version of a platonic relationship is,” he said. “But that being said, he’s also a guy that is so unconflicted about the family being the primary thing in his life. So what would I like to see for Charlie in season 2… I think I’d like to see Sylvia sharing a little bit more openly, and maybe feeling that she can trust him to sort of know about it. But then I’m saying all these things realizing I’m not a TV writer, and I’m like, well, where’s the tension, Luke? So I don’t know what the tension would be in season 2.” All episodes of Platonic season 1 are now streaming on Apple TV+.