‘Platonic’ Does ‘Jeopardy!’: Luke Macfarlane On Meeting Ken Jennings And Filming A “Wild” Scene At 3AM After The Presidential Election

After weeks of anticipation, this Platonic character finally made his Jeopardy! dreams come true. Sort of…

Who is Charlie?

Correct!

On Season 2, Episode 5 of Apple TV+‘s winsome comedy, Platonic, Luke Macfarlane’s trivia-loving character took the stage of his favorite game show by storm. And by that, we mean when host Ken Jennings asked the first question, Charlie fumbled. Hard! And then he did it again! And again and again!

Simply put, Charlie’s visit to the Jeopardy! set was a disaster. But on the bright side, Macfarlane and the Platonic crew told Decider they were “starstruck” by their own field trip to Sony Pictures Studios.

“I’m a legitimate fan of Jeopardy! I watch it every night after I put my kid to bed. 7:00 p.m. It’s totally a thing!” Macfarlane told Decider via Zoom. “Have you ever been like a set of a show that you’ve watched for a really long time, and you see that all it’s made of cardboard and toothpicks? It was a teeny bit of that. But meeting Ken Jennings was not disappointing at all! The guy is bright, shiny, brilliant, funny, kind. I was I was definitely starstruck meeting him. He was great.”

“It was an amazing experience,” Nick Stoller, Platonic‘s co-creator/EP/writer/director, added. “I’ve grown up watching Jeopardy!, and getting to be on that set — I’ve directed a lot of stuff. I don’t get nervous generally. But I was weirdly very nervous that day. I didn’t want to mess anything up on their set. They were so accommodating and easy to deal with. But it’s such famous set, and I was starstruck. And Ken Jennings is obviously this huge star as well. He was very sweet, and game to do everything that we asked him to, and had funny ideas.”

As Episode 205 progresses, Charlie tries (and fails) to go back to work and overcome his Jeopardy! trauma. Instead, he sets out to stop his embarrassing episode from airing, has a messy guy’s night out with Will (Seth Rogen), and winds up breaking into a Jeopardy! exec’s house. The hilarious scene shows a crazed version of Charlie; a man on a mission completely unlike the typically sweet, even-keeled husband and dad we’ve grown to love. But after he hops a wall of the Jeopardy! exec’s house and learns he has kids, he snaps back to reality and starts to spiral. In the delightfully chaotic scene that follows, Macfarlane flexes his physical comedy skills before Charlie breaks and enters, gets spooked, and makes a run for it with Will.

Without context, the scene is a Season 2 standout. But with context? It reaches entirely new levels of impressive.

“It was really fun. It was also 3:00 in the morning when we filmed that. And it was the day after the presidential election! So just put that into context,” Macfarlane told Decider. “And, I have to mention this, it was literally the last day of filming! So just for our Platonic audience members, this is literally the last thing we filmed on Season 2. So all that is happening, I don’t have a lot of scenes with Seth in the series. So we’re spending a lot of time together. And Seth is this really busy, smart, funny guy. So I’m feeling this level of nervousness. All this is to say, I think it adds to the weird tension of that scene and the wildness of it.”

“I also think because it was 3:00 in the morning, it was super punchy,” Macfarlane reflected. “We just had fun. We tried a bunch of stuff. I think I ran into that brick wall like a dozen times trying to be like, ‘Is it funny if my arm does this?! And would it be funny if I bumped into the kids’ toys?!’ We laughed probably so much harder because we were all exhausted.”

While Charlie may never return to the Jeopardy! stage (and honestly, may even be banned from it after that episode!), Macfarlane hasn’t given up on his own Jeopardy! dreams just yet.

“I actually was asked to do Celebrity Jeopardy! last year,” he explained. “I had really hoped it was going to work out. It did not work out, which, I was kind of both relieved because of my schedule, but also disappointed. So maybe in the future I will be doing that.”

Until then, we can watch Charlie’s epic Jeopardy! crash out whenever we want. Thank you, Platonic.

New episodes of Platonic premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV+.