The end of “Friends” was exactly 20 years ago, on May 6, 2004, in front of a record audience. A look back at this major television moment.
From 1994 to 2004, she dominated everything. Since then, his legacy has endured without ever fading. After all, we don’t get more cult than the sitcom that revealed Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and the very, very late Matthew Perry, whose sudden disappearance, on October 28, still leaves us broken heart.
Friends has indeed had a lasting impact on the small screen, pop culture and quite simply the world. Following the adventures, both hilarious and touching, of the famous group of friends made up of Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Ross, Phoebe and Joey, the sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman is one of its series that gave them a second family. She convinced the whole world with her perfect blend of humor and feelings, love and friendship, and with her acting that we will never forget.
Ten years, ten seasons, 236 episodes, six Emmys, an innumerable number of lines that we can recite to you at the drop of a hat and iconic situations that we would like to rediscover as if it were the first time, it is THE series of all generations – whether you grew up with it or discovered it later. After all, Friends has never really left our screens: between rebroadcasts and constant streaming for years, the sitcom is a living legend, still relevant today.
And yet it has now been 20 years since it “ended”: it was in fact on May 6, 2004 that the show aired its last episode. The wait was immense, the anticipation was at its height, and hearts were heavy. The series was leaving while it was still at the top: it was difficult for fans to part with it after a decade spent on that orange sofa drinking coffee or in the legendary apartments of Rachel and Monica, and Chandler and Joey – then Monica and Chandler and Rachel and Joey.
And the impact was colossal: we’re talking about 52.5 million American viewers glued to their television sets. This impressive figure made “The Last One” (the title of the episode, “Those Who Went Away”) the most watched entertainment telecast in 6 years, the 5th most watched series finale watched in television history as well as the most watched series episode of the 2000s on American television. This finale, which served as the 17th and 18th episode of season 10 of the show, was divided into two parts, classified as two separate chapters.
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Just to refresh your memories – even if we have no doubt that you remember it – here is how the sitcom that appears in all the rankings that cite “the best of all time” ends.
Warning, spoilers. The rest of this article reveals key elements of the plot of “Friends” as well as its ending.
Joey and Phoebe
And no Joey and Phoebe did not end up together unlike the other protagonists of the series! During the last season, Phoebe found happiness in the arms of the endearing Mike Hannigan (Paul Rudd) to whom she became engaged and then married. In Mike’s final scene, he and Phoebe talk about starting a family. “Wouldn’t you like one like that?” ; “Not one, I want a whole bunch!” exclaims Phoebe. “We’ll teach them to sing and we could be a kind of Von Trapp family!” she continues.
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This is just a glimpse of what could well await the Buffay-Hannigans, probably a future filled with babies, surreal and (en)sung adventures. Phoebe then spends the rest of the episode helping Ross make his big statement…
While the rest of his friends are going through major changes in their lives, Joey ends the series in the same apartment… but with a chick and a duckling as new companions! While he intended to give them to Chandler and Monica as a parting gift, the two little creatures find themselves stuck in Chandler and Joey’s legendary table football which must now be destroyed to save them.
The end of an entire era… But it’s a new era that begins for Joey who, as we know, will end up moving to Los Angeles for his short-lived spin-off.
Chandler and Monica
After a few years of marriage and a sad struggle with infertility, Monica and Chandler finally decided to adopt. In Season 10, the couple prepares to welcome the baby of Erica (Anna Faris), a pregnant teenager from Ohio, and move to the suburbs. In the series finale, her labor begins prematurely: head to the hospital immediately!
And there, surprise! While they only thought they would inherit one baby, they inherit two! After the birth of the first, the doctor announces that the second is about to arrive: the shock! No one explicitly explained to very young Erica that she was having twins. “They must have alluded to the fact that there were two heartbeats. I thought it was mine and the baby’s. They often said that the beating was very strong and I said to myself: ‘It’s better because I’m expecting a baby!’”
Monica and Chandler then return to the apartment where they surprise their friends with two newborns in their arms: Jack (named after Monica and Ross’s father) and Erica (the first name of their biological mother). We would have liked to see them raise them, or at least try!
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Ross and Rachel
After years of interspersed romances, “but we had broken up”, love and friendship, co-parenting and “I love you neither,” the couple spend Rachel’s last night in New York together. In fact, the young woman is about to move to Paris for a job that awaits her at Louis Vuitton. But while Ross thinks they’re back together, and this time for good, Rachel refers to their night as “the best way to say goodbye”.
Ross finally realizes that it’s time to tell her how he really feels. But time is running out: Rachel has already left for the airport after briefly meeting Monica and Chandler’s babies.
Ross then embarks on a journey to catch up with her and can count on the precious help of Phoebe and her crazy shenanigans. She calls Rachel, who has already boarded, and manages to frighten some of the other passengers with her advice: “You have to get off the plane, I have the feeling that there is something suspicious about your left phalanx!”.
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Typical Phoebe delirium which delays the plane’s departure and gives Ross time to run to a first airport then cross town again to the right airport this time and confess his love. But when he does, Rachel… gets back on the plane anyway.
Discouraged, Ross returns home and listens to a message left on his answering machine: it is a message from Rachel in which she begins by apologizing before realizing, too, that she loves him and that she does not want leave (controversial choice, it was a great opportunity…). We hear him asking to get out of the plane… and the message cuts off. Did she stay? Was she able to get out of the plane?
Ross yells at his machine: “Was she able to get out of the device?”. And there, we hear Rachel’s voice pronounce, off-camera, the cult line: “I got out of the device.” She is there: the couple kisses and is finally reunited… for good this time. A moving scene that we will certainly not forget (let’s forget Louis Vuitton, it’s cinema).
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Those who were leaving, really
But it is not finished ! In the final scene, the six friends are gathered at Monica and Chandler’s apartment as the movers take away their last belongings. They cry, kiss, leave their keys on the counter, saying goodbye to this mythical place which has sheltered most of their crazy adventures.
Rachel suggests going for one last coffee before Monica and Chandler hit the road. “Where ?” asks Chandler innocently: the very last line of the series and may well be the best, both hilarious and heartbreaking, full of meaning and vivid memories. Perfect, absolutely. The talent of Matthew Perryobviously.
We all know where they’re going, on the couch at their beloved Central Perk. The audience laughs one last time. Before leaving for good, the series offers us a last shot of the apartment – sadly empty – which ends on the purple door decorated with the sacred yellow frame.
End of Friends. Thank you so much.
Friends can be rediscovered in its entirety on Netflix.
And you know, they reunited years later. Rediscover the trailer for Friends: The reunion with more emotions than ever since Matthew Perry left us.