It’s a quirk of the streaming release schedule that a performer can with an Emmy for recent show even as an entirely unrelated show runs on the same channel, as if hedging against the other show’s riskiness. It can become like a Choose Your Own Adventure version of TV, with viewers (and awards voters) potentially selecting which vehicle becomes that actor’s signature gig for the next few years. (Except with Nicole Kidman, who seems to choose All of the Above whenever possible.) If that’s the case, count me among the minority of viewers casting a vote for Platonic as the better use of Seth Rogen’s time, as opposed to The Studio, which just won him an Emmy for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series.

He also shared awards for writing and directing, among the show’s record number of wins for a first-season comedy, so clearly The Studio isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Nor should it; it’s a clever and technically ambitious Hollywood satire that’s clearly a labor of love for Rogen and his longtime creative partner Evan Goldberg. That said, the Apple TV+ sitcom that actually better fits Rogen’s whole deal, and prompted more and bigger laughs from me than the elaborate “wow!” of The Studio’s magic-trick oners and endless parade of major guest stars, is Platonic, which just concluded its second season to somewhat less buzz or attention.

That a second season even existed is something of a surprise – the first season is quite good, but ends on a pretty conclusive note establishing that Will (Rogen) and his platonic on-and-off bestie Sylvia (Rose Byrne) have helped get each other through transitional periods in their lives, and come out the other end of it feeling like more fulfilled, better-rounded adults. (Like so many streaming projects, it was originally conceived as a limited series, not an ongoing show.) Rogen has made plenty of odes to the power of male friendship – Superbad remains one of the best teen comedies ever because of that emotional throughline – but Platonic feels like a companion to Judd Apatow’s adult-growth bro comedies like Knocked Up, one that does a better job of rounding out its female lead’s comic foibles, rather than having her serve as the straight woman to a dude’s antics. As such, the first season of Platonic felt like it could have been a movie – not in its narrative structure, which was well-parceled out into discrete episodes, but in its mix of comic set pieces and eventual closure. Its stars, Rogen and Byrne, even made a pair of funny Neighbors movies together along with several Platonic staffers. In a less streaming-centric world, Platonic almost certainly would have been a cinematic reteaming of the pair, casting them as buddies instead of husband and wife.

But the show was apparently well-liked enough to generate a second season. (Whether Apple wants a third in the wake of The Studio’s success remains a question, though the creative participants all sound enthusiastic; maybe that means it becomes something to help keep one of Apple’s key players happy.) Turning Platonic into a multi-season show involved undoing the previous year’s closure, so at the beginning of Season 2, it turns out that the corporate job and grown-up relationship Will found himself in at the end of season one isn’t quite as idyllic as he might have hoped, while Sylvia’s party-planning business is doing well enough to eat up a lot of her time, causing friction in her marriage to Charlie (Luke Macfarlane). To some extent, Platonic is the Los Angeles version of the New York-set Friends from College, the previous comedy series from married creators Nicholas Stoller and Francesca Delbanco, which is to say an ongoing debate about whether longtime friends have outgrown each other, set against the backdrop of the way-upper-middle-class version of strife.

If you can get past that, though, Platonic is also a smart riff on sitcom dynamics. It uses its streaming-style greater scope and episode budget to get further out into the city than a standard sitcom of the past, which would tend to utilize a few sets to stand in for a particular shade of local color, and the expectation of an ongoing story to develop a bit of soapy interest in Will’s love life, Sylvia and Charlie’s marriage, and other material more akin to a light drama than a standard sitcom. But Stoller and Delbanco also have a good sense of how to structure episodes around particular events – here, there are multiple episodes centering on various parties and social occasions, assuring that they have some stand-alone value.

The hybrid approach is even clearer in the characters themselves, because the show is essentially about two people wondering if they ought to be aging out of the sitcom antics that power so many shows about twenty-and-thirty-somethings. Sylvia in particular is caught between a domestic sitcom, where she runs a three-child, one-lizard household with her normie husband, and a zanier world of Los Angeles hipsters represented by Will (who is distinguished from other Rogen characters primarily by an absolutely hideous haircut and a lot of ugly yet expensive clothing). Again, it’s easy to imagine this as the thin plot of any number of Apatow or Stoller movies, with set pieces and improv runs hanging on the general clothesline of two people trying to get their lives together. But by sprawling out to ten episodes, Platonic shows both episodic discipline and longer-term character development. Some overlong Apatow-world features feel like TV pilots that start to bleed into a full season; Platonic just goes ahead and makes that season.

This particular season has included some especially memorable dialogue riffs, including an indelible gag about Will and his old buddy Wild Card (Beck Bennett) being unable to stop extolling the general bodaciousness of Sydney Sweeney, and a season-finale bit on Celsius energy drinks that will stick with me indefinitely. The show uses its guest stars well, with SNL alumni Bennett, Kyle Mooney, and Aidy Bryant all appearing in oddball side roles. And in general, it all feels like a natural progression for Rogen, who is no longer playing a pure slacker, but a guy caught between indulging what he loves (beer) and turning that into a livelihood (whether that’s working as a brewer, a corporate consultant, or owning his own bar, all positions that he circles throughout the series run). He’s believable in this role in a way he never quite is as a higher-up production executive in The Studio. Of course, his incongruity there is part of the joke, but that’s also why that show feels so much more conceptual than lived-in. Stoller and Delbanco may be making their show from a rarified bubble of Los Angeles privilege, but at least it genuinely feels like it’s about people who sometimes enjoy each other’s company. That’s not a prerequisite for every TV comedy, but it sure makes sense for Rogen, whose whole deal has been how grounded and surprisingly ingratiating he can be. Awards or not, Platonic gives him room to keep growing.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.