“TJ and Dave,” the hourlong improv show by the Second City veterans TJ Jagodowski and David Pasquesi, the premier improv duo working today, unfolds so seamlessly that it makes you wonder: Are these guys really making all this up on the spot?

It’s not scripted, but these eerily in-sync performers have been working together since 2002 and it’s hard not to question whether they lean on the same tropes, plot devices, jokes.

To find out, I watched them perform four nights in a row last week in Manhattan. (Though based in Chicago, where they put on a weekly show, they visit the Barrow Street Theater in New York a few times a year.) Their shows did indeed vary wildly in structure, setting and pace. Yet while inventing new hours of material is impressive, what really makes “TJ and Dave” so thrilling is what their shows have in common: A playful verbal wit, stubborn refusal to go for the cheap laugh and most of all, an empathetic streak that gives their comedy resonance and depth.

None of the 20 or so characters they created were unsympathetic; “TJ and Dave” doesn’t use villainy or clichéd stupidity for easy laughs. The comedy was rooted in relatable relationships and psychological insight into ordinary people, often in crisis: struggling in a new job, breaking up, trying to find love or grappling with childhood trauma. Unlike so much improv, these shows never seem in a rush to find the joke. At their best, the laughs emerge organically in modest narratives that are not entirely resolved.