The last memory I have of a certain former friendship, one of singular intimacy and closeness, involves watching an episode of the FXX show Dave. It was two summers ago, and a few of us had gathered for his birthday. As the night waned, slices of cake crumbling and cans of beer warming, we watched the show. We guffawed and recognized bits of ourselves in the group of strivers who were all trying, in some form, to make it. At the time, I was ignorant of the fact that my friendship would end abruptly the next day. But in the aftermath of that breakup, as I attempted to cope with the pain, I was surprised by how much Dave would also illuminate my notions of friendship—and its complications.

Dave is a loosely autobiographical show about Dave Burd, a.k.a. Lil Dicky, a white rapper who in real life has had modest success: In 2016, he was featured in XXL magazine’s influential “Freshman Issue” alongside Lil Yachty, 21 Savage, Anderson .Paak, and Lil Uzi Vert, among others. The show is also, more absurdly, one that focuses on Lil Dicky’s small, deformed penis (the result of a rare birth defect and several surgeries), which the artist fully embraces both inside and outside the series for body positivity as well as schtick. (Just consider his moniker.) Assembled in the show around Dave are friends who have been absorbed by his ambition to become a global star. Imagine combining Larry David’s neurosis with Kanye West’s hubris with a lighthearted genitalia fixation and you might conjure a decent approximation of the protagonist.

Much like Atlanta, Dave is hilarious, moody, artfully shot, and a commentary on contemporary American hip-hop culture. Many rappers and celebrities appear as themselves to comedic effect, and the series cleverly pokes fun at the obvious perils of a white dude seeking fame through a Black art form. But look past the hijinks and the studio sessions thick with smoke, bravado, and dick jokes, and Dave is fundamentally a show about male friendship that complicates the typically reductive on-screen bromance. It has some of the most raw depictions of male bonding on TV today, illustrating how race, culture, and ambition can both define—and confine—how men relate to one another. Even more important, the show attempts to convey how real vulnerability might be the best hope we have of transcending those barriers.

Early in Season 1, we meet Mike, Dave’s ginger-headed roommate and close friend who becomes his manager. The two are touchingly familiar—it isn’t unusual for them to part with unironic I love you’s or bathe together, with Mike trying out various ointments to cure the acne on Dave’s back. The scene that sets up the latter ritual takes place in a supermarket aisle with another character, the frenetic GaTa (pronounced like gator), Dave’s newest friend in L.A. and eventual hype man. Mike sidles up to them with a basket of new oils to try in the tub, expressing such earnest excitement that I found myself awaiting a punch line. But there wasn’t one, and I was left to check my reflexive reaction to what platonic male intimacy could look like.

At this point, Dave’s core friend group—and its unique dynamic—is taking shape. Elz, Dave’s wry producer and childhood best friend, played by Travis Bennett (a.k.a. Yung Taco from the rap group Odd Future), is soon added to the fold. Each character is allowed to be unique in his own way: absurd, misguided, extreme. Though race certainly inflects these relationships—Elz and GaTa are Black; Dave and Mike are white—the group is so raucous and tender that occasional tensions seldom disrupt their closeness.

Neither do profoundly personal issues. For instance, later in Season 1, at a rehearsal for an upcoming concert, GaTa’s energy is visibly off. Dave, Mike, and Elz can see that he’s pacing and overly agitated, but are frustrated about his seeming lack of preparedness. GaTa eventually sits on the couch and confesses that he’s bipolar. He has a “chemical imbalance,” he admits, through tears, and he takes eight to 10 pills a night to cope. Moved by GaTa’s vulnerability, the group rallies around him, and clearly begins to understand the intricate engine that powers their friend. The show thrums with this kind of collective revelation followed by understanding. Every time it occurs, the bonds among the four thicken further. Rewatching this episode, I thought of my former friend, and how hard it is to know what someone is going through or how much of it they’ve chosen to share. In order for a relationship to sustain itself and grow, curiosity must search out new things to know—and to love.

In a time of deep alienation, estrangement, and loneliness, such portrayals of male companionship are refreshing. For a long while, the bromances I most saw on-screen were in buddy-cop films such as the Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon franchises, where affection is earned after displays of strength or courage. Even newer and earnestly affectionate comedies such as I Love You, Man don’t focus as squarely as Dave does on how beautiful the romance of male friendship can be. On the show, effusive intimacy isn’t something reached after a villain has been defeated or a romantic conflict overcome, but is terrain worthy of exploration in itself.

[Read: The six forces that fuel friendship]

Yet as male intimacy appears more and more in pop culture, so, too, does the complicated nature of its rupture. Hua Hsu’s potent memoir, Stay True (which, full disclosure, I designed the cover for), is a forensic reconstruction of a close friendship from college, written decades after a tragedy. Martin McDonagh’s darkly funny film The Banshees of Inisherin depicts the swift falling out between two old friends in a small Irish town, and the ways they struggle to cope.

Dave also contends artfully with separations between men—and plots one way to heal them. Friendships that grow from childhood can become complicated in adulthood, and this is embodied by the relationship of Elz and Dave, who have been thick as thieves from the age of 6. In one of Season 2’s standout episodes, Dave is paid a large fee to perform at a bar mitzvah in L.A. He and Elz have been sniping at each other—Elz is exhausted by Dave’s monomania, and Dave is jealous of Elz’s success working for more established rappers.

The animosity between them builds slowly, culminating in a game of one-on-one basketball as the bar mitzvah is being set up, their antagonism expressed in a series of quick cuts. The pair best each other with jump shots and drives; jabbed elbows, sweat, and grunts. They’re working out what language has failed to, physically sublimating their pain, which, unsurprisingly, proves an inadequate way to resolve conflict. Their predicament, the show suggests, is a result of the two having lost their ability to communicate openly. Still, by the episode’s end, when the party’s host boots Dave for the terrible influence he’s been on his son, Elz and Dave remember their antics at bar mitzvahs as kids, and summon the less-egoistic joy of their youthful transgressions. In an act of playful defiance, they open the gate penning in a herd of farm animals hired for entertainment and set them free.

This is typical of how conflicts between friends resolve on Dave: with a reminder that individual pride isn’t worth threatening their bonds. Season 3, which ended in May, is more preoccupied with traditional romance, as each character navigates dating, falling in love, and sex, though their friendships still evolve. But in the penultimate episode, a documentary of Lil Dicky’s tour is screened for the characters, featuring candid testimonials about Dave from his friends. The confessions are biting and loving in equal measure, and I found myself asking what my friends would say if they ever had such a chance. I wondered, in particular, what the friend I lost might offer.

Naturally, I played a role in the end of our friendship, but not knowing exactly how is a constant torment. We had no one-on-one game through which to try to work things out, let alone a joint moment of vulnerable frustration. The reason we’d watched Dave that summer night was because I’d insisted there were certain scenes he would appreciate; many references that used the lingua franca of our group. And I was right. I remember the satisfaction of his laughter. In hindsight, I wish it had prompted him to say whatever had been on his mind. I wish I’d been curious enough to ask before it was too late.