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Platonic relationships in TV shows can demonstrate the love between characters in a way that romantic relationships fail to do. Friendships being the focus of TV shows can be rare, especially showing the hardships and problems within friendships. Annie, Beth, and Ruby from Good Girls, Ann Perkins and Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation, Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski in Teen Wolf, Veronica Mars and Wallace Fennel in Veronica Mars, Troy and Abed from Community are some of my favorite friendships within TV shows.
While Good Girls mostly focuses on the friendship between the three women, Troy and Abed are an iconic bromance within the friend group in Community. Scott and Stiles treat each other as brothers; no matter the problem, they always come back together in the end. Wallace and Veronica’s bond shows how even people with the toughest skin can melt like a marshmallow given the right friendship. Ann and Leslie are the definition of unashamed female love in friendships. Platonic relationships in TV shows bring more opportunities for viewers to connect with the characters, making them more interested in the show.
Annie, Beth, + Ruby
Good Girls, which recently premiered season four, focuses on the platonic relationship between two sisters and a best friend: Annie, Beth, and Ruby. Annie is the younger sister to Beth and Ruby is family (not by blood) to the two sisters. At the beginning of the series, Annie finds out that she needs money to pay for a lawyer to keep custody of her child; Ruby’s daughter needs a kidney transplant that she can not afford. Beth finds out her husband lost all their money to buying things for his mistress and bad business deals. After the three consider their options, they rob a grocery store to have time to figure out a new solution.
Unfortunately, they get more money than they thought. The girls accidentally robbed the local gang, who was laundering money through the grocery store. The three now have to work for the gang until the girls can pay them back. Through these new and illegal problems the girls face, the platonic relationship between them grows and becomes more solid. Ruby even has multiple opportunities to turn the sisters into the FBI to get her punishment lessened, but she can’t because of the love she has for Beth and Annie. When Ruby’s daughter is finally on the transplant list for a kidney, the girls rob the same store, trying to get the FBI to find the link to the gang while also only stealing enough money to cover the surgery. It says a lot to the friendship that Beth and Annie are willing to put themselves in that much danger again only to get money for Ruby’s daughter’s surgery, none for their own struggles.
Leslie Knope + Ann Perkins
Parks and Recreation follows Leslie Knope and her coworkers through their job and outside lives as government employees of the Parks and Recreation department of Pawnee, Indiana. From the beginning of the show, we know that Leslie has big dreams of doing good in the government, starting with Pawnee. The series starts with Leslie trying to solve the problem of a pit on a government-owned lot and ends with Leslie running a successful campaign to become the Governor of Indiana in the final episode, all with Ann Perkins by her side.
This friendship is the ultimate platonic relationship between two women because “tragically, we are both heterosexual” (( Parks and Recreation. “Ann’s Decision” Peacock, 22. February 7, 2013. )). From the crazy ways that Leslie compliments Ann to Ann’s more subtle ways of reciprocating Leslie’s platonic love, these two women know everything about each other and always cheer each other on. Leslie Knope first meets Ann after Ann’s boyfriend falls into a pit in the lot beside Ann’s house. Leslie is the government worker that is set on fixing the pit.
Once that has been completed, the two find themselves together constantly. Ann even acquired a job as the public relations director for the Pawnee Health Department, getting an office in the same building as Leslie. Leslie and Ann were the center relationship for many seasons. While there were other funny characters that filled the Ann sized void in the seventh season, her return on the last episode made my heart warm. The fact that Parks and Recreation knew they couldn’t end their long run on TV without a Leslie and Ann reunion shows how much fans adored the duo.
Scott McCall + Stiles Stilinski
Teen Wolf is a show about a teenager, Scott, getting bitten and turned into a werewolf and the problems that come along with it. Both Stiles and Scott, the ultimate bro platonic relationship, warm the bench on the lacrosse team at their high school. After Scott is bitten, he uses his new supernatural abilities to score a starting position and co-captain role on the lacrosse team; he becomes popular but never leaves Stiles behind. While Scott is able to be the muscle behind their newfound furry problems, Stiles is the guy with all the answers, and if he doesn’t know it, he will find it.
While these two have communication problems in later seasons, they fight like brothers and come back together. Since childhood, having been best friends, their platonic relationship went from best friends to brothers before the series even began. Scott and Stiles definitely have a complicated friendship towards the end of the series, much like many childhood friendships do as you grow older. Their problems are amplified with the number of times that their lives and the lives of their loved ones are put on the line. This also amplifies their moments of love between the two in this platonic relationship.
My favorite moment between this platonic relationship is in season two, episode six; Scott had been unknowingly breathing in wolfsbane, a flower deadly for werewolves, which caused him to be more susceptible to other supernatural elements. Stiles finds Scott with gasoline on and around him with a flare in his hand, which provides a problem since heat is the only way to bring Scott out of this supernatural depression episode. Stiles willingly walks into the gasoline and pulls the flare out of Scott’s hand while telling him that they are brothers, effectively bringing him out of the supernatural effect. It’s honestly one of the best scenes of the series that depicts their platonic relationship so well.
Veronica Mars + Wallace Fennel
Veronica Mars is about a teenager named Veronica, whose dad is a private investigator and ex-sheriff. He was voted out of the police force following the murder case of Veronica’s best friend, Lilly Kane. After Veronica’s dad accused Lily’s father of the murder, Veronica had to choose between her friends and her dad, which resulted in her becoming a social outcast. Veronica works part-time at her father’s agency in her free time, answering phones and taking the smaller cases. Veronica’s quick wit and seemingly tough skin help her navigate high school and solving the murder of her best friend.
Wallace first met Veronica while he was shirtless and duct-taped to a flag pole. I’m always told that great first impressions make lasting friendships, but this platonic relationship fills my heart with warmth. Wallace sits with Veronica at lunch, and after she protects him against the local biker gang, the two form a bond. To continue to help Wallace, Veronica steals police evidence that caused Wallace to be on the biker gang’s bad side. When Wallace receives the evidence, he calls Veronica a marshmallow, easily breaking down her “angry young woman shell” (( Veronica Mars. “Pilot.” Hulu, 39:43. September 22, 2004. )) into the snickerdoodle-baking, marshmallow woman she is (only for Wallace, though). Fun fact: Veronica Mars fans are called marshmallows, which really brings to light how much this friendship means to the fandom.
Troy Barnes + Abed Nadir
Community is about a group of people of varying ages and backgrounds going to a community college and the problems they face through the years. With serious paintball fights within the whole college and classes closing without the whole group getting in, this group of friends has more than enough to bond over. But the group’s friendships aren’t platonic 100% of the time. In fact, the main character has a relationship with two of the other female friends in the group. No, the main platonic relationship in Community is Troy and Abed. If your first thought after reading Troy and Abed isn’t “Troy and Abed in the morning,” then you obviously have not seen Community. From their epic raps to their morning show with no cameras or viewers, these two friends bonded and made fans of Community obsessed with their chemistry.
They had one ultimate showdown, The Pillow War, which was between the two on whether they should have a blanket fort or a pillow fort. The whole episode, season three, episode fourteen, was filmed like a war documentary pushing the seriousness of the issue on whether Troy and Abed should build their fort for fun or a world record. While their fights weren’t over serious matters, they both helped each other enjoy the little things in life and not be as serious all the time.
Why Love Interests Can’t Be The Main Focus
Love interests come and go; many of these series don’t have a singular love interest for each person. Scott McCall’s first love interest died, the second one stayed with the Skinwalkers, and the third one seemed forced. Veronica’s first boyfriend fled the country with his daughter, and she didn’t have much luck with the other romantic relationships. The main character of Community had multiple relationships with different characters, including two of the main cast’s women. Imagine if each series was based solely on those relationships. Having platonic relationships as part of the core of the show brings viewers attention to the unshakable bond between the characters instead of the less reliable bond between romantic partners.
How Platonic Relationships Invest Viewers In A Show
When a show focuses all of its efforts on romantic relationships, there doesn’t seem to be as much investment with the other characters of the show if they are not in said relationship. With Good Girls, we focus on the platonic relationship between the three women rather than their romantic counterparts. Granted, they each have romantic relationships in the show, but our main focus is still on their platonic relationship and the lengths they are willing to go for each other and their families. Leslie Knope and Ann Perkins show the ultimate female friendship with full force of love, even though this bond was formed in adulthood instead of childhood.
Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski show the brotherly bond between two teenagers that can withstand even the supernatural problems they face. Veronica Mars and Wallace Fennel show that a man and a woman can form an unbreakable platonic relationship that shows the soft side of each other’s personalities along with their fiercely protective nature. Troy and Abed have the perfect, comical friendship that takes true chemistry to bond along with a great handshake to seal it. With marriage rates dropping among the millennial generation, it’s no wonder why viewers are more inclined to stay for a TV show that is more focused on platonic relationships than romantic relationships. (( Hoffower, Hillary. “7 ways millennials are changing marriage, from signing prenups to staying together longer than past generations.” Business Insider, February 4, 2020. )).
Viewers typically enjoy characters they can relate to so finding a relationship like their own can bring in new and returning viewers. Sometimes, platonic relationships can lead viewers into feeling like they are a part of the friendship, leading them to tune in every week for the newest problem their favorite platonic relationship face.
