Summary
Charlie emerges as the show’s real POV character and an increased amount of Stewart screen time gives Platonic an extra comedic boost.
This recap of Platonic Season 1 Episode 5, “My Wife’s Boyfriend”, contains spoilers.
I quite like Platonic, almost in spite of itself, but I can totally understand why someone would hate it. There’s something faintly horrifying about Seth Rogen, a man in his 40s, dressing like someone kicked him through a hip millennial thrift store. Nothing fits. I could live the rest of my life not having to see his bare calves for 30 minutes a week.
But that’s kind of the point. It’s a show about a man-child who eats at a bagel place called Yeastie Boys, mistakes Ari Lennox for Annie Lennox, and bleaches his hair after hearing that his new beau, Peyton, thinks Machine Gun Kelly is the hottest man on earth.
Platonic Season 1 Episode 5 Recap
I’m increasingly beginning to think that Charlie is the audience’s point-of-view character here. He’s the only person who seems to realize how weird it is to come home and find his wife bleaching her friend’s hair in the kitchen. And his burgeoning resistance to the dynamic is what makes Platonic interesting since it isn’t typical jealous husband pushback. Sylvia isn’t having an affair, after all. It’d almost be simpler if she were.
Why does Charlie invite Will to the Dodgers game?
Charlie tries to explain his feelings to Stewart — I still think there’s a whole show to be made about Guy Branum giving out sage relationship wisdom — and realizes he isn’t annoyed about Will and Sylvia potentially sleeping together but about the idea that their relationship is so relaxed and easygoing and fun that they definitely could sleep together if they wanted to. He finds the whole thing a bit smug. You can see what he means.
To try and remedy this, Charlie invites Will to an L.A. Dodgers game with the rest of his office, and then wildly overcompensates by trying to be his fun-loving best friend. There’s an excruciating extended bit in which he talks Will into eating a “Dodger Dog” Lady and the Tramp style while his colleague takes a picture, shouting about changing lenses like he’s swapping magazines under fire. Will knows this is weird, Sylvia knows it’s weird, and on some level, Charlie knows it’s weird — and that’s before his workmates start referring to Will as “your wife’s boyfriend”.
Luckily, with enough beer and Mexican food, you can get on with anybody, so Will and Charlie end up having a good time together. They go to Will’s bar, The Lucky Penny, to continue the festivities, get increasingly drunk, and show off their “secret skills”. Charlie’s is singing. Stewart’s is reciting all of the prime numbers up to 1000 (which is much funnier than it sounds — Drunk Stewart is a clear highlight of the entire episode.)
Will’s, it turns out, is replicating the bar dance from Coyote Ugly, which Sylvia reveals to everyone after Charlie invites her to the bar. And that, of course, turns out to be a mistake.
The festivities reach a fever pitch, and then in the quieter aftermath, things start going wrong. Charlie accidentally lets slip that Will is dating Peyton, which he lied to Sylvia about. Will, to defend himself, reveals that Charlie told all his colleagues that Will was Sylvia’s boyfriend (this is also weirdly spiteful and seems to imply a meaner streak in Will’s character than we’ve seen thus far — he knew what was doing here.)
Platonic Season 1 Episode 5 Ending Explained
At some point, it comes up that Sylvia did ketamine in Episode 4, and Will’s defense — he thought it was cocaine — doesn’t hold much water. Just as things seem to be getting out of hand, Will falls over behind the bar and gets a huge chunk of glass embedded in his forearm. When he pulls it out, it takes an artery with it, and Charlie is forced to heroically tend to him by ripping his shirt into a tourniquet, despite Omar standing by with a load of bar towels.
At least it leads to a breakthrough for everyone. Will spends the night with Peyton, and Charlie finally confesses to Sylvia that he has felt a little cut out of her life recently. He hopes he didn’t dull her party spirit, since that was part of why he fell in love with her in the first place.
The fact that Charlie’s solution to this is letting Sylvia give him blonde highlights suggests he hasn’t quite found the right way of dealing with the situation yet. Still, at least he’s making progress.
You can stream Platonic Season 1 Episode 5, “My Wife’s Boyfriend”, exclusively on Apple TV+.
