K-SCORE: 45
Creators: David Crane, Marta Kauffman
Starring: Matt Leblanc, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston
Spoiler Level: Major
Marta Kauffman and David Crane should be tried for crimes against humanity. It’s not that this is the worst show ever made or anything, it’s eminently, almost painfully watchable; it’s that it’s title speaks to the moral groundlessness at the essence of this interminable New York bumfuckery. Every single one of the two-hundred and thirty sixty episodes is driven by the same essential conflict whereby one of these monsters fabricates a story or commits a falsehood to avoid some just retribution for some petty, selfish act, and since they’re skills in this, their one unifying trait, are severely lacking, they ultimately have their evil doings discovered, at which time the others gather together to forgive and forget that any such infraction ever existed. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until you realize that this show should never have been titled Friends and that the only suitable title for such a hideous miscarriage of episodic television would have been even more succinct reading just: Liars. From best to worst, here they are:
“petty lies and depravity in an unrealistically uncrowded New York”
Joey Tribbiani - played by Matt LeBlanc. Joey is quite literally the only thing attempting to redeem the show and counterbalance its iniquity. This teddy-bear-like Manhattan moron falls ass backwards into marginal acting success while relying on his friends to carry a career born more of a desire to be famous than a love of his craft and thus fill his life easily with sluts he can copulate with and subsequently forget about. He frequently lies to these women as well as his directors and producers and periodically to the other leads, but more often his troubles come from just being too stupid to lead a functioning, everyday, healthy existence. He’s the only one who ever expresses anger at the others purely on the grounds of their dishonesty, not at the revealed untruth, thereby showing him to be the only one of any principle. 95% of the show’s funny moments come from the talent of Matt LeBlanc, and 85% of the best stories belong solely to Joey such as when his fridge breaks, when he puts Chandler in a box, and when he shouts, “Mike” in the coffee shop to find Phoebe’s future husband through pure randomness. As the best of the friends, Joey’s story is ultimately the most tragic. By the finale, he’s the only one who is left unmarried, childless, with an unstable career. The others paired off in sick incestuous couplings somehow as obvious as they are vile, save Phoebe, of course, whose mistaken ideologies, flakiness, selfishness, and irresponsibility of course lead to normalcy and bliss by pure chance. Joey even had endure some fatalistic universe-driven rejection from Rachel whereby she left him the dust in their most pathetic of storylines without a single blemish on her reputation.
Monica Geller - played by Courteney Cox. Monica Geller needs medication for bipolarism. Her friends seem blind to the fact that she switches suddenly and decisively between a level-headed, patronizing but otherwise responsible adult, to a child throwing tantrums and acting entirely on greedy impulse. That no one ever says Monica, “How dare you lecture me?” speaks to to their own severe character flaws. With possible exception of Rachel, Monica lies to the other five friends more than anyone. She lies about her relationship with Richard, lies about her relationship with Chandler, lies to and about people she’s failed to invite to her parties, lies about her career aspirations, lies about her wealth, and lies about what’s really important to her - herself. Ultimately her main motivation is to be seen in the best possible light, neat, tidy, together, easy, fun, sexy Monica, no matter the cost. Almost always when she gets angry with the others it’s because for a second she wasn’t the center of attention. Courteney Cox’s character also has the problem of being almost never funny and over ten seasons the most interesting thing about her becomes how she can afford such a huge apartment either when she’s working as a fake-breasted waitress or a when her husband is intern at an advertising company.
Ross Geller - played by David Schwimmer. The other 5% of the show’s funny moments belong to Ross, thus providing him with the third to top spot on my list. Make no mistake, Ross is a devil playing with dinosaur toys. The laughs he generates are born not out of the conflicts of his stories or the choices the character makes but rather entirely from David Schwimmer’s gift for physical comedy at his own bodily expense. It’s funny watching the man get punched in the face, pushed over, and otherwise humiliated. Naturally the creators placed David Schwimmer in a role where such opportunities would be limited, as Ross is little more than an intellectual, elitist, hypocrite from Long Island, lecturing others about responsibility and reason while behaving terribly. Driven entirely by testosterone, by the end Ross boasts three failed marriages and two children born out of wedlock, while simultaneously having more short-term relationships than any of his debaucherous friends. He makes claims of everlasting love easily, but jumps at every sexual opportunity with which he is presented, even attempting to fornicate with his own cousin. The only differences between his sluttiness and Joey’s are honesty and condoms. Ross has no need for either.
Phoebe Buffay - played by Lisa Kudrow. Behind the bubbly and cute veneer of Phoebe Buffay is a nihilistic, moderately-functioning, sociopath. Phoebe’s past of her Mom that killed herself, her porn star twin sister that cares nothing for her or anyone, her father that abandoned her, her days living on the streets, her lack of any education at any level, her stabbings and comminglings with pimps make much more sense if it’s all an utter fabrication. The show provides little compelling evidence for the truth behind any of it. Such a desperate falsehood of backstory would also illuminate clearly what kind of person Phoebe has become: someone who is not richer for those experiences, but instead reminds others of them to assert her own superiority of position without so much as an emotional flicker. Taken as truth, they’re almost worse, for instead of taking her previous hardships and turning them into a healthy life well-lived, she abuses the men she dates for a short time before dumping them, wickedly manipulates her friends and coworkers, believes in ghostly possession, satanic influences on her relatives, tea-leaf readings, psychics, and knowable reincarnation. Her most honest moment comes when she tells Rachel, “I like to think of myself as the puppet master of the group,” and it’s true, she is manipulative, but far more she’s just apathetic, as evidenced by her macabre predictions for their futures. The only time one can really believe what she says is when she claims that one day she will kill Ross.
Chandler Bing - played by Matthew Perry. Chandler Bing is weak in every way a man can be weak. He starts the show as a manchild afraid of relationships, commitments, responsibility, and compassion, with an utter contempt for his family and resentment towards a sense of misfortune he has about his life that cannot be rationally reconciled. He’s gifted opportunities, beautiful companions, and friendship that he doesn’t deserve and squanders almost all of it. This coward has no knowledge of how to engage in new romances, and no will to break said romances off when they displease him, so he lies to end it every single time. He goes so far as to tell a woman he has to move to Yemen but otherwise would want to be with her. Monica’s marriage to this man isn’t love; it’s mercy. Even still, he nearly runs out on her on their wedding day. His “thing” as everyone says, is that he tells funny jokes, only he doesn’t joke but rather make easily observable sarcastic quips that are none of helpful, relevant, kind, or humorous. Worse than all of that, he’s an addict. His friends may lecture him on smoking, but such drastic fluctuation in weight and energy level speak to a much more likely candidate: cocaine. His sterility is one of the only instances in the entire series arc of the universe allowing some justice through sheer chance, but it’s ruined, of course, by an adoption of twins whose lives he will surely destroy. The only reason his and Monica’s application to become the parents of these babies is paid attention to and accepted is because they lie about being doctors and priests.
Rachel Green - played by Jennifer Aniston. Vain, shallow, self-obsessed fashionista Rachel Green is the epitome of modern day evil. This woman has almost no knowledge on any subject matter, no sense of ethics, and not an honest bone in her body. She lies to her boyfriends, lies to her friends, lies to her bosses and coworkers, lies to her family, and lies to herself. What she feels one moment will surely evaporate in another moment. Men give her a pass because she’s attractive and women give her a pass because she’ll fake weakness to garner sympathy. Added to all this is a cringe-inducing self-righteousness. The difference between her and Chandler, is she’ll actually walk out on the wedding and ruin some poor sap’s life with her greed and Chandler can be collected by better people and forced down the aisle. Furthermore, she’ll travel to ruin other people’s weddings. Jealousy takes two forms in this world: someone who wants to obtain what others have and someone who is just as content for others to not have anything at all. Rachel is the latter when it comes to jealous women. Jennifer Aniston's career-defining role is as ludicrous in its reception as it is in its presentation. At no point in the show did the woman stop icing her nipples before putting on whatever tight shirt she wore in front of the cameras. Rachel’s cruelty to Ross and Joey is sickening. How much success is thrown her way - more so. I’d wish for God to demonstrate forbearance when faced with Rachel’s pitiful soul were she not alone proof that He doesn’t exist.
In some ways it’s understandable that these people care nothing for the consequences of their actions because Friends is the kind of irresponsibly written show that exists in a universe devoid of consequences entirely. A happy-go-lucky tone, jokes at the end every light-hearted twenty-minute episode, Friends promises above all that everything will just kind of work out for everyone. And if every once and awhile you’ll giggle, and Netflix or my ex-girlfriend’s Chinese bootleg discs will just play the episodes one after another whether you were ready for more or not, it makes it surprisingly easy to just watch them, hoping your mind goes numb. But after a hundred and twenty-one hours of petty lies and depravity in an unrealistically uncrowded New York, you’ll stare at the title and realize the obviousness of what it’s telling you. Friends: you don’t any.