So what did I think of the final episode of “Friends?” It was an unpredictable episode with a predictable ending. I’m doing this separate from “Cowboy Pete,” which I’ll have a new one up of tomorrow.
I figured the twist involving Monica and Chandler becoming parents would be that the birth mother would change her mind, not that she was popping out twins (Chandler’s delivery of the line, “Join me, won’t you?” in urging Monica to come aboard on his rising panic underscores why Matthew Perry is one of the best comic actors alive.) And I figured Ross and Phoebe were heading to the wrong airport simply because they didn’t ask which one to head to, a question any New Yorker would *always* ask, if nothing else because there’s JFK and LaGuardia (let alone Newark) to distinguish between.
And I figured Ross and Rachel would wind up together for one simple reason: “Friends” has never been about being groundbreaking. It’s about being a satisfying way to kill half an hour. Producing a finale episode that deals with Ross losing Rachel for good without being a bummer would have been an amazing challenge for the writers, and one that they apparently wanted no part of. Can’t blame them in the least. Consequently, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” remains the single best ending to a sitcom every.
What’s interesting is that the finale of “Friends” really underscores the nature of “Happy ending.” Happy endings only occur in fiction. In real life, all stories end sadly. “Until death do us part” sounds very romantic until, y’know, the death part. There were any number of moments in my first marriage where, if we’d faded to black and run the credits, it was a happy ending. For that matter, if I’d had the good grace to be run over by a truck seven years ago, that marriage would have been considered a success.
The truth is, Ross and Rachel won’t make it as a couple. No way. Saying “We won’t be stupid anymore” is nice, but it’s not enough, because stupidity isn’t the problem. The problem is, in the final analysis, they’re still just two people who care only about what they themselves want. And the proof of that is that not once, not a single time in all the back and forth, did either of them consider what would be best for their daughter. Ross never said that he wanted he and Rachel and Emma to be a family. Rachel gave no consideration to the difficulties of being a single mother raising a child in a foreign country with no support system (her sole focus was the money and opportunity the job offered.) They wanted what they wanted with no real consideration given to the other’s needs except in the most transitory of ways. Ross nobly decided to put Rachel’s needs above his own; that self-sacrifice lasted, subjectively speaking, less than a week, at which point it was “Screw it, I want Rachel to stay with me.” Interestingly he never once considered the notion of moving to Paris to be with *her* and their daughter. (As opposed to, I suspect, the far more adult and mature Frasier Crane whom, I suspect, is going to uproot and move to Chicago to be with his girlfriend.)
Am I making too big a deal out of it? Considering the massive amount of coverage it’s gotten, no, I don’t think so. The amount of ballyhoo elevates the amount of scrutiny to which something should be subjected. Plus the subject of fathers and their obligations toward doing all that’s humanly possible for their daughters’ best interest is something that I place a great deal of stock in…even when it comes to lightweight sitcom entertainment.
PAD
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PAD, I notice a couple of mentions of your 1st marriage on the blog today. Anything else to say? Just curiosity from someone who has followed your work but not much in your personal life (I think I remember figuring it out from the dedications in the “Imzadi” books)
PAD, I notice a couple of mentions of your 1st marriage on the blog today. Anything else to say? Just curiosity from someone who has followed your work but not much in your personal life (I think I remember figuring it out from the dedications in the “Imzadi” books)
I loved it, perhaps because I have maintained a policy of watching Friends only every year or so because the episodes are so much the same. I was curious to see how they’d wrap it up, so I made this one of them. And as always, it was very good for what it is: classic clean screwball comedy.
I agree w/ PADguy that Perry is a terrific comic actor. The whole cast, actually, is head & shoulders above almost anybody else working on TV today at that brand of comedy.
Objections to the repetitiveness & lack of development miss the point. Look, sticoms are like comic books. They’re not REALLY sequential, they’re theme-and-variations. They pretend to be sequential to keep you coming back. Over ten years, they repeat ad nauseam. And that’s ok. There are occasional actual changes (examples chosen not-quite-at-random: Aquaman losing a hand, Hulk turning out to be an MPD shapeshifter), but basically, it’s SUPPOSED to repeat the classic stuff. Just like all Roman comedies had the same 6 characters bashing each other over the head w/ sausages.
Sure, there are shows w/ real changes & growth, like All in the Family. But these are pushing the boundaries of the form. Nothing wrong with just doing the form very very well.
You know, I was watching the ending of the show, wondering just who was keeping Emma, because she didn’t appear with Ross or Rachel at all… and then it dawned on me that Ross moving to Paris would not only keep him with Rachel and Emma, but also put him close to Ben (who is in Germany, I think?)… and it just seemed so… odd (well, actually, stupid)… that they wouldn’t go with that ending for Ross and Rachel instead. You know, Rachel get’s off the plane, and Ross say “We’re both moving to Paris”, or is having tenure -that- important to him?
I think the Sienfield ending was worse, but at the same time, it perfectly captured the lives of those four characters. In the final analysis, the Sienfield cast were a comletely unlikable group of people, but *dámņ* they were funny. The Friends cast were mostly as unlikable, but not nearly as funny.
PAD says: “Matthew Perry is one of the best comic actors alive”
I agree…THE WHOLE 9 YARDS is one of my favorite guilty pleasures, due almost entirely to the nude shots of Amanda Peet, by which of course I mean Matthew Perry’s hysterical performance. Ok, it’s basically Chandler as a dentist but it’s great. Didn’t bother seeing the sequel, there was just no earthly reason for that movie to exist.
Speaking of series ending…they say that the next Godzilla movie (which looks like a mofo, what with about 20 different monsters and direction by the certifiable madman who made VERSUS) is the last one…ever! Life would have little meaning if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve heard this tune before. The Big G will outlast us all.
So do you figure that Rachel remembered to call
her mother, or were she and Emma over the Atlantic
while the “friends” were saying goodbye?
…well, the finale was self-aware enough to have one of the characters (was it Chandler or was it Monica) even say ‘it’s like the end of an era’, so it gets points for that…
Plus, it really beats the saccharine ending to ‘Family Ties’. ugh
but, no, nowhere near as cool as ‘Newhart’ or ‘MASH’. Heck, even ‘Twin Peaks’ had the whole ‘Where’s Annie! Where’s Annie!’ freak-out at the end – it didn’t justify the fact that the show should have ended a half-dozen episodes earlier (or, my pick, never ended at all), but it did add a suitably creepy/wonky ending to the whole series.
But when you get right down to it, at least it is over 🙂
That’s “How’s Annie?”, not “Where’s Annie?”
One of the creepiest moments network TV had that year. Brr.
TWL
As the moderator of the Friends boards at Nitcentral, (the board for the finale is at http://64.33.77.146/discus/messages/21963/23974.html?1083986897) I thought it was pretty good (as were the two episodes preceding it), particularly given the overall low quality this season. While I could
No, I had absolutely no previous knowledge of the ending of “Newhart.”
As for the finale of “MASH”…no. Oh, God no. Overblown, overlong, hopelessly padded, incredibly depressing and, ultimately, a cheat. We were repeatedly told we would see them go home. We didn’t. We saw them leave the MASH unit, but that’s not the same thing. I wanted to see BJ hug his wife and kid, I wanted to see Hawkeye’s dad. We saw none of that and it was an incredible letdown. Any number of episodes of MASH were infinitely superior to the finale, including–if you want a “going home” motife–Henry Blake’s farewell.
Besides, I was talking about sitcoms, and there was nothing comedic about that final two hour echhstravaganza.
Now if you’re talking the best final episode of a dramatic series, then, kiddies, you’re talking “The Fugitive,” one of the most widely series wrap-ups in history.
PAD
I gave up on Friends sometime between seasons 4 and 5 myself because there always seemed to be something up against it that I was interested in, but unfortunately didn’t last. Like “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” last year and “Tru Calling” this year. And before anyone complains, I sincerely hope I’m wrong and “Tru Calling” does get renewed, but remember: this IS Fox we’re talking about.
Meanwhile, not to take anything away from all the comments I’ve heard about other great series finales, let’s discuss another aspect of endings.
What do you think will happen in current hit TV shows when they end?
A few examples off the top of my head.
JAG: Harm finally comes to his senses, retires from the military outright, opens a private practice and marries Mac.
SIMPSONS: Homer’s last brain cell (there can’t be that many left to begin with!) dies, leaving Marge a widow. Marge then realizes that life in Springfield s*cks. She packs up the kids, moves somewhere else, and they all live happily forever.
Well, Ross didn’t consider going with her because he had just made tenure at the school he was teaching at. Meanwhile, she had a job offer from her previous employer for the same amount as she was going to be making in Paris. Probably should’ve been mentioned in the finale, but at least, they had some reasoning. Likewise, most people would’ve missed the fact that the apartment was rent-controlled even though it was mentioned in a much earlier season. Everyone has seen some friends episodes, but few have bothered to watch them all.
First, on Friends: I thought the character of Phoebe got shafted in the episode, all in all. Except for a bit mentioned in the beginning, she hardly got any real attention at all. It seemed like all of the others, whether it was Joey dealing with the others leaving, Chandler and Monica with the kids, and Rachel and Ross with each other (unless they’re on a break. I loved that line.), got to wrap matters up and get some closure in their lives. Now, maybe the rest of the season already took care of that for Phoebe; I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know. But it seems like the writers just didn’t know what to do with her at the end. Which is a shame, because she was definately the most unique character. (Which may explain the difficulty)
As for endings in general, I think the one that stuck with me the most was the ending of the comedy “Dinosaurs”. SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the episode, the father, Earl, is basically put in charge of the world and screws everything up, wiping out species, causing a global heatwave, and following through with a nuclear winter. In the end, the kids say something like, “I guess we’ll just have to do things better when we’re in charge”, and it starts to snow, in such a way that you know that tomorrow isn’t something that’s going to happen for dinosaurs at all. The rather pointed environmental message aside, I remember finding it very disturbing that a comedy could end on such a dark and dispairing note.
My son and I used to call Friends “JAB,” as in, “Let’s watch JAB tonight,” which stood for “Jennifer Aniston’s Bøøbš.”
We never complained about the silly plots. Except that I hated the monkey. I hear David Schwimmer hated the monkey too.
Peter: This is why I like you so much….you nailed on the head again!!! I completely agree with your sentiments on the final episode. They tried to fit to much in a small time period.I don’t think it was well thought out but hey…..
You know, since we literally don’t see Emma, this escaped me, but…
Rachel and Ross don’t have a baby; they have a two-year-old. A baby can at least be passed from one off-screen person to another like a highly-demanding object; but a two-year-old? That kid should be running all over the place.
Be still my beating heart AS WELL AS OTHER BODY PARTS NO DOUBT ….BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!
Pretty good ,i deserved that one !:)
Be still my beating heart AS WELL AS OTHER BODY PARTS NO DOUBT ….BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!
Pretty good ,i deserved that one !:)
Sorry didnt mean to post twice
Yeah, but all that “beating” affects tends to affect your memory. 🙂
Yeah, but all that “beating” affects tends to affect your memory. 🙂
See what I mean?
Saturday Night Live SPOILER WARNING:
The riff on the Rachel/Ross reunion in the opening skit on SNL just now was a riot. 🙂
END SPOILER WARNING
I think the perfect Farscape ending would have been at the end of the phone call(where he’s yelling if she got off the plane) if they would have chosen that point to show the credits.
That would have left folks in utter disbelief, which is how Farscape tends to end their cliffhangers..
One of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’s better one-joke sketches was seeing Snoop Dogg incredibly depressed, and complaining to his homies, about how “Friends” was off the air and now he had nothing to do on Thursday nights now. It reminded me of all the complaints about the nearly-completely caucasian cast (and NYC world) to see one of the biggest rappers bemoaning the end of this whitebread sitcoms (“And with ‘Frasier’ going off next week, I don’t know what I’ll do.”) ‘Twas also fun to see his crew have no idea how to react, never having watched the show (“I liked the one where that blonde one–” “That was Phoebe” “Yeah, where Phoebe got hit in the nose with the baseball.” “Yo, man, that was ‘The Brady Bunch’!”) It’s easy to watch “Friends” (or now it’s repeats) and see why there’s a pretty big divide between the viewing habits of whites and blacks.
My feelings on the show were best summed up in an old Married… With Children ad campaign.
In the words of Al Bundy “Friends. Don’t have ’em, don’t want ’em, sure as hëll don’t want to watch ’em.”
The writers missed a wonderful opportunity for a HUGE twist. Remember when Ross and Rachel got married in Las Vegas a few years back? Then, after they got back, Rachel insisted to a very hesitant Ross that he see a divorce lawyer (Ron Glass of “Barney Miller”) and personally take care of the situation? At the end of that episode, Ross merely walked back into Central Perk and TOLD Rachel that he had seen the divorce lawyer … BUT WE NEVER ACTUALLY EVER SAW HIM SEE THE LAWYER TO DO THIS! I honestly thought the writers had kept this plot point under their hat all this time — that Ross never actually DID go back to the divorce lawyer and that Ross was the only one who knew that he and Rachel were really still married. This revelation would’ve been an inventive — and VERY in-character — way to wrap up things in the final episode. (Instead, all we got was 2 Bing babies instead of 1.)
Actually, If I recall correctly, that very next episode focused on Rachel finding out that Ross had not, indeed done as he said, and he got in big trouble over it. In other words, they’ve been that route, and it was resolved. Plus, that would be pretty skeevy, even for Ross.
Personally, I’ve always noticed that the age group currently in its mid-30s(Formerly known as the Gen-Xers) tend to pay attention to their kids a lot less than other age groups. (My dad’s a pediatrician, and he’s noted that generally the 40 year old and 20 year old parents in his practice have better parenting skills than the 30 year olds.)
This is also why we’ve had to put up with all this overzealous MPAA and rating systems crud in recent years. The parents want the government to raise their children for them.
It’s my personal opinion that Friends was never a masterpiece but I don’t think it was ever meant to be one. It was however meant to be funny and I find that that’s something that it excelled at most of the time; so it deserves my praise for a job well done.
Someone else mentioned here that the finale didn’t feel so much as the end of the series but rather the end of the apartment, and I have to agree with that. Monica and Chandler moved upstate, but their jobs are still in the city so there’s no reason they shouldn’t all be able to continue to hang out almost as much in the future. That’s why I thought that in the end Rachel would go to Paris, and Ross would follow her there (why would his desire not to be far from Ben be any stronger than not being far from Emma?); and I also thought that they’d have at least planted the seed of Joey’s move to LA, so that it would be clear that the group dynamic could remain the same.
I agree also with PAD that Ross and Rachel will probably not last (or at least have a very bumpy ride ahead of them), I was thinking the exact same thing as I watched it; and I’m sure that Ross was too, hence his “on a break” joke.
I wish they had fast-forwarded through time a bit so that we could have had glimpses of the characters’ fates. That’s one thing I loved about another series finale which I coincidently just happened to see again tonight: “Mad About You”. It was infinitely better and probably the best sitcom finale that I have seen (never saw the MTM one so I can’t compare), and I loved that they cast Janeane Garofalo as the grown Mabel.
I’m not going to spoil things for those who might not have seen it, but it gave us a good sense of closure and a feeling that the show could have gone on for years, with the situations and ideas changing as time went by. Plus the “where are they now” that ran during the closing credits was fun and even had loose ties to Friends with the reveal that Ursula eventually becomes the Governor of New York (hey, stranger things have happened in real life).
Raphy
I was going through this entire thread, waiting till the end, and I kept thinking about the MAD ABOUT YOU ending – it was, at the very least, one of the most satisfying series endings. Funny, poignant and completely appropriate.
As I recall, the final episode of Cheers actually did a flash-forward as well , as did VOYAGER (if you didn’t see those episodes, I won’t spoil them here) and I would’ve loved to see a flash-forward, say 20 years into the future for FRIENDS.
David
Saw only the final bit of the Mad About You finale, but I was about to bring it up too since it stuck in the mind so much.
So, is there going to be a “Frasier” talkback?
At least Roz knew where her daughter was, brought
her along to Martin’s wedding (where she filled
in as flower girl), and took the new job that was
offered to her (Kenny’s old management position).
Also, it had a monkey. Much cooler than Chick 2
and Duck 2.
Hmmm…the final Shelly Long episode (pre the final Cheers episode) did a flash-forward, but the series finale did not.
I enjoyed FRIENDS a great deal over the years. It wasn’t ground-breaking, but it didn’t have to be.
Obviously, this final year was padded. Really, Rachel and Ross should have gotten together when they became parents. It became obvious, that the FREINDS writers were going to make us wait until the very end of the series.
It’s nice that they wrapped the ending up in a pretty package, but wouldn’t it have been more realistic for Ross to move to Paris with Rachel?
I agree with PAD that Rachel and Ross don’t have much chance of making it in the long haul. I imagine if we see a reunion show in 15-20 years, Chandler and Monica will be very happy, and R&R will be divorced and bitter.
(Delayed comment to this since the episode has only just been shown in the UK.)
I know what people mean about the unsatisfying aspects of Rachel’s move to Paris. In a way, it reminds me of the final episode of “My Two Dads”, where Joey’s girlfriend got a job offer in a different city (or possibly country), and she’d be taking her baby daughter with her. Joey wanted her to stay, and said something like “You’ll be taking her [baby] away from all her friends”. Reply: “Well, I’m sure they’ll write to each other, as soon as they’ve learnt how”, i.e. it wouldn’t be particularly disruptive. In the end, Joey wound up leaving with them. I can understand why Ross would be reluctant to do that (since tenure is extremely sought after in academia), but he should have at least considered it.
Coming back to “Friends”, it doesn’t bother me too much that we haven’t seen much of Ben/Emma in the last couple of years, since we can assume it’s going on off-camera (in the same way that we haven’t seen much of people’s time at work). To quote from one of the “Frasier” scene titles – “three weeks passed without anyone saying anything funny, and then…”.
What bothers me a bit more is that we see Ross and Rachel together without Emma. In Ben’s case, he’s presumably with Carol and Susan, but it in Emma’s case she’d either be with a babysitter or a grandparent. I can understand leaving her with other people during the day, so that Ross/Rachel can pursue their careers, but if you do that in the evenings too so that you can pursue your social life then I think that’s misplaced priorities.