How Friends Characters Changed For The Worst From The Season Premiere To The Season Finale Bustle

6/30/2016
How 'Friends' Characters Changed For The Worst From The Season Premiere To The Season Finale
How 'Friends' Characters Changed For The Worst From The

Season Premiere To The Season Finale
January 29, 2015 Entertainment

Its not unusual for a sitcom especially one with as long a lifespan as Friends had to both nd and lose its
qualitative footing midway through its run. Such was the case for NBCs colossal hit, which may never have
misplaced its audience, but sure as heck misplaced its comic voice. Friends defenders are in large supply, but
even those most adamant cant muster a convincing argument to qualify the shows ninth and tenth seasons with
its rst handful. (Or maybe they can, and Ive just been refusing to listen. Either way, Im sticking to my guns.)
The primary problem is what the series did with its characters. While the Manhattan sextet started out as a group
of quirky but grounded and empathetic lonely strugglers, they transformed over time into a collection of bug-eyed,
perpetually shouting cartoon caricatures, wholly emancipated from the humanity that once made them so
inherently watchable. By the time of the nale, every one of the Friends had been rendered a shell of his or her
former self.
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Granted, the severity of these devolutions varied from Friend to Friend, eventuating in a few instances of only
partial bastardization of the shows original character concoction but thats really only in comparison to the truly
unholy other half of the group, anyhow.
So how much of an atrocity was the series handling of your favorite Friend? Lets take a look.
Rachel
Although our rst sight of Rachel comes as she bolts into a New York City caf draped in a lavish wedding dress
and a heavy panic, she quickly becomes the most levelheaded member of the central group. Shes still got her
quirks a sustained childlike wonder from a lifetime free of genuine responsibility, most dominantly but serves
overall as our relatively sane vehicle into the frightening world of adulthood, occupied by the eccentric and slowly
fragmenting (but still believable!) other ve.
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As Rachel was the most even-keeled character from the start, she had the slightest distance to fall over the course
of the ten years to come. Jennifer Anistons penchant for comic nuance kept Rachel a relatively down-to-Earth
gure until the end. When you think about it, hopping off a plane and giving up on a once-in-a-lifetime job to seize
your true love isnt much nuttier than ditching your anc at the altar.
Chandler
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From moment one, Chandler was enveloped in his own quirky sensibilities. He was a habitual joker, compulsively
cleaving a distance between himself and the world around him to the point where he felt almost like an external
commenter on the show rather than a participant within it.
But what good is any of that the psychological density and artistic merit inherent in a character conned to such
a meta schematic when you can have legions of ass jokes and the routine shrill whimper instead? And so, from
Friends most clever character sprouted perhaps its most infantile.
Phoebe
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Phoebes is easily the most distinct persona offered by the pilot; where Monica, Ross, Chandler, and Rachel are
your factory brand of New York neurotics, and Joey is the same alpha male dud weve seen time and time over,
Phoebe is something highly specic. Call her a hippie, a ower child, a spiritualist, or (as the pilot script deems
her) a New Age waif, but no matter the designation, youve got something wholly separate from the rest of the
pack.
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In some ways, Phoebe wound up more normal at the end of the series than she was at the start but that
doesnt make her arc a victory. While most of her counterparts succumb to the whims of their singular dominant
traits, Phoebe evens out to become alarmingly indistinguishable from her peers, save for the occasional crack
about a heightened proclivity for sexual exploration. In other words, the show managed to make its most unique
character its most boring.
Joey
Ugh, Joey. Lets face it: Joey was the worst character at the shows start, and he might too have been the worst
character at its nish. Theres not much to get into with Joey: he started out kind of stupid
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and he ended up really stupid. Alarmingly stupid. Unbelievably and Im using that word literally, here
stupid. A simple devastation, but a potent one nonetheless.
Monica
Monicas desecration is especially tough for me to talk about, considering the character in her original form is my
favorite (and considering my inexplicable love for Courteney Cox as a comic actress). While Rachel might have
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been the audiences logical launch point at the pilot, Monica was the audience's emotional launch point. She was
her worlds resilient punching bag not to degrees of supreme comic tragedy (thats Ross), but to a more
relatable, more amenable level. She was sweet, kind, sad, confused, and unlucky. More than anything else,
Monica was a victim of her own wayfaring psyche. What could be more empathetic than being your own worst
enemy? And who that has struggled with such a plight wouldnt want to see it reected in someone as charming as
Monica Geller?
Well, too bad, forlorn viewers! By the end of Friends, Monica was entirely unrecognizable. She wasnt the
compassionate, neurotic loser we all championed as the shows unspoken hero, but a shrieking, bossy,
manipulative, and altogether mean nuisance. Its as though once Monica got her happy ending the marriage
proposal she had always longed for the writers didnt have any idea what to do with the character.
Ross
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Aaand here we are. The most profoundly bafing tragedy to befall any of the Friends characters. When we meet
Ross, he is admittedly a bit of a caricature: soft-spoken, stammering, buried within himself, painfully uncomfortable
in his own skin. Even though Rachel is the newcomer to this chic little world, Monica is the hapless navigator
thereof, Chandler is the outside observer, and Phoebe is the alien hiding within leaving Ross as the one who
most of all does not belong. Its all rather evocative, even in its sillier moments, thanks to some affable character
construction courtesy of the script and David Schwimmers brand of acting. Got all that?
Good. Now forget it. And instead, sub in a whole mess of yelling. Hysterical yelling. Panicked, hostile, borderline
inside yelling. Once the producers realized somewhere down the line that Schwimmer could muster a funny
scream, they made that their new mission statement. Forget all the emotional groundwork they had poured into
Ross, their tragic hero. Instead, hed become the guy who yells.
And that's about the size of it. Six great Americans all cut down in their prime by the greatest atrocity of them all:
bad writing.
Images: NBC (13)
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How 'Friends' Characters Changed For The Worst From The

January 29, 2015 Entertainment

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