Friends is one of the best television shows we’ve ever seen and we’re pretty confident in saying that a lot of people reading this feel the same way. Sure, it may not be viewed in quite the same light as Breaking Bad or The Wire, but it’s still a funny and heartwarming series that we all know and love.
Unfortunately, as is the case with most shows, it certainly isn’t without its faults. Today, we want to run through a few things that we found to be a little bit odd once we went back and watched it through a few more times.
Ross Can’t Hold It In
After finally managing to get back together with Rachel after all of the chaos that went down when they broke up, you’d have thought Ross would’ve been utterly ecstatic.
However, upon reading Rachel’s letter, he just couldn’t bring himself to be the bigger person and accept responsibility for everything that went wrong in their relationship.
It’s all about biting your tongue and swallowing your pride, but Ross couldn’t do that, and they wound up back at square one. The whole exercise felt like a giant waste of time for us.
Phoebe Raising The Rats
Phoebe is weird and that fact was established throughout most of the series, and we buy into that storyline 100%. What we don’t buy into, however, is that she would voluntarily raise a family of rats.
Not even Ross’ disgusting girlfriend that never cleaned her house liked rats, for goodness sake.
We’re kind of surprised that Mike didn’t decide to run for the hills upon learning that this was an actual thing, and while they got a lot of things right with this couple, we’d argue they got even more wrong.
Monica’s Messy Closet
It’s pretty clear to see that Monica Geller is obsessively clean, and it’s pretty clear to see that’s the case from the first season all the way through until the very last episode.
So then, why on earth would they start a storyline in which she has a ‘messy closet’ that is cluttered to the brim with a whole load of rubbish?
Chandler found it funny whereas Monica eventually brought herself to find it amusing too, but the fans just felt like it was an unnecessary part of her character’s development.
Chandler’s Shark Fetish
Chandler is busy watching the, ahem, adult channels when Monica walks in, he changes the channel, and Monica is convinced that he was ‘getting off’ to a show about sharks.
In any world would Monica actually believe this over the idea that he may just have changed the channel? It’s a really bizarre story that actually manages to take up the entirety of the episode, which doesn’t exactly fill us with much hope when we think about the lack of creative juices that were flowing behind the scenes when writing this.
Joey In Season 10
He may have had a serious relationship with Rachel that lasted for all of two episodes, but that was about it.
From making basic mistakes to not being able to learn French whatsoever, it was as if they just decided to drop all forms of progress they had made with Joey from season one right up until the finale. It was such a shame because he had so much more to offer.
Honestly, we saw more maturity from Joey when he had his own spin-off in Los Angeles – which we’re still upset got canceled, by the way.
Rachel & Chandler’s Kiss
It’s revealed late in the series that, back in the day, Rachel and Chandler actually kissed at a college party because Chandler wanted to get back at Ross.
If we can just rewind a minute, can we take note of the fact that Chandler was positioned as being really uncool in his youth and Rachel was incredibly popular?
We get the whole ‘college guy’ aspect of it all alongside the fact that they may have been a little bit tipsy, but it felt like this was done purely to tick off the final potential relationship scenario within the group.
Elizabeth’s Father
Elizabeth was an interesting character who had a lot of potential, but when it came to her dad, the only interesting thing about him was the fact that Bruce Willis was the one portraying the role.
Not only was he incredibly overprotective of his daughter but he was also someone with severe emotional issues, a real split personality issue, and a love of himself that kind of freaked us out a little bit.
This felt ‘off’ to say the least – although his relationship with Rachel was kind of fun, right?
Chandler’s Fear Of Dogs
We saw episodes in the earlier seasons where Chandler was in the same vicinity as a dog and he didn’t seem to have all too many issues with it. Then, all of a sudden, we get a storyline dropped on us that he’s scared of them and doesn’t like them whatsoever?
We might just be reading a bit too much into this but it came out of nowhere, and that’s saying something for a sitcom.
This was in a season that we wouldn’t hesitate to suggest was one of the worst in the show’s entire run, too.
Phoebe Immediately Dropping David
We understand that Phoebe was completely and utterly in love with Mike and would do literally anything for him – but are we supposed to believe that she would’ve dropped David as quickly as she did in Barbados?
She’d only been back with him for a matter of weeks, and he was literally stood right there at the dinner table when Mike came to win her back.
Then, when David left, Phoebe immediately forgot all about the supposed love of her life and went back to being completely in love with Mike.
Oh, and Chandler & Monica didn’t exactly show an awful lot of empathy, either. #TeamDavid
Ross’ Cousin Crush
What an utterly bizarre storyline this was.
Long story short: Ross was really attracted to his cousin Cassie which, yeah, just isn’t cool, really.
The fact that Phoebe and Chandler also showed some interest is different because, you know, they aren’t related to her. This felt like a real low point for Ross’ character and that’s saying something for a guy that went into some kind of weird anger management phase.
Denise Richards was viewed as the ultimate girl next door and we get that, but just change the dynamics around a little bit.
