Platonic (Apple+)

0:01 Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore. I'm a producer, writer of film and television and now a podcast producer. And despite having every streaming service, I never know what to watch. So anytime I watch something good, I talk about it on this show. This way, you'll never have the same problem I do. I watched this tonight. There's always something good to watch. Let's get started. Today on the show, we are talking about the new Apple Plus series Platonic. This is basically a show about Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne as Platonic friends, right, pretty straightforward what I think is interesting about it, And I realized that I was kind of watching this show so Seth Rogen it's probably just a little bit older than me. And he's just enough older than me that he keeps getting movies or TV shows made where he dissects a period of life that I'm pretty close to. When that thing comes out, So, for example, super Bad comes out, I was in college, so I really remembered high school pretty vividly. Knocked up comes out. You know, I was a twenty something idiot, So that's like Pineapple Express comes out, you know, again, twenty something idiot Neighbors comes out, you know, not long after that, I end up getting married and becoming like the characterist that he plays in

1:34 The Neighbors, How are you kidding? All? And now platonic, And it's just so funny that, like he keeps making these things that I'm really able to relate to in terms of stage of life. It's almost like I'm growing up with him in a weird way, and I think that his great strength is making stuff that is extremely relatable and derives its humor from its just total honesty. The most realistic part of the first episode of this show is rose Byrne, who has three kids. She goes to a party and leaves almost immediately and then realizes in horror that it's ten fifteen at night, which is a thousand percent something that I would do, something that my wife and I would do. It's just different life phases, right. So rose Burne's character has kids, seth Rogen's character does not, and they're is strange platonic friends that sort of come back together. And you clearly see that like stuff that is I do think is relatable of this phase of life. So if I have a friend who wants and we want to see each other. Seeing me is like you gotta like it's like booking the time with the president.

2:43 Not that I'm important, just that I have no time because I'm just you know, always either dealing with my kids, are working. And then conversely, if you don't have kids, I think you have quite a bit of time to do stuff like that. So there's there's a you know, you see repeated the show where he's trying to connect with her and be like, let's hang out that, how about this time? How about that time? She's like, Nope, you can't do it, can't do it, can't do it. So all that felt just super relatable to me. I also really like in the pilot they established, and again it's not a spoiler, they estoplished the pilot that Seth Rogan cheated on his wife essentially out of insecurity, and I liked that they had the confidence to indicate to us that pretty clearly he was the problem, like we we end up finding out later.

3:25 Again, this is very very minor spoilers, Like, you know, this is not the kind of show that you can really spoil. You find out later that he when he was married, he would talk to Rose Byrne, like until four o'clock in the morning on the phone, and it messed up his marriage, and so he cheated on his wife. He had a platonic female friend that he would talk to all the time, even like late at night, instead of talking to his wife. You could see where these would these things would torpedo a marriage. So I just liked that. You know, the more obvious choice would be make his ex wife the worst person in the world, so that you have sympathy for Seth Rogan, but it's the opposite. They clearly the show that he was kind of in the wrong in a lot of different ways. So I like that that was to me, that felt like something that was a more mature storyteller. And you know, I should say that this is not The show was created by Francesca del Blanco.

4:14 Francesca del Blanco and Nicholas Stoller. Nicola Stoler obviously very accomplished filmmaker forgetting Starr Marshall, get him to the Greek the Five Year Engagement neighbors, and Francesco's novelists and screenwriter. And it's cool that it's a male and a female creator because obviously the show sort of pivots around male and female characters, So said Rogan and rose Burn reconnect. They end up hanging out all night. They go to like a Denny's, and you know they've For Rose Byrne, this would be like the wildest night she's had in years. And for Saith, Rogan's very clear that this is a completely normal night. And they leave Denny's at like whatever one o'clock in the morning or something, and he's like, what do you want to do now? When you get Korean barbecue, She's like, are you out of your mind to go home? So again, I just all that stuff I really like. I mean, it's cool.

5:00 This is a show that like, if you have kids, if you're in that phase of your life, you'll be able to relate to it. If you don't have kids, but you're a friends of your kids would be able to relate to it. If you've ever had a platonic friend of the opposite sex would be able to relate to it. There's just a lot of stuff in here that covers a wide range of the human experience in terms of relatability. There's a moment at the end of the pilot where Seth Rogan and Roseburn have conflict. They yell at each other, and so then something happens where she has I would say what it is, but it's a Chekhov's gun situation involving sex. It's anyway, something happens that it's sort of this funny thing, and she texts him really late at night about it, and he texts her back and he's like delighted that she tried it, and then they just start joking around with each other over text, even though they just had a big fight. And it was a really effective evocation of friendship, because that's what friendship is. That somebody who can talk to about anything. You can are embarrassing stuff with you can, you enjoy their company. You just like talking to them. It's fun to be around them. And that's also the fun of the show is it's just fun to hang out with Seth Rogan rose Burn. They had this great chemistry in Neighbors, and you know that chemistry hasn't gone away. I watched the first three episodes, which are the only episodes available as I'm recording this. I'm just going to touch on some stuff from the three. Again, none of this is spoilers, so it's not going to impede your enjoyment of them, and I think it'll help you decide if you want to watch them or not. There's a moment in episode two that was so painfully relatable to me where Rose Burne and her husband are

6:34 getting the kids ready for school and one of the kids like, I need a beret and a baguette for French class, and she's like, what the fuck are you talking? Like, this is the first time hearing about it. This is something that happens to my wife and I like once a week where there's something the next day at school that we didn't know about, and they're like, we have to rush out, and you know, I'm at Walmart at like you know, ten thirty at night trying to find like a pink shirt or something. There's a great bit that will be recognizable to any parent where Seth Rogan goes to Roseburn's house, which is a great detail, and they leave, they don't call attention to it at all, and he's drinking from this little apple sauce pouch, which is the exact brand of apple sauce pouch that I have in my house at any time. If you break into my house tonight, you'll find it in there, and I'm sure every other parent has. I just thought there was a great little detail and funny, and they love when shows have little details like that. But they don't make a big thing of it. There's no clothes up of it, nobody makes a comment on it. It's just a funny little visual gag. A big part of the second episode is that Roseburne wants to buy this house and is insisting, insisting that she wants to buy this house, and it's only Seth Rogan because he's her friend that can be totally honest. They're about it in a way really that you can't be honest even with like family, Like there is a thing about your friends where it's a little bit removed, so there's not all that like emotional stuff where you have to be very delicate, like you know, you can in some situations probably be more brutally honest friends that of you know, the your immediate loved one. So I just thought that that was again they do a really good job of pointing out the things

8:07 that are unique to platonic friends. They also do a good job of pointing out again differences and where you are in life. So in episode three, Seth Rogan doesn't want to sell out. He has an opportunity, a business opportunity. He's a part owner of a bar, and a business opportunity comes along and he thinks that if they do it, it's selling out and he won't be cool anymore, which is totally idiotic. And again, once you, once you have the responsibility of keeping kids alive, you will sell out immediately. I will sell out tonight if I get an offer from McDonald's the show would be watch McDonald's tonight, featuring only films with hamburgers. I'll do it immediately. So you know, yeah, it's just one of the thingson where you're younger you think about stuff like that. You get older, like that doesn't matter. Just if you can get some money, go ahead and get that money. Also in episode three, there's a quick shot of this guy who's like the owner of this other business that Seth Rogan has this opportunity with, and it's the husband of the neighbor from Shrinking, and it really felt like we're in the Marvel cinematic universe of Apple shows where Apple has just I would love to know there must have been something they found in their research or something about audiences where they're like, you know, we're just going to make a bunch of shows that are just a sense of just about real people in like real situations and maybe a little bit heightened in the concept in some way. But you know, comfortable, fun easily to watch shows that make you feel good. And I think that's this show. I think that's shrinking in a slightly different way the Big Door Prize also, so this very comfortably

9:41 fits into the Apple brand. Now, I said a lot of nice stuff about the show. I am sorry to say that I was like all in and then there was a moment at the end of the third episode, and I won't say what happens, but it was a moment where they make a big choice and the show had so completely sold on it being real. I'd so invested in it as real that when this moment happened, I I literally had to pause the show cover my face as a blanket because I was so uncomfortable. And I immediately thought like, this is a disaster, Like this is gonna this will you might get divorced over this. This is like a really big deal that this happened. And they play it off like it's not a big deal, which is not true. It's not real. It's not reality what happens at the end of the third episode, and I really hope that they don't just toss it off and we go an episode four like nothing happened, you know. I hope that there are consequences from it. It was the first time in three episodes that it felt a little strained, and it felt a little like, oh, we're just going for this gag, but then we're not going to actually address the realistic ramifications of it. So I hope that that's not what happens. I do feel like that was like the one moment. It's a shame that they put it at the end of the last episode they made available upon the release of the show, so it sort of looks a bad taste of my mouth. Again, I'm not spoiling it, but if you've watched Platonic, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, if you've seen the third episode, And I would really love to know if you felt the same way, or if you thought it was funny or

11:11 what. But I was like, the one thing that just kind of threw me a bit a bar from that, though, this is a delight. It's so great to see him, you know, and her together again. And you know, there was always this criticism of the Jed Apatow movies that they were too long, right, they were sort of these rambling kind of style, but it was it made you put you into a world. I mean, I didn't mind the length, but in television it does feel like, actually, in some ways a better fit for this sort of material, where it can be long, but it's separated by episodes and you're just exploring these characters. And I would say, as far as the characters, that's the other thing is the husband of Rose Burne so far is the weak link in terms of not feeling one hundred percent like a real person because he's too nice, he's too perfect in his case. I'm really pretty confid they're going to subvert that at some point. We're gonna find out something about him that muddies him up and all that kind of stuff. So I'm interested to see if that happens as well. Overall, definitely easy to recommend, very enjoyable show. Slight a little you know, cracks in the armor, I think here and there, but you know, definitely overall, I really enjoyed it, and I think you will too. That is the show for today.

12:22 Before I go, I want to thank everybody who sent me really positive feedback on the Richard Wank episode. I think I had probably like six different people who send me a message or something and said they really enjoyed it, and I did too, So I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm really, you know, just glad I kept that on the record. I have a lot of respect for Richard and when he's accomplished in his career, so that's pretty cool. That's it for now until next time. Bye bye four